NEW TAMPA - CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this article we stated that 600 homes were to be added on top of the golf course. This was the maximum number of homes allowed. They are currently looking to build 200-250 homes under the current plan.

UPDATE: Hillsborough Commissioners on Wednesday denied a request to call150 acres at the Pebble Creek Golf Club in New Tampa a brownfield.

According to partner newspaper the Tampa Bay Times, the unanimous vote followed a 30-minute public hearing in which 10 speakers objected to the brownfield designation sought by Ace Golf Inc. County staff also recommended denying the application because it meant a net loss of 30 jobs after the course closed. 

Ace Golf wanted the brownfield label as a precursor to cleaning contaminants from the land and selling it for residential development.

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Pebble Creek Golf Club in New Tampa could soon be the newest Brownfields Site in Hillsborough County if commissioners approve the status at a meeting this Wednesday.

Ace Golf and owner Bill Place have applied for the status in an effort to shut the course down and develop the property.

It wants to add 200-250 homes on top of the golf course. However preliminary soil samples show some parts of the course are polluted with old fertilizers, some of them now banned, that were used since the course opened in 1967 to maintain it, particularly the tee boxes and greens.

Place says the course has lost support in recent years, and with too many other competing courses in the area, Pebble Creek Golf Club simply isn't making enough money to remain viable.

"Here at Pebble Creek with over 1,300 homes in our subdivision, only 20 are actual members of this golf club," Place said. "We need a lot more support to possibly survive and it is just not happening."

But developing the golf course and building homes on top of it will be an expensive process.

Mitigation crews would need to test the soil, then dig out 1-2 feet of dirt in all areas with too high a concentration of contaminants.

Testing is already underway, however Place has asked the county to deem the property a Brownfields Site, a designation laced with tax and financial incentives that could help fund between 50-75 percent of the cleanup.

Brownfields are typically known for old properties that were home to shuttered factories and industrial sites.

"I think the community has accepted that it will be re-developed, it's just this Brownfields designation, nobody wants that," Pebble Creek homeowner Shane Billings said.  "You don't really see Brownfields designation out in suburban areas like this."

Billings doesn't just own a home in Pebble Creek, he has also worked in commercial real estate for 30 years.

Billings says he has found no past golf courses that were designated as Brownfields Sites in Hillsborough County, and if commissioners approve the designation it will cause property values to drop in the neighborhood.

"The moment they hear Brownfields, they all think Superfund, EPA clean up site, which is not the case," Billings said.

The only soil at Pebble Creek Golf Club likely above the threshold of pollutants is on tee boxes and greens, not impacting any existing homes in the neighborhood.

With or without a Brownfields designation, Place says the golf course will eventually shut down.

If County Commissioners approved the Brownfields Status at a meeting on Wednesday, Place says the course will likely shut down in late spring of 2021.