Dwight Dodd lives on Cherry Lake Road and remembers when traffic was a relative trickle compared to what it is today.
His stretch of Cherry Lake Road – half in Lake County and half in Sumter County – has become a major thoroughfare for those trying to make a quick trip around The Villages.
And the traffic is about to get worse.
Dodd sat in the audience this past week at a Lady Lake Planning & Zoning Board meeting in which a massive development was up for approval. The development would combine the on-again-off-again Hammock Oaks project with another 150 acres east of Cherry Lake Road and south of County Road 466.
A 150-acre section of the project would include a gated 55+ community of 750 homes that would generate 10,760 new daily automobile trips that would spill onto Cherry Lake Road, Lake Ella Road, Micro Racetrack Road and Rolling Acres Road.
After seeing the presentation before the planning and zoning board, Dodd remained suspicious about the amount of traffic his future neighbors would be bringing to the still-rural setting where Spanish Moss hangs from huge live oaks which have been there for a long, long time.
“I think there is going to be a lot more traffic than is being discussed,” Dodd said.
He pointed to the massive Lake Sumter Apartment Homes at County Road 466 and Cherry Lake Road, which has dumped more and more automobiles onto the roadway running in front of his home.
Greg Beliveau of LPG Urban & Regional Planners Inc., representing the developer of the project, tried to ease Dodd’s fears about traffic on Cherry Lake Road. He said the development would “punch out” another opening onto Rolling Acres Road, although it was unclear as to where those cars would pour out onto that already-overburdened roadway.
Planning & Zoning Board member Nora Choquette, who has long worried about the proliferation of apartments in Lady Lake, tried to see the positives of the planned development.
“A lot of people coming on those roads are coming from The Villages. Those people are not paying taxes in Lady Lake. The benefit of this project is that these people will be owning homes in Lady Lake and paying taxes in Lady Lake. The Villages needs to get involved with the problems with those roads,” Choquette said.
Planning & Zoning Board member Ed Regan, who lives in the Vista Sonoma Villas near Spanish Springs, cast the lone vote against the massive project.
“There is nothing comfortable about driving those roads. I drove those roads today – Lake Ella Road, Micro Racetrack Road and Rolling Acres Road. It’s not a good situation,” Regan said.
The Planning & Zoning Board serves in an advisory role to the Lady Lake Commission. The commission is scheduled to vote on the massive development on Dec. 6 in a meeting at Lady Lake Town Hall.
