Residents oppose major rezoning request for Sand Hill Scout Reservation

Scouts are seeking to reclassify about 604 acres of the Sand Hill Scout Reservation from recreation to a planned development district, a change that could give the Brooksville property far more flexibility than it has now. The request has sharpened resident opposition because the county has already moved on part of the site once before.

That earlier action came in September 2025, when the Hernando County Board of County Commissioners approved rezoning for a 52-acre portion of the reservation. The new request is far larger, and that scale is driving concerns about traffic, noise, stormwater, conservation and the land-use precedent a planned development designation could set for other large parcels in Hernando County.

A planned development district typically allows property owners more room to organize and use land than a standard recreation zoning category. For neighbors around Sand Hill Scout Reservation, that raises the central question now hanging over the site: whether a property long tied to scouting could eventually support more intensive development than residents expect from recreation land.

The current fight also sits on top of a longer-running debate over the reservation’s future. In August 2024, the Boy Scouts were in talks to sell a 50-acre slice of the Brooksville reservation, and another report that month said the organization was exploring the sale of 500 acres of the Sand Hill camp in Brooksville. Those discussions made clear that the controversy was not limited to one zoning map change, but to the future of a much larger tract of land.

That broader concern has already drawn public action. FOX 13 Tampa Bay reported on a rally aimed at thwarting a potential partial sale of the Sand Hill Scout Reservation, and on discussion over a possible sale despite former owner Larry DiePolder’s dying wish that his 1,300 acres be used by the Boy Scouts forever. The Greater Tampa Bay Area Council has also acknowledged recent news and social media discussion focused on Sand Hill Scout Reservation.

For Hernando County, the rezoning request is more than a technical land-use file. It could become the framework for how one of Brooksville’s largest and most recognizable properties is managed, protected and possibly transformed in the years ahead.