The five acres of undeveloped land at Elm and Cedar streets had plenty of agenda items at Monday night's Safety Harbor City Commission, with changes in zoning and land use classification approved but no decision made on the future of most of the property.
The land was the site of a former school and had been owned by Pinellas County Schools with Safety Harbor making annual lease-to-buy payments. Last year, Habitat for Humanity and the city completed a deal in which Habitat would pay off the remaining balance the city owes in exchange for the city giving one acre of the property to Habitat to build single-family homes for qualifying families. Work on five of those homes is in the works, while Habitat and Pinellas County Schools work out an easement detail on the sixth homesite.
Monday night, Commission voted unanimously to change the zoning of the Habitat homesites to Residential-Urban (R-U) from Institutional (I) and to change the zoning of the rest of the property to Public and Conservation (P) from Single-Family Residental (R-2). Commission also voted unanimously to change the Future Land Use designation the remaining land from Institutional (I) to Recreation/Open Space (R/OS).
But when it came to moving forward on a city staff idea to start design work on an urban farm learning center on the remaining four acres, Commission pushed the pause button, opting to put that decision off until after the Marc h19 election.
Tap here to see a short video of some ideas city staff has for the urban farm concept.