The subdivisions, 638-home Greater Hills and 378-home Greater Pines, being developed by Altamonte Springs, FL-based Greater Construction Co., are 25 miles from Downtown Orlando.
Greater Construction is suing the septic tank system manufacturer and the installer for damages that could reach $1 million, lawyers following the case privately tell GlobeSt.com.
Construction industry estimators tell GlobeSt.com some septic tank systems may be inadequate for dense developments of four homes per acre, the standard at Greater Hills and Greater Pines. Lake County approved the density five years ago for those ventures.
County commissioners now, however, are expected to debate a suggestion by commissioner Bob Pool, a former Clermont mayor, that would limit developers to the construction of two homes per acre when a new subdivision is not hooked up to a city sewer lines. Current county regulations allow four homes per acre.
"Cutting back to two homes per acre will greatly affect a developer's bottom profit line," a corporate representative for a multifamily and single-family developer in Orlando tells GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity. "All hell will break loose if that happens."
The reason: Land is half the price in neighboring Lake County than in Orlando submarkets.
"You make your money in commercial real estate at the front end, not the back end," Dean Fritchen, a senior broker at Arvida Real Estate Services Commercial Division in Winter Park, FL, tells GlobeSt.com. "The less you pay for dirt going in, the more you are going to reap coming out" of a project.
Costs of septic systems versus sewer service are another major element developers consider.
"Developers hooking up to city sewer lines for several hundred homes are talking big bucks compared to installing a septic tank system for each subdivision they build," notes David Murphy, an industrial broker in the Orlando office of CB Richard Ellis Inc.
Lake's regulations on septic tank installations and density are also more lenient than they are in the Orlando markets, a planner for an Orlando architectural firm that works with both Orange and Lake County commissioners tells GlobeSt.com.
"Lake doesn't require developers to hook up immediately to sewer lines because until now, most of the new projects have been in rural areas where septic tanks have been working well on less-dense projects," says a planner for Orange County government. "Most Orange projects, however, must go on sewer service if they have that capability."
But Lake does require a development to hook into a central sewer system if the subdivision is within 1,000 feet of a city sewer line.
Orange County operates six wastewater treatment plants. Lake County has none. Lake, instead, relies on 90 private companies to provide sewage-treatment service.
"Explosive population and commercial real estate growth in the last 15 years have caught up with Lake County," a real estate lawyer who works with the county periodically, tells GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity. "Now they have to decide how much of an investment they want to make and how much taxpayers want to pay for a modern utility system countywide."
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