Wildwood commissioners Monday night approved the Twisted Oaks development, expected to have up to 1,210 homes on about 387 acres west of U.S. 301 and south of County Road 462 West.
Commissioners also approved an ordinance to establish a community development district to govern the project.
The development will be adjacent to Primus Pipe & Tube, a long-time Wildwood industrial business, and will include up to 165,000 square feet of commercial and industrial space along U.S. 301.
“This is going to be our largest project with the exception of The Villages within the city limits,” said development director Melanie Peavy.
A Primus representative raised issues about the development at a meeting earlier this month of the Wildwood Planning and Zoning Board, but Peavy said those issues have been resolved.
Plans call for 735 single-family homes buffered from Primus by wetlands and a recreational area including nature trails. They also include 248 town homes and 277 multi-family housing units.
Originally known as the O’Dell Planned Development, the residential project was approved in 2008. Like several other major Wildwood projects, construction was postponed due to the recession and the plans were amended several times in 2014 and 2017.
An access point to Twisted Oaks will be from a roundabout on a realigned portion of CR 462. West of U.S. 301, the county road will be moved south to eliminate the current jog.
At the Planning and Zoning Board meeting, Special Magistrate Lindsay C.T. Holt rejected a request by a Primus representative for a 30-day continuance to work out buffering and other issues.
Primus representative Ron Noble said putting homes next to the Primus industrial property would be a bad zoning decision that would be “setting up the area for disaster.”
Primus Pipe & Tube, incorporated in Florida in 1990, is a steel pipe manufacturer with about $40 million in annual sales. In 2018, Wildwood commissioners approved a site plan for Primus to build a 146,583-square-foot addition to its plant on 93 acres.