Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Environmental Cleanup And Development topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Commission OKs option for up to 1,200 homes in Energy Innovation Park, adds strict environmental testing
Summary
The Hillsborough County commission voted 5-1 to approve a major modification that allows up to 1,200 residential units in a portion of the Energy Innovation Park, while adding detailed preconstruction and ongoing environmental testing, radon mitigation and agency oversight after weeks of public concern about contamination.
The Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners approved a major modification to the Energy Innovation Park (EIP) on March 10, voting 5-1 to allow an option for up to 1,200 residential units in Pocket E while imposing extensive environmental safeguards.
Under the adopted conditions, the developer must coordinate with federal and state oversight agencies and conduct baseline gamma surveys and site-specific mitigation where survey results exceed established thresholds. The conditions also require radon-mitigation barriers under every residential slab and additional testing tied to an ongoing program to monitor 1,4-dioxin plume stability, with no residential certificate of occupancy issued until required thresholds and mitigation measures are met.
Why it matters: Residents and neighborhood groups urged the board to deny the change, arguing much of the roughly 3,000-acre EIP has not been tested and expressing worries about radon, historic phosphate mining tailings and 1,4-dioxin contamination. Proponents said the protections established in the zoning conditions — including preconstruction sampling, mitigation when required, and multiple agency checkpoints — would be the most detailed environmental safeguards placed on a development site in the county.
Opponents pressed for transparency and immediate access to test results. “Testing must be transparent,” Penny Martin, who identified herself with the Ground Zero community, told commissioners. Residents cited prior statements from the applicant acknowledging problem readings in preliminary tests and asked that any results be released to the community earlier in the process.
The applicant team, led in the hearing by Jake Cremer, said the conditions require a multistep testing and mitigation approach before residential construction. “That’s why we’ve set up this entire environmental testing protocol,” Cremer said, noting the team and county staff spent over a year developing the 19 pages of conditions that govern sampling, mitigation and post‑construction monitoring.
Board debate focused on balancing risks of potential contamination against the entitlements that already exist for the site. Commissioner Joshua Wostal, who supported approval, said the conditions add protections that would not otherwise be in place: “These protections are way more extensive than we could ever get,” he said, adding that existing industrial entitlements could allow disturbing the site today without the new residential safeguards.
The motion to approve the major modification was moved by Commissioner Gwen Myers and seconded by Commissioner Joshua Wostal. The vote was 5-1; Commissioner Donna Cameron Cepeda voted no.
What happens next: Zoning is now modified to allow a residential option, but the conditions require preconstruction environmental sampling, mitigation where required and coordination with environmental permitting agencies before any residential certificates of occupancy are issued. The conditions also require numerical baseline thresholds to be established in coordination with the Florida Department of Health and other oversight agencies before residential development proceeds.
