Pinellas Property Online

East Lake Woodlands residents soundly squashed Oldsmar's March bid to annex more than 2,000 acres of their community.

 Eastlake homeowners to build a new line of defense: a community overlay that would protect East Lake's unincorporated borders against future city bids.

Council leaders say the overlay would broadly state shared values and concerns regarding density, zoning and development.

"This is our way of defining the area and asking, 'What is East Lake?' " said council president Don Ewing, 58. "We're one community, and this would just define the character of the area."

The overlay would likely resemble an initiative by Tierra Verde residents in 2007 that defined themselves as a "cohesive island community," written in the months before St. Petersburg's attempt at annexation.

That bid, like voters' 92 percent rejection of Oldsmar's attempt, failed in the face of a loud public outcry.

Creating an overlay similar to Tierra Verde's will take time, Ewing said.

That community has 3,500 residents, about a tenth of East Lake's population. Getting all to agree can take months, if not years.

Council vice president Ron Schultz, 43, said homeowners and businesspeople, though differing on the details, will likely agree on what county documents call "community character."

"They just want to make sure they don't have further chunks of our little area taken out of the East Lake corridor. If you lose residents . . . you lose a little more clout in your neighborhood," Schultz said. "This is what we want to maintain. As long as we stay within those guidelines, it's okay."

If approved by the County Commission, the overlay will be adopted into the county's Comprehensive Plan, and formsthe basis for county rule on capital, land use and infrastructure.

"When a group of 33,000 residents like East Lake gets together and decides this is the vision we have for our area," said Pinellas County Commissioner Neil Brickfield, "it's local government's job to respond in kind."

Though the overlay is still in its infancy, Ewing said, council leaders have asked residents in person and on their Web site "what differentiates the quality of life in East Lake from other areas of the county" and "what prompted you to move here" instead of cities like Tarpon Springs, Tampa or Oldsmar.