New development projects coming to Burnt Store Road

Charlotte County leaders want to add three street lights for three new developments going in along Burnt Store Road.

The goal is to help with safety since the road sees a lot of excessive speeders.

John Kerrigan has lived in Punta Gorda since 1998.

“We have alligators and mosquitos and snakes, and, you know, you don’t really want to come here,” said Kerrigan.

But the truth is, “I love it here.”

And unfortunately for Kerrigan, so does everyone else. This means his quiet town is being taken away!

“The amount of homes that they’re going to be building in here is going to be ridiculous,” said Kerrigan.

If you drive down Burnt Store Road you can see the developments underway.

Charlotte County Planning and Zoning Official Shaun Cullinan said they were approved for 10,500 units.

“I think it’s going to be actually a very nice looking area in my opinion, with all the landscaping and the developments, but it is going to look different than the barren fields, the former agricultural lands that were out there,” said Cullinan.

To justify the widening of Burnt Store Road, Cullinan said this was always the plan.

“Constructing that, the widened Burnt Store Road, we needed to have the tax base available to support it. And so that was part of the trade-off,” said Cullinan.

To help people get in and out of the busy road the county approved three traffic signals that will be placed outside of Coral Lakes, Turnleaf and Starling developments.

This will help with safety and traffic calming.

“We have heard a lot of residents talk about speeding on there, putting in traffic devices, such as stoplights, roundabouts, rotaries, whatever you want to call them. Those types of things are beneficial to try to slow that down while maintaining the capacity of the roadway for the developments,” said Cullinan.

The county said they are ready for this development! The plan is developed to deal with traffic, environmental issues, water, and sewer now they just need to finish building!