OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. – Standing at the bottom of a hill, Kelly Beard points up to the development — right now made up of just dirt—next door.
“It looks like there should be a reservoir at the top of it,” she said, laughing.
News 6 met with Beard and about a dozen other residents in Osceola County’s Brighton Lakes development Monday to speak about their concerns regarding their prospective neighbors.
The bottom of the hill is about 15 feet from Beard’s backyard. The top of the hill marks where a developer plans to build homes for the Ham Brown Reserve complex.
“People who want to buy a house just don’t want their neighbors looking over their yard into them,” Beard said, referring to the Ham Brown homes that will be built at an elevation 5-6 feet above Brighton Lakes.
Beard and her neighbors recently contacted News 6 to convey their concerns about flooding and privacy.
“No. 1 is the flooding,” said Steve Riley, who lives next to Beard. “You better build a drainage system that’s capable of handling every drop of water that comes off that slope.”
News 6 has requested site development plans to inquire about any proposed drainage system.
Efforts to reach the developer have been unsuccessful.
When News 6 reached out to Osceola County’s community development department about the gap in elevation between the two developments, the department’s deputy administrator confirmed there are no elevation restrictions that currently exist in the land development codes for new developments when it is related to grade differences.
He said that the first phase for Ham Brown Reserve was approved, but the second phase is under review.
The deputy administrator also added that “strong considerations will be given to the drainage impact to adjacent lands.”
Residents in Brighton Lakes believe they may have gotten a glimpse of what’s to come after a recent downpour in January.
“That was a very short- lived rainstorm,” Riley recalled. “Not like a slow-moving hurricane. That’s our big concern.”
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