The City of Plant City Planning Board has rescheduled a meeting for 8 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 8, to decide whether or not to recommend rezoning the Red Rose Inn & Suites so that a drug rehabilitation center may operate there.
The Planning Board held a meeting Thursday, Sept. 10, and voted 3-1 to make a recommendation in favor of the rezoning. But after an investigation into a statement made by a resident during public comment it was found that signs were not posted with information about the meeting, as is protocol.
“Why wasn’t there ever a sign posted on the (Red Rose) property to let the residents know?” Robert Willaford asked the board.
Willaford passes the Red Rose everyday while he goes into town from his north Plant City home on Joe McIntosh Road. He said he has never seen one.
The Planning and Zoning Department will return Oct. 8 to make its presentation again, as well as Russell Ottenberg, a Planeng engineer working on behalf of the rezone applicant, Florida Rehabilitation & Recover Services.
Florida Rehabilitation & Recover Services plans to purchase the Red Rose from owner Louis Spiro if the rezone application is approved by the City Commission.
In the application, the 8.4-acre motel on North Wheeler Street is proposed to be zoned from C-1A to Planned Development. The designation would allow for the shuttered Tampa Bay landmark to be used as a medical facility.
Only the eastern half of the Red Rose would be used as a rehabilitation facility. It would house a maximum of 150 clients and employ around 100 people, including doctors, nurses, maintenance and cleaning staff, and administrative support. Clients seeking treatment would stay for about 30 to 35 days.
“Our staff has worked with the applicant and have a lengthy list of restrictions that they will have to comply with,” Mark Hudson, director of Planning and Zoning with the City of Plant City, said.
The main focus of those restrictions is security.
Clients would have no interaction with the community unless they were taken by a behavioral health technician to outside Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous meetings. About 40% of the staff would be behavioral health technicians, who would act as big brothers or sisters to their clients, according to Bob Gannon, chief operating officer of White Sands Treatment Center in Fort Myers.
White Sands, owned by Florida Rehabilitation & Recover Services, serves as a model for the Plant City rehabilitation facility. It has 72 beds and employs over 100 people.
Other security measures include a 6-foot-tall vinyl fence around the eastern half of property, camera surveillance system, 24/7 staff supervision, and supervised shuttles to pick up and drop off clients at the airport. No client would be allowed to drive themselves to the facility. They would have to be dropped off and picked up by a family member or friend.
The western half of the property would be used as administrative offices and living quarters for staff or visiting family members. Clients would not have access to this area.
The Planning Board and residents who attended the meeting did have concerns about the proposed access point on Hillsboro Street to the western half of the facility. The narrow two-lane road separates the Red Rose from a cemetery on the south side.
“Hillsboro Street (at Wheeler Street) is a very bad intersection right now,” Willaford said. “If you’re going to put that there, you might as well put an ambulance station there.”
Planning Board members agreed the road would need an analysis, especially after Florida Rehabilitation & Recover Services proposed to open the once-grand ballroom on the western half of the property for the community to use for events and civic club meetings. There is also a possibility of renting out rooms in the western half.
“That’s an undersized road, if I’m not mistaken,” board member Nate Kilton said. “I think that road would have to be brought to the same standards as other commercial areas. If the intent is just to have administrative offices and family visitations once in awhile, then I have no concerns, but if there’s going to be community events or be rented out as a hotel, then I have concerns.”
Resident Brenda Nichols was one of a handful of people who attended the meeting. She plans to return for the Oct. 8 meeting and any City Commission meetings where the rezone will be discussed.
“Before any decision is made, there still needs to be more studies of the effects on the community,” Nichols said. “I think there’s questions that they need to answer. They need to get an in-depth synopsis on what the facility is going to do.”
Nichols was watching TV three weeks ago when she learned there was a rezone application to allow a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility in the Red Rose.
“I was surprised,” she said. “I thought, ‘Well this is interesting. I’d like to know more.’”
Although Nichols said she can’t make a decision either way with the information she was given, Willaford has made up his mind.
“I don’t like that it’d be the first thing you see when you come into Plant City,” Willaford said. “I’m not against this type of facility … there has to be a better place to put this.”