NEW TAMPA — Bill Place, owner of the Pebble Creek Golf Club, has spent five years trying to get his old golf course rezoned and redeveloped.
One email and a few phone calls may extend that effort.
Place told a Hillsborough County commissioner he would “love to drop a check by.” Neighbors fighting his golf course redevelopment say that email, and other contacts between Place and commissioners, are why the vote approving it should be thrown out.
They said so in a court petition filed Oct. 21 by Save Pebble Creek Inc. and eight residents, asking a circuit judge to overturn the county’s approval of GL Homes’ plan for the former Pebble Creek Golf Club. The petition for writ of certiorari, which asks a court to review whether the county followed proper procedure, was e-filed at 10:22 p.m., a day before a 30-day deadline expired.
Commissioners voted 5-2 on Sept. 22 to let GL build 251 single-family homes on the roughly 150-acre course off Bruce B. Downs Boulevard in New Tampa. The approval appeared to end a five-year fight. The petition seeks to restart it.
The emails, obtained through public records requests, date to April 7. Place wrote Commissioner Donna Cameron Cepeda that he hadn’t wanted to offer support for her reelection “before your position was taken on this (not that it would have influenced),” but would be “quite happy” to.
“I would be grateful for your support,” Cepeda wrote back.
Place replied that he “would love to drop a check by,” or perhaps meet her and his wife for coffee.
Save Pebble Creek attorney Dave Winker said that’s the problem: ex parte communications, or contacts about a pending case outside a public hearing that are supposed to be disclosed.
“These inappropriate communications poison the process,” he told the Beacons.
The email exchange with Cepeda has been a point of contention for months. When the board sent the case back for another hearing in June, it directed the zoning hearing master to review one line of email — Place writing “After 16 years of trying, we could not get it to be financially viable. I believe the GL project offers the best possible solution for residents, and we have worked with them every step of the way” — and treated it as a one-way communication, Winker said. The records show three messages, however, including Cepeda expressing appreciation for his offer of political support.
The petition argues that the county should have addressed the entire exchange, as well as other contacts between Place and commissioners.
Those include a March 30 email in which Place thanked Commissioner Josh Wostal for returning a call, and call logs showing late-March calls involving commissioners’ offices, including one lasting 17 minutes and 31 seconds associated with Commissioner Chris Boles’ office.
The petition concedes, however, that the records show the contacts, not what was discussed.
Winker cites Jennings v. Dade County, which presumes such contacts are prejudicial unless the other side proves otherwise. Winker said he was surprised the commissioners didn’t defuse the problem by simply disclosing the contacts and saying they could remain impartial.
“I think we got a chance to win on that,” he said, “because that’s what they should have done.”
The petition also argues that residents were denied a meaningful opportunity to challenge the communications because the county limited the scope of the July 20 rehearing, restricting who could speak and what could be discussed.
Winker argues opponents should have been allowed to fully examine the contacts and respond to information that may have influenced commissioners.
The petition also argues that commissioners treated an earlier court ruling overturning their denial of the project as an order to approve it, instead of independently reconsidering the application. It also questions the county’s reliance on a 2023 site plan, arguing that environmental, traffic and drainage conditions may have changed since.
A win wouldn’t kill the project, though. The petition asks the court to quash the approval and order a new hearing with full disclosure and a chance for residents to respond, or potentially require GL Homes to file a new application altogether.
The appeal comes as no surprise, as Winker was hired the week before the Sept. 22 County Commission decision and told commissioners then one would be forthcoming.
GL Homes’ attorney, Jake Cremer, told commissioners at that meeting that none of the communications affected the evidence courts had already reviewed, and that opponents could have raised more contacts at the July remand hearing but did not.
Cremer also argued that the county’s original denial had already been overturned in court, and that the project had received favorable recommendations from county staff, the Planning Commission and the zoning hearing master.
Assistant County Attorney Cameron Clark recommended approval, telling commissioners it was necessary to comply with the earlier circuit court ruling.
Cremer did not reply to a request for comment.
The Pebble Creek Golf Course was the oldest golf course in New Tampa, opening in 1967. Place bought the course in 2005 but has blamed its financial struggles on the 2008 recession and a lack of support from residents, who he said were unwilling to pay for memberships.
He shut it down for good July 31, 2021, and has entertained a handful of developers who were interested in building homes on the 149-acre property.
Leslie Green, who has lived on the course for 30 years and who created Save Pebble Creek, is the president of the Pebble Creek Village HOA, which represents 303 homes and villas. She led the fight against the development from the beginning and was pleased with the decision to keep it going.
“This community deserves a fair and transparent process,” she told the Beacon.
Not everyone in Pebble Creek wants another round. Iris Vitelli, president of the larger Pebble Creek HOA, which represents more than 1,000 homes, said her board stayed neutral for years because the neighborhood was split.
“As a board, our duty is to everyone, not just one group,” she said.
But Vitelli, a resident since 1994, said sentiment has shifted in the past year and a half, as a chain-link fence went up around the property and dead trees piled up.
“Many, many more are now saying this is ridiculous,” she said. “It’s been five years. It looks horrible.”
Vitelli said many residents have been swayed by GL Homes’ plans for a gated community of higher-priced homes, as the condition of the former golf course continued to decline.
She acknowledged that some residents remain firmly opposed, particularly those whose homes back up to the course. But she said others are increasingly concerned about how long the property will remain vacant and what might replace the GL Homes proposal if it falls through.
She was at the Sept. 22 meeting.
“As soon as I saw the attorney step up, I knew it wasn’t over,” she said.