We Need Your Help

Gulfport citizens living near the front and the back nine of the former Great Southern Golf Course fronting the Gulf of Mexico beaches are working to Save their Neighborhoods that will be negatively impacted by plans of the Florida-based developer Arbor, LLC to build two subdivisions on the former golf course. While the architectural renderings for the back nine are not yet available for review, the General Plan for the development around the front nine holes of the golf course was narrowly approved by a 4-3 vote of the Planning Commission 23 June 2022 with no pause to remediate multiple problems presented by scores of concerned citizens. Alarmed that the Gulfport Planning Commission ignored its responsibilities to put the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens first, a community group filed an appeal with the Gulfport City Council, paid the fees for the required appeal documents, and was placed on the City Council’s agenda for 20 September 2022. In a shocking and unprecedented move, the city attorneys stated that the citizens had no rights to appeal Arbor’s General Plan and that the City Council had to remove the citizens’ appeal from its agenda. This decision is being appealed in court 

The Mayor, City Council, and Planning Commission Should Do the Following Tasks before Final Approval of Arbor’s Final Platt for the Development of the Former Great Southern Golf Course:

1. Mandate an analysis of the negative impact of excessive density and require remediation.
2. Require Arbor to remediate or remove the identified contaminated soil on the development site to prevent airborne asbestos and banned chemicals that are airborne from becoming a serious health hazard for the nearby neighborhoods. 
3. Provide to the public an ecological assessment based on the presence of known toxins and a report on the impact on humans and wildlife of the toxins flowing directly into the Mississippi Sound from storm water runoff.  Require the developer’ s drainage plan to include retention ponds to reduce the amount of contaminated groundwater flowing into the Mississippi Sound.  
4. Enforce all the city building codes for the development of subdivisions, including the code requiring that subdivisions conform with the character of the surrounding neighborhoods in mass and form to retain the property values of existing residents.
5. Require Arbor to make a detailed Traffic Impact Assessment and release the results to MDOT, to the City, and to the neighborhoods impacted by increased traffic (all streets affected). The assessment should analyze traffic flow, traffic density, safety, infrastructure plans delineating the placement of new in and out of the back nine holes which are currently land-locked.
6. Require Arbor’s plan to comply with the fire apparatus access road requirements of the International Fire Code and provide two ingress/egress roads from the development onto Beach Drive.
7. Present remediation plans for the long traffic line in the north-bound lane of Anniston Avenue at pick-up times at the nearby elementary school that forces two-way traffic into the single south-bound lane. Disclose the amount of new taxes that will be assessed to build more classrooms at Anniston Elementary, reveal if school redistricting and/or busing to other districts will be the solution for overcrowding, and explain the effect of construction noise on children’s educations
8. Assure that Protected and Historic Trees on the development site and the adjacent properties will not be removed or harmed during construction.