Application 930235 remains incomplete. Every outstanding deficiency must be answered.

The outstanding record cannot be reduced to one missing deed.

1. Recorded ownership and sufficient legal interest remain unproven.

The August 26 response admitted that the deed intended to provide Tarpon Woods Properties, LLC with sufficient property interest was still “in the process of being recorded” and would be submitted “upon recording.”

The response also acknowledged that Jan Stephenson’s Crossroads Foundation, Inc.—identified as a fee-title holder but not listed as an applicant—was still transferring property to Tarpon Woods Properties, LLC. Evidence of the recorded deed was promised “shortly and prior to the issuance of the ERP.”

No later recorded deed or ownership-curative document appeared in the public record reviewed for this email. A promise to provide proof later is not proof now.

SWFWMD must identify the current record owner of every parcel and establish that every necessary party can grant the conservation easement, provide access, accept permit obligations, and bind the land in perpetuity.

2. The survey, title materials, boundaries, and acreage figures remain unreconciled.

The submitted survey is certified to Avalon Building Corporation of Tampa Bay rather than the present applicant or asserted owner. Florida corporate records show Avalon was voluntarily dissolved in December 2024, while the survey identifies field, drawing, checking, and revision work performed afterward.

Dissolution does not automatically make every later act void, but the application has not established who retained the surveyor, who directed the later revisions, whether that work was properly authorized or assigned, or why the current applicant and owner may rely upon a survey certified to a different dissolved corporation.

The survey also relies on a February 2026 title commitment, while the August RAI response relies on a July 2026 commitment. Multiple Schedule B items are labeled “Intentionally Deleted,” yet no complete version history explains what each item represented, whether it was deleted or renumbered, and what recorded release, satisfaction, termination, or other instrument supports each substantive change.

The public record contains materially different acreage figures, including 147.09, 168.40, 172.46, 172.59, and 175.02 acres. It does not provide a parcel-by-parcel calculation reconciling those figures.

Figure 14, Parcel 3, the security boundary, the survey boundary, the proposed conservation easement, the wetland assessment areas, and the credit-generating areas are not reconciled in one controlling exhibit. Sheet 9’s segmented lines and its topographic source, field date, collection method, control points, and raw observations also remain unexplained.

SWFWMD must require one current, signed-and-sealed, georeferenced composite showing every parcel, exclusion, easement, title exception, wetland, floodway, credit area, noncredit area, access route, security feature, utility, drainage feature, planting area, and proposed activity.

3. The prior applications and materially different designs have not been reconciled with the current “no earthwork” proposal.

The record for withdrawn Application 907654 described a materially different project involving approximately:

• 55.54 acres of freshwater-marsh excavation;
• 20.64 acres of upland excavation;
• 17.27 acres of pond filling;
• 0.53 acre of ditch filling;
• multiple pipes and control structures; and
• sale or transfer of excess fill to an unidentified buyer or project.

Pinellas County record DRM-24-00066 separately described an earlier concept involving an estimated 273,000 cubic yards of cut and 31,000 cubic yards of fill.

The current application now states that there is “no earthwork,” while still proposing pond-to-marsh and ditch-to-forested-wetland treatment, tens of thousands of plant installations, vegetation removal or thinning, mowing or roller-chopping, fencing, signs, cameras, monitoring equipment, well abandonment, structure decommissioning, and extensive vehicle and equipment access.

The applicant must provide a signed-and-sealed, version-by-version crosswalk explaining what happened to every prior excavation, fill area, pond, ditch, pipe, control structure, haul route, staging area, spoil-disposal proposal, work polygon, and credit calculation. Each must be identified as retained, eliminated, relocated, redesigned, or superseded, together with the resulting effect on hydrology, flood storage, soil handling, costs, credits, and the proposed conservation easement.

4. Floodway, floodplain, drainage, storage, and hydrologic effects remain unresolved.

The property lies within a historically flood-prone watershed and includes an effective FEMA regulatory floodway. The County/SWFWMD Brooker Creek study documents the complexity and limited downstream conveyance of this system.

Pinellas County’s own comments identified potential requirements involving floodway encroachment, no-net-fill analysis, watershed modeling, 10-, 25-, and 100-year flood elevations, compensating storage, and FEMA map-revision procedures where applicable.

A civil engineer’s signed-and-sealed assurance that a far smaller residential swimming pool would have no meaningful flood effect was not enough for the County to approve that work without Brooker Creek modeling. A 172-plus-acre commercial mitigation-bank proposal should not receive less scrutiny than an individual homeowner.

The application still lacks one signed-and-sealed overlay of the effective FEMA floodway, County flood-hazard information, project work, planting areas, access routes, fencing, conservation easement, wetlands, credit polygons, drainage easements, and receiving conveyances.

SWFWMD should require:

• reproducible existing- and proposed-condition hydraulic modeling;
• applicable 25-year and 100-year analyses;
• floodway and no-rise analysis where required;
• historic basin-storage and compensating-storage calculations;
• Brooker Creek, ditch, pipe, drainage-easement, and downstream-conveyance capacities;
• native model files, terrain data, cross sections, assumptions, calibration information, hydrographs, and results;
• separate construction, establishment, mature-vegetation, maintenance, and failure scenarios; and
• demonstration that the project will not increase flood elevations, obstruct conveyance, reduce storage, redirect drainage, or transfer risk to surrounding homes.

If the applicant claims that no activity will occur in or affect the floodway, that exclusion must be surveyed, enforceable, independently inspected, and financially secured.

5. Hydrologic success standards and the treated-effluent water budget remain inadequate.

The project proposes to restore approximately 10.92 acres of ponds to freshwater marsh and approximately 0.73 acre of ditch to forested wetland. Yet its success criteria are principally vegetative.

The criteria do not adequately establish measurable standards for hydroperiod, seasonal surface-water and groundwater elevations, open-water conversion, hydrologic connectivity, water quality, drought, extreme rainfall, failure thresholds, or corrective action if the proposed wetland communities cannot survive at existing elevations.

The applicant also says that as much as 382,000 gallons per day of treated effluent could benefit the project while simultaneously asserting that no effluent is required for success.

Both conditions must be analyzed. The applicant must provide quantified existing- and proposed-condition water budgets showing what occurs if effluent delivery continues, changes, or stops. The analysis must address quantity, timing, routing, storage, nutrients, water quality, overflow, drought, excessive rainfall, and discharge pathways to Brooker Creek.

6. Existing wetlands and the requested mitigation credits remain inadequately distinguished.

The application requests approximately 37.88 mitigation credits. Approximately 30.82 credits—about 81.4 percent—are attributed to upland supporting habitat, while only approximately 7.06 credits arise directly from wetland assessment areas.

The application must identify, by surveyed polygon, what acreage is presently wetland, other surface water, pond, ditch, upland, buffer, floodway, preservation area, restoration area, enhancement area, rehabilitation area, establishment area, credit-generating area, or noncredit area.

Existing wetlands and ecological functions cannot be treated as newly created benefits. Any preservation credit must independently satisfy the applicable preservation criteria. Restoration, enhancement, rehabilitation, establishment, or upland-support credits should not be awarded without verified incremental functional gain.

SWFWMD must require a polygon-by-polygon ledger showing:

• existing classification and baseline function;
• current UMAM condition;
• proposed treatment;
• projected functional improvement;
• time-lag and risk factors;
• claimed credit type and quantity;
• floodway and floodplain overlap;
• conservation-easement coverage;
• title, utility, access, and infrastructure conflicts;
• release milestone; and
• protection against duplicate crediting.

The District—not the applicant—must verify the wetland delineation, baseline conditions, UMAM scores, and allowable credits through appropriate field review.

7. The “no earthwork” claim conflicts with the physical work being proposed.

The work plan’s categorical statement that there is “no earthwork” cannot be reconciled with ditch treatment, planting, vegetation removal, fencing, gates, signs, cameras, monitoring installations, well abandonment, structure removal, vehicle travel, staging, or possible utility and drainage work.

The applicant must disclose every activity that penetrates, excavates, turns, mixes, removes, compacts, stockpiles, spreads, transports, or exposes soil or belowground biological material.

Even an illustrative minimum of one cubic foot of disturbance for each of more than 60,000 plant installations would exceed 60,000 cubic feet—approximately 2,222 cubic yards—before accounting for larger trees, ditch work, fencing, equipment routes, root removal, compaction, or corrective planting.

The applicant must explain:

• plant sizes, stock types, root-ball dimensions, and planting-hole dimensions;
• manual and mechanical installation methods;
• equipment types and access routes;
• the total estimated volume of disturbed soil and belowground biomass;
• whether displaced material will be removed, spread, stockpiled, reused, or disposed of;
• whether spreading would alter grade, drainage, or flood storage;
• how equipment compaction will be prevented and corrected; and
• how thousands of soil penetrations may affect roots, soil horizons, microorganisms, fungal networks, infiltration, hydrology, and potential contaminant pathways.

8. The planting plan, quantities, and feasibility remain internally inconsistent.

The narrative anticipates approximately 75 slash pines per acre across 105.13 acres—about 7,885 trees. The cost estimate appears to fund only approximately 4,205 trees, or about 40 per acre.

The supplemental-planting calculation also appears to treat 35.14 acres of wetland-forest planting as though the acreage number were the plant quantity rather than applying the stated planting density.

The application must provide a survey-grade planting and landscaping plan identifying:

• the exact location and acreage of every planting zone;
• every exclusion caused by wetlands, floodway, utilities, easements, existing trees, root zones, drainage facilities, access routes, setbacks, and structures;
• each species, plant size, container or stock type, spacing, density, and installation method;
• the number and location of trees, shrubs, plugs, and seeded areas;
• existing and projected canopy overlap;
• actual plantable acreage after all constraints are deducted; and
• reconciliation with the work plan, success criteria, monitoring plan, cost estimate, and financial assurances.

SWFWMD should not accept a plant count merely because it appears in a spreadsheet. The applicant must demonstrate that the proposed material can physically be installed, survive, and be maintained in the locations claimed.

9. Soil, groundwater, contamination, and waste-management safeguards remain missing.

This property has a long history of golf-course chemical use. Residents have also raised an unresolved allegation regarding possible Target 6 Plus, MSMA, or other arsenical-herbicide use. That allegation should not be represented as a proven contamination finding, but it cannot responsibly be ignored before widespread soil disturbance.

The application does not provide current, validated, site-specific soil, sediment, surface-water, and groundwater information tied to every proposed planting, ditch-treatment, access, staging, equipment, and soil-disturbance area.

SWFWMD should require an independent, professionally prepared investigation that includes:

• a current environmental site assessment;
• a systematic sampling plan;
• denser sampling of greens, tees, fairways, maintenance areas, chemical storage or mixing areas, drainage pathways, ditches, pond margins, and proposed disturbance zones;
• appropriate background samples and multiple depths;
• testing for arsenic and other chemicals reasonably associated with historical use;
• accredited laboratory analysis and documented quality control;
• three-dimensional delineation of any exceedance;
• plant-growth and planting-suitability evaluation; and
• public filing of the work plan, locations, results, logs, and maps.

If affected material is encountered, the applicant must provide worker and community protections, dust and runoff controls, decontamination procedures, lawful transportation and disposal, required transportation or disposal authorizations, approved receiving facilities, replacement-soil standards, confirmation sampling, and certified contingency costs.

10. Current wildlife review remains missing.

The applicant acknowledged that it did not obtain a new FWC letter for Application 930235. Instead, it reused a June 2025 technical-assistance letter associated with withdrawn Application 907654 and a materially different design.

That older letter is background information—not current-project concurrence. It also does not replace a current project-wide wildlife and habitat assessment.

SWFWMD must require current review addressing appropriate seasons, day-and-night survey periods, listed species, nests, burrows, denning, foraging, aquatic habitat, movement corridors, fencing, cameras, vegetation removal, mowing, herbicide use, construction activity, and long-term management.

11. Site security remains conditional, undefined, and underfunded.

The applicant proposes fencing mainly near public-access areas, signs every 50 feet, cameras, and voluntary cooperation from neighboring homeowners. Full-boundary fencing would occur only if trespassing becomes undefinedly “problematic” and after District notice.

The application provides no objective trigger, inspection frequency, camera-review schedule, reporting deadline, repair deadline, repeated-encroachment procedure, or surveyed full-boundary security plan.

The cost estimate budgets only 3,000 linear feet for fencing and signage even though the project boundary is plainly much longer. Figure 14 is not a surveyed full-perimeter fencing plan and does not visibly reconcile with the submitted survey and Parcel 3.

12. The cost estimate and financial assurances remain facially unreliable.

The generic $3-per-plant figure is not supported by visible vendor quotations, comparable bids, current market data, or a clear explanation of what it includes.

It does not establish costs for plant material, delivery, layout, labor, equipment, access protection, soil handling, watering, establishment, replacement, warranty, testing, contamination controls, or lawful disposal.

The cost table also appears to contain:

• a Year 15 line showing a $5,000 unit cost and quantity of one but a total of only $250;
• understated pine-tree quantities;
• questionable supplemental-planting quantities;
• insufficient full-boundary fencing costs;
• incomplete replacement assumptions; and
• a twenty-year table that does not, by itself, establish perpetual funding.

The applicant must submit a corrected, professionally certified, source-supported, fair-market estimate with separate labor, material, equipment, professional-service, testing, monitoring, security, replacement, corrective-action, default-response, and perpetual-management costs.

Before any credit is released, the District must require the authorized financial mechanisms to be executed, funded, effective, enforceable, protected from cancellation or depletion, periodically recalculated, adjusted for inflation and actual costs, binding on successors, and sufficient to fund performance in perpetuity.

13. Front-loaded credit releases expose the public to unacceptable default risk.

The proposed schedule would release 30 percent of the credits initially and another 30 percent after initial treatment and planting—approximately 22.72 of the requested 37.88 credits—before any interim ecological success level is demonstrated.

If those credits are sold and used to authorize destruction of wetlands elsewhere, later project failure cannot simply be treated as a private business problem.

The applicant must provide an enforceable, fully funded adverse-outcome and remedy plan explaining what happens if:

• plantings fail;
• wetland hydrology does not develop;
• contamination is encountered;
• flooding or drainage conditions worsen;
• the sponsor defaults, dissolves, becomes insolvent, transfers ownership, or abandons the project;
• a bond, letter of credit, escrow, trust, insurer, surety, or financial institution fails;
• utilities or easement holders disturb protected land;
• the permit is surrendered;
• released credits exceed verified performance; or
• long-term maintenance costs exceed projections.

The conservation easement and financial assurances must protect every acre used to generate or support credits and survive permit surrender, default, dissolution, foreclosure of subordinate interests, transfer, or sale. Permit abandonment must never restore development rights or leave residents with disturbed land and unfunded corrective work.

14. Recorded drainage, utility, sewer, effluent, well, access, and other property rights remain unresolved.

The title and survey materials identify numerous recorded interests involving natural drainage, stormwater flow, sewer facilities, treated effluent, production wells, pipelines, electrical and communications facilities, access, maintenance, excavation, clearing, repair, restoration, and successor obligations.

Calling an affected area “noncredit” does not eliminate the right of an easement holder to enter, excavate, clear, repair, relocate, or operate infrastructure. Nor does it resolve how that work would affect hydrology, habitat, plantings, monitoring, conservation restrictions, or restoration funding.

SWFWMD must require:

• a complete current title and recorded-instrument chain;
• written confirmation from Pinellas County and affected utilities;
• current as-built locations and realistic maintenance and emergency-access footprints;
• a composite overlay against every wetland, credit area, work area, planting zone, floodway, and conservation boundary;
• identification of required consent, joinder, release, subordination, amendment, exclusion, or relocation; and
• a funded restoration protocol if an easement or infrastructure right is exercised.

Work required by an existing maintenance, drainage, utility, or contractual obligation must be separated from work claimed to generate mitigation credit.

15. Pinellas County’s requested information remains unanswered.

On December 22, 2025, SWFWMD forwarded Pinellas County’s comments to the applicant with the instruction: “Please respond to these comments when you respond to our RAI.”

The August 26 package does not contain a separate, complete response matrix addressing those comments.

SWFWMD should identify which County comments it adopted as information requests within its authority and, for each one, require an answer or explain in writing why the matter has been resolved or is not relevant to the ERP decision.

This is not a demand that SWFWMD make a separate County permit an unlawful ERP-completeness condition. It is a demand for the flooding, construction, access, maintenance, hydrology, and long-term-performance facts needed for SWFWMD’s own review.

16. The prior-application and fee history requires a public accounting.

The current application did not properly reconcile related Applications 889588 and 907654 and reports an amount paid of $0.

The record contains a payment associated with an earlier application and a request to transfer or credit that payment to a later filing. SWFWMD must provide a complete ledger showing every payment, transfer, credit, adjustment, refund, or other disposition through all three application records and identify the authority for each action.

The applicant should also provide a version-controlled crosswalk identifying which surveys, plans, reports, agency letters, calculations, title materials, and other documents were carried forward from earlier applications, and whether each remains applicable to the current project.

17. The extension chronology and unequal responsiveness require an independent explanation.

The approved June 14 response date passed without a complete response or a publicly identified request for more time.

On July 17 at 2:52 p.m., SWFWMD received my written demand concerning the expired date and requested closure. At 5:38 p.m.—two hours and forty-six minutes later and thirty-three days after June 14—the applicant requested another extension.

On July 20, internal correspondence referred to keeping the application from exceeding 365 days “in-house.” My demand package was date-stamped into the public file at 8:43:02 a.m.; approximately three minutes later, the internal response approving the extension recommendation stated, “That’s fine.” The formal extension approval was posted later that morning.

That timing does not, standing alone, prove favoritism or misconduct. It does require a signed, transparent explanation identifying:

• the governing extension provision;
• whether the application was considered active between June 14 and July 20;
• the written circumstances or good-cause showing accepted;
• why the additional period was considered reasonable and necessary;
• the legal relevance of “365 days in-house”;
• the delegated authority and review performed;
• the applicant’s alleged prior agreement that a partial response would be accepted;
• whether that alleged agreement exists in writing; and
• whether the same treatment is available under a written policy to every similarly situated applicant.

The present record shows the applicant receiving rapid formal action while detailed resident submissions remain substantively unanswered. That disparity, together with the sparse decisional record, warrants a neutral review outside the immediate approval chain, preservation of the audit trail, and a signed public explanation.

The September 16 follow-up preserves—not replaces—the prior letters.

Evidence boundary: these are resident advocacy documents. They establish what residents sent and requested. They do not, by themselves, establish that SWFWMD or another recipient accepted any factual allegation, legal conclusion, or requested remedy.