Neighbors debate new Cape Coral gated community

CAPE CORAL, Fla.- A new gated community may soon get the green light for construction.

Some residents aren’t happy about the big changes. Many say they like the quiet area near Cape Coral Parkway and Sands Boulevard.

Some residents even tell WINK News they never would have bought their house in the area had they known the land would be home to almost sixty new lots. Others say they knew development was always a possibility and that this particular plan may not be that bad after all.

“These are all million-dollar homes through here and they wanted to put some junk over there so what we’ve done is got the whole project turned around,” said John Deering.

Deering lives across the street from the proposed development site. He was originally against the idea and was even on a committee neighbors formed to stop the Sunset Point Development. Now he says he would rather a gated community built than a condo or townhouse.

Cape Coral realtor, Mike Lombardo, tells WINK News while most knew that development was a possibility, a lot of neighbors still aren’t happy about it.

“It’s a good thing as a whole for Cape Coral. But, you know the person living across the street from it is going to have to endure five years of noise and inconvenience and I don’t know if I would be happy about it if I lived across the street,” said Lombardo.

The land owned by the Diocese of Venice is already zoned for single family homes but the developer has been working with the city since the beginning of 2014 to get a number of special exceptions approved.

Neighbors say they don’t like the idea of a big wall separating them from the gated community and the lot sizes would be significantly smaller than the surrounding lots.

“They’re going to be affected by houses that are being built that are you know a fourth of the value. They are taking advantage of the lot size to put more houses in so they can maximize their value as the land owner and playing against the home values that are already there to maximize their profits,” said Lombardo.

Neighbors are invited to an open forum at the planning and zoning meeting on July 1 at 9 a.m. The board will vote on a recommendation to hand over to the City Council. The City Council will vote on the development on July 27.