Some in the Midway community fear being overwhelmed by pending development

As Karena Stellar scrolled through iPhone photos of what remained of a woodland behind her home, the pain in her eyes betrayed the smile on her face.

"I took pictures just so I can remember the trees," she said.

Most of the forested area on the 100-acre parcel to the west of her house in Santa Rosa County's Smugglers Cove subdivision is already gone, pushed over by heavy equipment making room for 242 homes to be built between U.S. Highway 98 and the Santa Rosa Sound in Midway.

Stellar is relatively new to the region, having visited the Gulf Coast a couple of years ago, fallen in love with the area and relocated. She is only now coming to grips with terms like clear cutting and wetland mitigation, which is basically replacing destroyed wetlands by paying to have new wetlands elsewhere created, restored or preserved.

"Wetlands are so important in preventing flooding. I can't understand how you can eliminate wetlands and move them somewhere else," Stellar said. "That sounds very shady."

The biggest frustration for her and her neighbors, Stellar said, is the clear cutting taking place as crews make way for homes in a subdivision to be called Rosemary Sound.

"This is the widest swath of clear cutting right in front of the Sound I've seen," Stellar said, looking on as construction crews continued their work.

After recent rains turned her backyard into "something like a river and a lake in one," Stellar went to her first County Commission meeting to express concerns about water running off of the site and into her neighborhood.

She likened the experience to bad reality television.

Some good news for Stellar and her neighbors could be that if developers adhere to existing engineering plans, the Rosemary Sound development might actually help minimize flooding at Smugglers Cove and the Wesvic Holiday Sands RV Park on the west side of the new subdivision. said Chris Curb, a consultant with a group called Flood Defenders.

"If and when they get through with construction it's probably going to help Smugglers Cove," Curb said.

In an email to Stellar, Curb explained that existing drainage in Smuggler's Cove was constructed under older codes and has some deficiencies. The wetlands on the north side of Rosemary Sound drain into a ditch that reach the sound on its southern end. With stormwater coming off U.S. 98, the wetlands overload, resulting in flooding of the type Stellar experienced.

"The Rosemary Sound wetland mitigation plan does show filling the outfall ditch from those wetlands, but this ditch would be replaced with a proposed piped drainage system," Curb said.

While concerns exist about on site wetlands and a high water table, the previous owner of the Rosemary Sound property had placed a wetland area on the northeast side of the property into a conservation easement.

The easement will be monitored by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Northwest Florida Water Management District, according to Kennedy Stricklin, a managing partner of the group developing Rosemary Sound.

It will not only work to offset wetlands destroyed in the development, but 36- and 48-inch piping run from the wetlands south to a wet retention pond will conduct water away from adjoining properties and toward the Sound, Stricklin said.

"We're going to do everything according to the plans and permits that have been approved," he said.

Stricklin said it is highly likely that DR Horton, the country's largest home builder, will be constructing the residences within Rosemary Sound.

On the other side of the Rosemary Sound development, Kevin Marano, a resident of Wesvic Holiday Sands RV Park, claims construction crews at the site of the new subdivision have filled in a wetlands on the southwestern side of the parcel that served as a nursery for several species of young fish. Other RV Park employees verified that the construction crews had damaged property at the park by crossing it illegally.

For Midway-area residents like Elizabeth Pavelick, the media coordinator for Save Our Soundside, Rosemary Sound is just one example of development's encroachment into an area they think more care should be taken to protect.

In a recent newspaper column Pavelick stated that "10 residential developments are going in within a 5-mile stretch of the narrow peninsula (the midway area)."

She wrote that the addition of 1,100 more homes will result in further loss of trees and wetlands and wildlife habitat. She said added concerns include an increase in traffic along chronically congested U.S. 98, flooding and storm water runoff polluting local waterways.

"With East Bay to the north and the Santa Rosa Sound to the south, two water bodies are slowly being destroyed by the storm water runoff from these developments," Pavelick wrote.

The largest subdivision being planned will be called Soundview Cove Estates. It is projected to hold 469 single-family residences. That subdivision will be developed by Cliff Mowe and, like Rosemary Sound, will go in on the south side of U.S. 98 in close proximity to the Gulf Breeze Zoo.

Soundview Cove Estates will be created by combining four parcels encompassing approximately 173 acres. About 83 acres of the subdivision's site are jurisdictional wetlands.

Soundview Point 1 and Soundview Point 2 are to be constructed next to a new high school presently being built on the northside of U.S. 98, also near the zoo. Soundview Point 1 will feature 158 villas and Soundview Point 2 150 villas.

Soundview 1 is the former site of effluent spray fields. Mowe purchased the land from the city of Gulf Breeze. Soundview Point 2, also owned by Mowe, is comprised in part of land upon which a popular flea market once resided. The flea market sign remains standing.

County Commissioner Colten Wright, whose district encompasses the Midway community, credited Mowe with selling the Santa Rosa County School District the land that will allow construction of the sorely needed new high school. The sale came after Mowe purchased the flea market property.

Deer Ridge Crossing, off Bergren Road, will contain 58 new homes, and Forest Bay Villas, next door to Cambridge Park, will add 45 homes to the area.

New Hope Multi will feature 78 townhomes off of New Hope Road, the Nantahala Apartments will add another, unknown number, of residences across from the South Santa Rosa County branch of Pensacola State College.

Plans also call for carving out 22 lots for a subdivision off Beechwood Drive to be known as Beechwood Drive. Developments known as Roman Oaks and Heather's Place Phase 4 are also being planned.