Enclosed is an excellent letter resident Mike Newsom wrote to the Hillsborough County commissioners. Feel free to cut and paste this letter into your own letter to the commissioners.

Re: Golf Course Preservation Throughout Hillsborough County – May 25,2022

Dear Commissioner _____:

I am a concerned citizen in Sun City Center, an avid golfer, and a person in favor of maintaining pleasant living surroundings throughout Hillsborough County.  Whenever I play a golf course located in a community setting, I am always struck by its beauty and the peace it adds to the neighborhood.  I am also grateful that the owner of the property maintains and sustains the golf course setting.

Recently the owner, ClubLinks, of golf courses in Sun City Center has made an overture that it intends to seek a rezoning of golf course property to residential, further increasing the density of the community.  While the rezoning is of great concern to me, I am asking you to consider the greater impact it will have on the whole of Hillsborough County.

I believe that if this first rezoning domino falls, golf courses throughout Hillsborough County will be in jeopardy.  In addition to my witnessing the beauty of the land occupied by golf courses, I can also see that the land, itself, often has an extreme value if otherwise used as commercial or residential property. I would urge you to consider, not just the residents of Sun City Center, but all citizens of the Hillsborough County who have chosen to live in golf course communities.

I would think that it would be very unfortunate for the Commissioners of Hillsborough County to gain the reputation as being unfriendly to sustaining golf courses.

I would also like to point out to you a couple of items in the “Comprehensive plan for unincorporated Livable Communities Element” for Greater Sun City Center (“the Comprehensive Plan”).

From excerpts the Vision Statement: “Our Greater Sun City Center Area Community plan focuses on providing a hospitable environment for the wonderful mix of people living here now, and in the future”

Also from the Recreation Goals: GOLF COURSES. “Maintain and protect existing golf course(s) and ensure that they are dedicated for future recreational use only.”

And from the definition of “Compatibility”: Compatibility does not mean “the same as.” Rather, it refers to the sensitivity of the development proposals in maintain the character of the existing development.

The wise people who constructed the Comprehensive Plan understood the importance of ensuring the well-being of the environment that we citizens of Hillsborough County enjoy.  Nothing would change the character of our golf course communities more than eliminating our golf courses and causing us to be just another community.

Respectively submitted,