New housing still in limbo

UCF's expansion into Seminole County with the development of a student housing facility remains uncertain after a year of legal complications with a nearby neighborhood.

"At this time, we are awaiting the outcomes of appeals filed by the Carillon Homeowners Association," said Chad Binette, the assistant director of UCF News & Information. "We remain hopeful that we will be able to collaborate with the Alan H. Ginsburg Family Foundation to create a first-class community that will provide unique learning opportunities for our students and a convenient, upscale retail environment for our neighbors."

At the beginning of last year, the Seminole County Commission approved the building of NorthView, the 630,000-square foot facility at the intersection of McCulloch Road and Lockwood Boulevard near the entrance to the Carillon neighborhood.

On Feb. 26, 2009, the Carillon Homeowners Association challenged that approval by filing two lawsuits that sought to overturn the Commission's decision.

Since February 2009, the UCF Foundation and the Alan Ginsburg Family Foundation have been fighting Carillon's legal challenges to invalidate the county's approval. No settlement has been reached through meetings between the parties and their attorneys that were held on July 8 and Aug. 5.

Prior to those meetings, the Carillon Homeowners Association signed a "Confidential Discussion Agreement" with the Alan Ginsburg Family Foundation, UCF and the UCF Foundation. It prohibits the disclosure of settlement discussion dates and results, at the request of Alan Ginsburg, one of the builders of NorthView, according to the Carillon Web site.

It could be anywhere from nine months to two years before a legal conclusion is reached, according to David A. Theriaque, an attorney for the Carillon Community Residential Association.

In a December letter to its members, the Carillon Homeowners Association said that "Ginsburg has made no substantive offer to the Association that would alleviate the issues associated with the 600-bed student housing component of the NorthView project" and that Ginsburg feels eliminating or reducing the size of the housing component is not an option.

NorthView would include not only student housing, but also 25 acres of mixed-use development, 54,000 square feet of retail space and restaurants, as well as religious centers such as the Newman Center, which will minister to the Catholic community, and a Hillel Center to attend to the Jewish community.

On its Web site, Carillon states that it does not oppose the use of the property for retail space, restaurants, religious centers, commercial offices or day care. It does, however, oppose the use of the property for student housing and two 287,000-square foot parking garages. It also opposes the density of the development and its exceptions to the county code concerning building height, ingress/egress driveway distance, building setback requirements and land buffer/setback requirements.

It further opposes the proximity of the project which will be, at its closest, 250 feet from the neighborhood.

Buffers, including an 8-foot fence, dense landscaping and a retention pond with a fountain, will be built between the complex and neighborhood.

NorthView supporters maintain that the project has been designed to mitigate adverse impacts to the Carillon community and that they want to have a collaborative relationship.

"The Carillon Homeowners Association is not opposed to the non-residential aspect," Theriaque said. "If the builders were to drop the 600-student housing aspect of the project, we would drop objections."

Even though there has been no legal closure, Carillon has, at least temporarily, stopped the building of NorthView. The empty Winn-Dixie that currently stands on the property has yet to be demolished as planned.

Ginsburg, in an effort to ease worried minds, has twice taped letters to the doors of Carillon residents explaining NorthView and the benefits he feels it would provide to their community.

In one letter, he wrote, "The NorthView project will bring great benefits to Carillon neighborhood, enhance the attractiveness of the area and be a strong asset to the neighborhood."

Theriaque said that the letters are in violation of the confidentiality agreement.

Rabbi Jonathan Siger, the executive director of Hillel, has expressed his support for the NorthView project in several letters, writing that NorthView "will do more than provide beautiful housing, retail shopping and dining. It will do more than help demonstrate why UCF is one of the premier universities in the United States. NorthView will set the standard for what such developments can be when communities, universities, private philanthropists and non-profit cultural and religious organizations came together to build for the future."

In a letter of support for NorthView, the Greater Orlando Board of Rabbis wrote: "We cannot stress enough how preferable a responsible development undertaken with concern for the effect on traffic, the environment and the well-being of the larger community is, when considering the possible commercial development for which the planned site of NorthView is currently zoned."

Carillon residents, however, remain unconvinced and plan to continue their legal efforts to stop NorthView's development.