GOWERS CORNER — Despite the rural setting, neighbors in two affluent central Pasco communities say peace and quiet is unobtainable.
Just a half-mile east of the intersection of State Road 52 and U.S. 41 is Pilot Country Estates, home to flying enthusiasts who park Cessnas right at their houses. Takeoffs and landings at the airstrip surrounded by 45 homes number just a handful a day, residents say, and nobody is bothered by the momentary noise of a single-engine plane climbing skyward.
To the east is Pasco Trails and its 77 homes on 5- and 10-acre tracts. Split-rail fences on the property lines and equestrian trailers in the driveways are common in this wooded enclave.
Between the two neighborhoods sit 165 acres of controversy. The property includes Lake Kersey Ranch, which breeds Black Angus cattle, and Black Saddle Ranch, home to horse-boarding stables. The agricultural uses aren't the problem. But the land, according to its owner and his representatives, also includes: campgrounds, athletic facilities, trails, a golf driving range, a place to hold birthday parties or corporate affairs, a mug-bogging pit, a gun range and a future college offering bachelor's degrees in public-safety-related sciences with enough space for seven homes for visiting professors and the college president.
The neighbors don't believe they'll be hearing the strains of Pomp and Circumstance anytime soon. What they do hear now — and what they fear they will hear even more of in the future — is the explosion of .223-caliber bullets discharging from automatic firearms.
"You move out here,'' said John Phelps, 72, of Pilot Country Estates, "and you don't expect to be in a war zone.''
Landowner Skip Drish of Odessa wants to move his security training center from Lutz to the ranch. He described it publicly as a proposed one-stop training center for law enforcement officers and firefighters with facilities that would include a multistory fire tower, an automobile driving course, a firing range, a search-and-rescue course, classrooms and support buildings. He has asked Pasco County to change its comprehensive plan and zoning to allow the school and separate recreational/athletic facilities.
Residents in the adjoining neighborhoods aren't buying what Drish is selling. He operates a commercial firing range illegally, they contend, and hides behind the agricultural exemption that allows him to fire guns for his own personal use.
For proof, they point to his online advertising for a 2014 Christian-based "Man Camp'' on the property, for which participants were charged $110 each for a Thursday-through-Saturday retreat that drew, Drish said, 235 men and children. Besides time for reflection, dodge ball games, a mud run and a steak dinner, the itinerary included "optional firearm shooting'' for an additional fee, according to the flier.
Keep up with Tampa Bay’s top headlines
Subscribe to our free DayStarter newsletter
You’re all signed up!
Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s get started.
Explore all your optionsCounty planners recommended that Drish's school and rec center not include an outdoor gun range, automobile driving course, search and rescue training, or mud-bogging. They also said one of the existing campsites had been constructed too close to the neighboring property in Pilot Country Estates.
The suggested limitation is illegal, said Drish's attorney, Barbara Wilhite. The proposed land-use change has "nothing to do with guns or gun ranges. He will continue to shoot on his property under his constitutional rights,'' Wilhite told Pasco County's top-level administrators, sitting as the Development Review Committee.
But it's not just Drish pulling the trigger.
"He invites his friends,'' Wilhite said.
Neighbors said anybody can be his friend, for a price.
The animosity spilled over last week during the nearly 3 1/2-hour DRC hearing. Wilhite criticized county staffers and said the county was treating her client punitively and differently from other ranch owners who operate event centers.
But a dozen members of the public objected to Drish's proposal and detailed their loss of sleep, solitude and peace of mind from gunfire blasts that can continue for hours at a time. They said he had mud-bogging contests without obtaining proper permits, and only calls to the Sheriff's Office headed off another illegal event. Additionally, they showed pictures of an approximately 12-foot-tall fabric and mesh fence filled with swiss-cheese-like holes that Drish had installed to obstruct the backyard views of his neighbors.
"A spite fence,'' said Wayne Hawkins, 65, a Vietnam War veteran and retired Pasco sheriff's deputy who said he and his wife plan to sell their home in Pilot Country Estates.
"I can't take it anymore,'' said Hawkins, who said Veterans Administration doctors have diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder that can be exacerbated by gunfire.
DRC members questioned the compatibility of the school with the surrounding land, but delayed a final vote on Drish's plan until March 26. The County Commission will consider the matter in April.
Unless the proposal is changed drastically, commissioners are likely to hear the same testimony as the DRC, including neighbors questioning the economic benefit of a public safety school. More probable, residents said, is a decline in property values in the adjoining residential areas. The two neighborhoods account for more than $630,000 in annual property tax payments to the county and school district. The ranch pays less than $4,000.
And public safety concerns should go beyond the proposed school, they said.
"If his gun fire hits an aircraft,'' said Phelps, "it's not going to be a pretty sight."