By: Donald Rodrigue, Hometown News
STUART — The majority of the Martin County Commission gave its blessing to one western property owner’s vision of a unique village northwest of Palm City when it transmitted a request to the state for both a Comprehensive Growth Management Plan amendment and an amendment to the future land use map for the Pinelands Prairie project.
Commissioners voted 4-1 April 24 in favor of the plan, which if eventually approved by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, would extend the Primary Urban Service Boundary westward in order to provide municipal utilities to approximately 4,200 new residences. Commissioner Sarah Heard cast the lone dissenting vote, objecting to the newness of the novel future land use district needed to permit the development and worrying about setting a negative precedent. Property owner and Sewall’s Point resident Knight Kiplinger had asked the county to change the zoning on his 3,411 acres straddling both sides of Citrus Boulevard from agricultural and industrial to a new Mixed-Use Village designation in order to enable the project to move forward…