The council's 4 to 1 midnight vote paves the way for Harry Lerner's Westshore Development Group of Tampa, FL to start building 300 apartment units and 200 single-family homes within 120 days. Lerner projects the first residents could move in by 2002.

Two apartment communities housing 600 units; 500 single-family residences in five neighborhoods; and a 14-acre recreational park are planned.

While the residential component gets under way, the developer will be applying to the Florida Department of Community Affairs for a similar go-ahead on the 80-acre commercial and retail aspect of the project. The commercial end of the project needs the state's blessing, particularly since the former developer, Jaymark Builders, paid a $14,000 fine for allegedly filling wetlands and grading the side of a 10-acre lake without a state permit. Jaymark did not admit to the violations but paid the fine anyway. Westshore inherited the project at that juncture in 1999.

The 450-acre Lost Lake Reserve project will be the second largest project of its kind in the Clermont vicinity next to the 850-acre Kings Ridge retirement community developed five years ago. Both projects have their critics who bemoan the loss of once-rural, citrus-growing Clermont to a more urban setting. The area's population is projected to triple to 25,000 by 2010.

But land planners and brokers such as Tom D. Cook of Carter & Associates-ONCOR in Orlando think Clermont will come out ahead on both quality of life and environmental concerns if the city lays out the proper growth guidelines and sticks to them. "Explosive growth such as this can be a win-win-win situation if everybody knows the rules in advance and then plays by them," Cook tells GlobeSt.com.

Big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Co. and Home Depot Inc. already are setting up sites for future superstore-sized developments in the area.

Instant Insights /

$1 Bil Mixed-Use Clermont Venture Gets Green Light after Two Years on Hold

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