Cabot, the Canadian developer that recently purchased three golf courses in the area, has released plans for one of them: World Woods.

In the deal, Cabot also bought Sugarmill Woods and Southern Woods in Homosassa. Spokeswoman Rachel Maher said more details on what’s planned for those courses will be released as soon as details are finalized.

But first comes World Woods and some big changes are planned.

For now, the 1,200-acre property off U.S. 98 – on the border of Citrus and Hernando counties – will still be known by World Woods. Renovations to the course will begin in spring 2022.

In 2023, it will open as Cabot Citrus Farms with amenities that will include two revitalized 18-hole courses, a par-3 course, a new clubhouse and practice facilities with a putting course and driving range.

Cabot Citrus Farms will have retail, restaurants, fitness and spa amenities, communal gathering points and a farmer’s market.

Gene McGee, a member of the Citrus County Tourist Development Council (TDC), said if the new owner spends the money to improve World Woods, it will attract golfers from all over who will find their way to Citrus County.

An avid golfer, McGee said Pine Barrens and Rolling Oaks are gorgeous courses. And they’re public, which makes it better.

“It will be a draw for tourism in Citrus County,” he said. “People are likely to stay in (local) hotels and RV resorts in Citrus County because the golf course will be so close.”

It’s so close, he said, that some people think World Woods is in Citrus County, instead of Brooksville.

Cabot is searching for golf course architects to improve the overall playing experience and “bring out the best of this spectacular site,” according to a Cabot news release.

“I couldn’t wish for a better location for our first U.S. development,” said Ben Cowan-Dewar, CEO and co-founder of Cabot. “The property is a nature lover’s paradise that rivals the most spectacular sites I’ve seen across the world.

“We are excited to build upon the amazing legacy established at World Woods and forge a new path for Cabot Citrus Farms as a vibrant golf and residential community that showcases the Sunshine State’s abundant natural offerings,” Cowan-Dewar said.

World Woods was established by Yukihisa Inoue in 1993 and garnered acclaim for its two championship golf courses – Pine Barrens and Rolling Oaks – and impressive practice facilities.

Pine Barrens was previously a mainstay on the World Top 100 list, while Rolling Oaks remains one of the top courses in the state, according to Cabot.

Cabot also said Citrus County will realize an increase in tourism when the new facility opens.

“Visitors will delight in one-of-a-kind experiences including exceptional hiking, biking and nature trails at neighboring Withlacoochee State Forest, spring-fed rivers and bountiful lakes at Crystal River, and world-class fishing in the Gulf of Mexico,” the company said.

For more information, see www.cabotcitrus farms.com.

Three times a week Dennis Flack walks from his Homosassa home to a bus stop a mile away to ride the Citrus County Transit.

Flack uses the bus for errands, shopping and to visit with friends.

The ride is free — Flack fits the county criteria for free use of the Orange Line fixed-route system. He’s older than 60, a military veteran, disabled from an industrial accident and has an income level that meets the threshold.

“I basically use it for anything when it’s running,” Flack said.

In two weeks, for residents of southwest Citrus, including Homosassa and Sugarmill Woods, the fixed route ride is coming to an end.

County commissioners voted in November to end the Homosassa Orange Line service so that the county can split the popular Inverness route in two. The county was able to do this without adding personnel or buses, because it eliminated one route to divide another, transit director Lon Frye said.

“The Homosassa route was stretched too far. Ridership was declining,” Frye said. “As we saw ridership decline on this route, we had to make a change.”

When the Homosassa route ends on Jan. 6, it’ll leave about 7,000 riders who rely on the bus now needing alternative transportation.

The county will still offer door-to-door service — at $3 a ride.

Of the four routes — Beverly Hills, Crystal River, Homosassa and Inverness — Homosassa has the fewest number of riders at about 8,700 in 2018 and around 7,000 this year. Frye said the Homosassa numbers have dropped steadily, though he doesn’t know why.

The route stretches 28 miles from the transit office in Lecanto, down Grover Cleveland Boulevard to U.S. 19, then south to U.S. 98 and back again.

Inverness has more than 22,000 annual riders on a route that includes Hernando and Floral City, and spans 34 miles, according to a county transit report.

The split sets half of Inverness-Floral City as one route and the other half of Inverness-Hernando as the other.

When county commissioners considered the issue at a Nov. 5 public hearing, no one from the public showed up: the Homosassa route deletion wasn’t mentioned during the brief board discussion. Commissioner Ron Kitchen Jr., whose district includes Homosassa and Sugarmill Woods, wanted only to ensure the change would occur without additional expense.

Kitchen did not return a call for comment. He has previously stated publicly he will no longer speak to the Chronicle.

Flack said he didn’t know anything about the planned change until after a bus driver informed him the service would be ending in January.

“Why wasn’t there a notice on the bus to let us know the county commissioners were even going to vote on it?” he asked. “We couldn’t go if we didn’t know about it. I would have gone.”

Frye said drivers handed out notices of the county commission hearing to passengers.

“It’s possible we did not reach every nook and cranny,” he said.

Commissioner Chairman Brian Coleman said he sympathizes with Flack and other riders, but the move was prudent.

“We have a certain amount of money to spend on bus service,” he said. “We try to get the most bang for the buck."

Of the $3 charge Homosassa riders will now face for door-to-door service, Coleman said: “Three dollars is a lot cheaper than an Uber or a taxi.”

Commissioner Jimmie T. Smith, who chairs the Transportation Disadvantaged Coordinating Board, which advises the county on transit matters, said the county needs to place buses where the need is greater. And that’s in Floral City, Hernando and Inverness, he said.

“We make decisions based on the best use of the resources,” he said. “We’re still doing what we can to make sure they still have availability of the resource. It’s just not free.”

Coleman, who became chairman two weeks after the transit vote, said he hasn’t received a single complaint about the county dropping the Homosassa-Sugarmill Woods route. Still, he acknowledged the plan may merit more discussion.

“I have no problem looking at it again,” he said.

Flack said the decision is unfair to southwest Citrus residents.

“That messed up a lot of us who use it as our main source of transportation,” Flack said. “I don’t care what the numbers are. That’s like discriminating against the people of Homosassa.”

The owners of Sweetwater Homes of Citrus are back to square one in its hopes of the county rezoning nearly 50 acres in Sugarmill Woods’ Oak Village. The current and unchanged zoning there limits development to a maximum of 95 single-family homes.

For the more than 100 Sugarmill Woods residents in the county commission chambers Thursday, the commission’s unanimous decision to deny the developer’s request to allow as many as 250 rental units in the area was a home run.

The developer, Sweetwater Homes of Citrus, nor its engineer, returned the Chronicle’s telephone call, as to their future plans.

Nearly 40 residents addressed the county commission on the issue of whether to allow the rezoning. The developers, during the 3 1/2 hour meeting, were almost friendless in the standing-room only chambers. Almost all the speakers were in opposition to the change, and many peppered the developer and his few supporters, with shouted insults, personal attacks, and accusations of greed and a willingness to ruin their community with rental units.

The county commissioners were little better off and often a target of speakers accusing them of already having their minds made up in support of the developer and the hearing merely a formality.

Some in the audience during public input time warned commissioners that Sugarmill Woods typically had a high voter turnout and the county’s five elected officials on the dais would do well to remember it.

Ocala attorney Lauren Merriam, representing many of the residents, said the trend over the decades from the original Sugarmill Woods design was for density to decline and the trend needed to continue rather than reverse.

“We need to reduce, reduce, reduce,” he said to a cheering audience.

He warned the design that developer and CEO of Sweetwater, Steve Ponticos, was showing the commission was not binding and could change.

Under the proposal, all the units would be rentals and owned by the developer or sold to another investor.

He called Ponticos’ presentation a sales job.

“It’s salesmanship. Good salesmanship, but it’s salesmanship,” he said.

Sugarmill Woods resident Patrick Goodman lives near where the developer wanted to build.

Goodman said he bought in the community, in part, because it attracted people in an income bracket who could afford the properties, have finance management skills, and an ability to financially maintain their properties.

If the developer had his way, Goodman said, he and his neighbors would have nothing in common with the new development of rentals or the people who lived there.

Resident Thomas Sholar said Ponticos’ presentation was misleading because the 250 units, a mixture of duplexes, townhomes, and villas, would be built on just over 30 acres. That’s because some of the near 50 acres would be earmarked for retention ponds and other infrastructure.

“That’s not compatible with Oak Village,” he said. “It’s too many structures on an acre of land, OK.”

Part of Ponticos’ pitch was that as seniors approached their 80s and 90s, they wanted to downsize, and many can’t afford to maintain their larger homes anymore.

His project would help solve that because it allowed those “super seniors” to stay in their neighborhoods, close to friends, and their religious communities.

Resident Dan Donoghue said the proposed area wasn’t designed for that many units, that many people, or the traffic they would generate.

He asked the commissioners if the county would allow such a development in Black Diamond or Pine Ridge.

Ron Rewald, a former real estate developer, reminded the commissioners that state law allowed the commission to keep the zoning as it was.

He also asked whether the developers had submitted traffic and flood studies.

He also warned that while much of the proposed development was also meant for young working people, in addition to seniors, the younger lifestyle brought with it a louder lifestyle, and music, and motorcycles.

“That’s what’s going to happen here,” he told commissioners.

“That’s what’s going to rest on your shoulders.”

He warned he was considering a recall petition of the commissioners.

A few speakers, however, were in favor of the rentals and told stories about how they, or their children, needed a temporary place to live before they could afford a home of their own. Those kinds of comments were not well received by the audience.

Commissioners said they understood that the county needed workforce housing, but agreed it wasn’t fair to residents to put it in Sugarmill Woods and among single-family homeowners.

Commissioner Holly Davis said that while she’s supported workforce and affordable housing in the past, Sugarmill Woods was not the place for it.

But she also said she took offense when audience members accused commissioners of already having made up their minds before public input and they were working hand-in-glove with developers.

Davis said she offers communities every opportunity to meet with her and to invite her to be a speaker where they live.

To those who described commissioners as corrupt, she said, “I feel sorry for you. You have every opportunity to know my heart.”

Davis said the “anger and vitriol” between neighbors, residents, and toward local elected officials, needed to stop.

Fred Hiers is a reporter at the Citrus Chronicle. Email him at fred.hiers@chronicleonline.com.

Donald Dozier’s garage is causing quite the stir with his Sugarmill Woods neighbors.

Depending on who’s doing the speaking, the $49,000 18-by-38 foot garage is attached to the house. Or it’s not.

The distinction is big in Sugarmill because deed restrictions do not allow for detached garages.

And while deed restrictions are normally private matters between owners of deed-restricted property and the associations that govern then, citizens instead are also blaming Citrus County government for issuing Dozier the wrong permit.

“I want the county to uphold their own standards,” resident Barbara Perreault said. “It’s an eyesore.”

Dozier said he’s done everything above board.

“I don’t care what people think,” he said.

The issue is one that combines a regulatory agency — the county — and deed restrictions, which the county has nothing to do with.

According to interviews and public records, this is what happened:

Dozier, a member of the Cypress Village Property Owners Association board of directors, applied for a building permit for a garage. His notice of commencement, which formally begins the construction process, was filed with the clerk of court on Oct. 30, 2020. It reads: “Construction of a detached garage.”

Dozier called that a “clerical error” and noted a second notice of commencement was filed Dec. 8 that said “construction of an attached garage.”

Dozier said the error caught the attention of neighbors who believe he’s trying to get away with something.

“The people around here really latched onto that,” he said.

The county, meanwhile, determined the garage was attached because of a breezeway that connects the building with the house — though there are no doors in the breezeway connecting the house to the garage.

Neighbors say this goes against the county code for an attached garage. According to code, a garage is considered an accessory structure to the main building, a house.

The Land Development Code states: “An accessory structure attached by a common wall(s), foundation and under the same roofline of the principal structure.”

The county, for its part, says it doesn’t get involved in deed restriction issues. And County Administrator Randy Oliver noted in an email that Building Director Carl Jones plans to clear up the confusion in the definition of attached vs. detached.

Neighbors like Sue Hale say a breezeway, which isn’t connected with doors to either building, doesn’t fit the definition.

“A 3-year-old child could look at this and see it’s not attached,” she said.

Former property owners association board member Carol Bush said the difference is significant.

“Now anybody else can build a detached garage, connect it to their house with a breezeway, and what are we going to stay?” Bush said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Asked what he planned to park in the garage, Dozier said: “A boat? RV? Whatever I want to put in it.”

Contact Chronicle reporter Mike Wright at 352-563-3228 or mwright@chronicleonline.com. To view more of his stories, go to www.tinyurl.com/y3bakm6w.

Members of the Women of Sugarmill Woods proudly hosted their annual scholarship luncheon and introduced 11 young adults ready to pursue their dreams.

The scholarship committee, led by Sandy Rundell, begin months in advance preparing for the special moment. They spend hours poring through numerous applications from students in need of financial assistance as they enter college. It’s a chance to see the benefits of their hard work with fundraising.

“In addition to providing each of these young students with a $1,500 scholarship, we will also donate $4,375 to our Jeanne Balmer Take Stock in Children Scholarship, a $3,000 Withlacochee Technical College Scholarship and $2,500 to the Homosassa Elementary School Accelerated Reading program,” said Rundell. “This was all made possible by our annual School-astica Golf Tournament. ”

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These scholarships were awarded:

Ashley Shuler is enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program at Lecanto High School and has been National Merit commended. She has been preparing for a career in business administration and may continue her education to become a veterinarian.

Yousra Jatt is applying her love for art and the medical field by pursuing a career in biomedical engineering following studies at the University of Florida. She has maintained a 4.5 GPA in the IB program at Lecanto High School while volunteering, working at Winn-Dixie and participating in Envirothon.

Macee Dixon is graduating from Citrus High School, where she’s been taking AP and honor courses along with participating in student government, cross country and weightlifting. She plans to attend the University of Central Florida to begin her journey of becoming a nurse practitioner. She would like to work with newborn babies in the NICU.

Colton Flynn will soon be on his way to the University of Central Florida. A pending graduate of Crystal River High School, Flynn has participated in student government as student body president and class president and was chosen Mr. CRHS by staff as a model student. He started a project to bring certified therapy dogs to the schools and has already contributed 175 volunteer hours at the Key Training Center. He is a certified mechanical and architectural drafter and is working toward an engineering degree.

Elisabeth Petrovsky, “Lizzie,” is dual enrolled at the College of Central Florida and has completed 21 college credits upon graduation at Lecanto High School, where she is currently president of the Lecanto Dramatic Arts and a member of the Thespians International. She plans to continue her education in theater, with a backstage focus, at Flagler College.

Grace Blyth has participated in the IB program at Lecanto High School, where she has been the varsity swim and dive team captain. She plans to attend the University of South Florida to become a teacher.

Ashley Evans has a passion for music and plans to attend the University of West Florida to study music education. She will soon graduate from Lecanto High School, where she has worked with Thespian Troupe 4009 as a performer, director and choreographer.

Dana Houpt is combining her passion for the human skeleton and forensics to follow her dream of becoming a medical examiner after attending the University of Florida. She has excelled in academics at Lecanto High School and participated in soccer, cross country, track and student government, all while earning 200 volunteer hours.

Attending the Health Academy in Crystal River helped Melanie Medeiros decide to pursue a degree in dental hygiene. She will begin her pursuit at Santa Fe College, then transfer to the University of Florida for her bachelor’s degree in health science.

Madison Cassidy will graduate from Citrus High School, where she has taken many AP classes and has been dual enrolled at the College of Central Florida. She dreams of working in business and will study business administration at Santa Fe College in Gainesville.

Joelle Suydam is this year’s recipient of the Women of SugarMill Woods $1,000 College of Central Florida Endowed Scholarship as she continues studying at CF, working toward a degree in elementary education. Suydam is fifth in her class and has excelled in AP classes while dual enrolled at CF.

“Joelle has already earned 30 college credits,” said Rundell.