No green light

FLORIDA — The Florida Village Planning Board on Sept. 24 will review the Florida Historical Society's plans for the Green Homestead, the 14-acre property on Bridge Street the group hopes to call "its own."

The problem is, it is uncertain what the village's zoning codes call it - "museum" or "membership club."

How the society and the structure is defined will determine what uses are permitted under existing residential zoning or if the property will be rezoned as commercial.

The Florida Historical Society was bequeathed the Green Homestead after Raymond Green, a descendant of the family that owned the property since the 1840s, died in 2012.

Florida Historical Society President Gary Randall said the group hopes to use the residence for meeting, office, storage and exhibit space. The group also wants to improve walking paths that already exist and install kiosks and educational markers about local history on the property.

Randall said the Homestead would be open for public events "a number of times" a year, usually on weekends, but otherwise the group has no plans to alter the property or create an attraction that would draw enough traffic and intensive use to warrant a commercial, rather than residential, zoning.

"We're not going to be digging up the place," he said.

The property now has a residential R2 zoning, which does not allow for a museum-type use operated by a non-profit organization. In May, village planners suggested the Society change the zoning to commercial center, which would allow it more flexibility in determining how it would use the Homestead.

However, in reviewing options, Randall said the society wants to retain its residential R2 zoning if the group is defined as a "membership club" whose "recreational" use of the homestead can be permitted as a conditional use.

Neighbors oppose commercial rezoning of the property and support the Society's proposal, Randall said. "We're trying to prevent it from going commercial," he said, "but it seems like the board is saying we can't use the property without having to go to a commercial entity."

Chairman Robert Scott III said he "isn't comfortable" about whether the Society's plans for the house "fits or not" as a recreational use in a residential R2 zone. But that, he said, can be discussed when Randall presents the proposal to planners again on Sept. 24.

Randall said the society has spent about $15,000 on the Green Homestead project thus far, with most of the money going to administrative and attorney fees in dealing with village zoning regulations rather than renovating, repainting and restoring the 175-year old house.

"For 24 years, we've never had a place to call our own," he said. "We're just trying to get permission to be there."

- John Haughey