Bringing golf, community and open space back to Walden Lake
For years, 319 acres in the middle of this community have sat fallow — two closed golf courses growing over. There is a plan to change that, and it is now in front of the City of Plant City.
-
340homes
proposed across 319.3 acres
-
1.74averaged homes per acre
where the land is approved for up to 5
-
9holes
a new course, The Patch
-
40%open space
committed minimum — about 60% expected
What is being proposed
Walden Lake was planned, from the beginning, as a community built around a golf course. When the course closed, the land did not go anywhere. It simply stopped being used, and it has been deteriorating in plain view of the people who live around it ever since.
Walden Lake, LLC has applied to the City of Plant City to modify the Walden Lake Planned Development so that this land can be put back to work. The plan has three parts: a new 9-hole golf course with a clubhouse, 340 new homes, and a network of parks, trails and preserved open space across the majority of the property.
The homes pay for the golf course and the open space. That is the trade at the center of this application, and it is worth stating plainly rather than burying: 319 acres of private land cannot be maintained as recreation and green space without something to fund it.
What the plan does not do is push the limits of what this land is already entitled to. The Planned Development that governs Walden Lake was approved for 4,558 homes. Roughly 1,211 of those were never built. This application asks for 340 — a little over one home per acre, on land where the City's own plan allows up to six.
Community benefits
What approval would mean for the people already living here:
- Return of golf to Walden Lake
- New clubhouse and gathering spaces
- Community parks and trails
- Preservation of substantial open space
- Revitalization of long-vacant former golf course property
- New investment in community amenities
- Additional buffering and landscape preservation
- Stormwater and environmental improvements
See the whole property
The Community Plan illustrates the proposed product locations, the golf course, the parks and the open space in one drawing, over an aerial photograph of the neighborhood as it exists today. It is worth looking at before forming a view.
Open the plan →This is a public decision
The application is pending. The City of Plant City will hold public hearings, and anyone may speak or write to the record — whether they support the plan, oppose it, or simply want something explained. If you live in Walden Lake, your view carries weight in this process. Here is how to use it.
How to be heard →