INDIANTOWN — The long-stalled Quillen Development of Regional Impact is dead and the developer is missing in action.

The Martin County Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to kill the proposal for 2,250 houses and 150,000 square feet of commercial space at the intersection of Warfield Boulevard and Allapattah Road in Indiantown.

Officials with the project’s developer, Ascot Development of Delray Beach, did not attend Tuesday’s public hearing on the fate of the project, which was first proposed in December 2005. The developer paid $58.5 million for the land.

Ascot Development officials have not been in contact with Martin County since Dec. 16 when the commissioners postponed action on the Quillen project because the plans did not meet county rules for roads, schools, utilities, engineering and storm water, parks and recreation and comprehensive and community planning.

The land-use lawyer and the land planner working for Quillen on the project also reported they have not heard from Ascot since then, said Joe Banfi, the county planner coordinating the review of the project.

The developer still owes the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council $17,403 in fees and would’ve had to pay a $14,440 resubmittal fee to Martin County to keep the project going, county records show.

Commissioner Ed Ciampi, whose district includes part of Indiantown, said the project should be rejected because of the developer’s lack of communication and the need to avoid wasting county planners’ time.

The plans to transform a cow pasture in the rural village into a small town by 2017 also included an alternative proposal for 1 million square feet of industrial space and a railroad and trucking hub on 331 acres along Warfield Boulevard.

In addition, the developer qualified for $5 million in state grants to build affordable housing as part of the Quillen project.

By George Andreassi

Tags: beach, commissioners, communication, development, fees, grants, housing, Indiantown, missing, roads, Schools, utility, vote, water

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 10:20 am and is filed under Economy, Martin County. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.