Stay Informed About our Neighborhood!

Join our mailing list and stay informed of upcoming events and actions you can take to protect our neighborhood.

Welcome to Save East Lake

A non profit organization filing as a 501(c)(4).

We are an association devoted to preserving our community’s character, safety, and environment by representing East Lake residents before the Pinellas County Commission and other local agencies in zoning, traffic, and environmental matters.

Our mission is simple — to protect the East Lake area from incompatible development that threatens the balance between residential neighborhoods, green space, and responsible growth.

Recently, we’ve united to oppose the proposed rezoning at 2271 Keystone Road, where Ignite Academy Inc. has requested to change 5.23 acres from Residential to Institutional to construct a two-story, 40,000-square-foot private school facility.

For perspective, the Solid Rock Community School just down the road is roughly 22,000 square feet total — and that’s spread across two separate two-story buildings. Ignite Academy’s proposed complex would nearly double that footprint on a single residential parcel.

This large-scale project would bring middle and high school operations (grades 6–12) into the heart of a residential area — raising major concerns about:

  • Traffic & Safety: Hundreds of additional daily car trips for drop-offs, pickups, and events.
  • Noise & Light Pollution: Early morning and evening activity disrupting nearby homes.
  • Property Values: Institutional buildings in residential zones often reduce surrounding home values.
  • Environmental Impact: Loss of tree canopy and wildlife habitat on over five acres of land.

We believe this development would irreversibly change the character of our neighborhood and set a precedent for future institutional expansion into residential zones.

Join us in protecting East Lake’s future — attend public hearings, share information, and stand together for thoughtful, responsible growth.

Ignite Academy Rezoning: Public Hearing Oct 8, 9:00 a.m.

The Pinellas County Local Planning Agency (LPA) will take public comment and make a recommendation on two companion items that would enable a school at 2271 Keystone Road (5.23 acres):

  • Future Land Use change (FLU-25-08): from Residential Rural (RR) to Institutional (I).
  • Zoning change (ZON-25-07): from Residential Agriculture (R-A) to Limited Institutional (LI).

Hearing details:

Date/Time: Wednesday, Oct 8, 2025, at 9:00 a.m.

Location: County Commission Assembly Room (5th Floor), 315 Court Street, Clearwater, FL 33756.

Why this matters:

Changing the land’s Future Land Use and Zoning would open the door to a school campus on a site that’s currently designated rural/agricultural. The LPA’s recommendation will move on to the Board of County Commissioners for final action at a later hearing.

How to participate:

  • Attend in person and give fact-based testimony (traffic, safety, drainage, compatibility, infrastructure, etc.). The LPA treats zoning items as quasi-judicial, so on-the-record facts carry the most weight.
  • If you can’t attend, you can still follow along and share this notice with neighbors.
property in question for rezoning request

Past Neighborhood alerts

Why Does Pioneer Homes want the City to Annex this land?

Multiple reasons including:

  • Tarpon Springs maximum zoning is residential 1-acre lots.  By being annexed, this will automatically double the density allowed for development. UPDATE after City meeting; the city votes to quadrupling the density by allowing two homes per acre or 88 homes.
  • Surrounding property owners are residents of Pinellas County and have no voting rights in the City of Tarpon Springs.  The City Commissioners will likely ignore us and allow more of our tax base to be stolen by the City. As our tax base shrinks, our property values go down and our taxes go up.  Should we let these developers laugh all the way to the bank and make extra profit on our backs?

On November 4th 2019 Pioneer Homes submitted their final site plan and development agreement which you can download and view!

What are we doing?

  • We have retained legal counsel including two attorneys and two land use experts.
  • We have had two large scale neighborhood meetings.  The second one had one hundred residents meet with our legal team at the Cypress Run Golf Club House.
  • We are going to start a fund-raising & PR campaign with yard signs, and political placards to show Pioneer Homes and the City of Tarpon Springs how much and how many of us are against this.
  • We have official support from the Cypress Run HOA and the Council of North County Neighborhoods (CNCN)
  • Audubon of Clearwater is aware of the situation and is monitoring several protected species on this property including Bald Eagles, Swallow-tailed Kites, Wood Storks and Roseate Spoonbills.  There are also a large amount (estimate 25-40) Gopher tortoises on this property so a ‘Take’ permit will be required before they can begin construction.



More than one-hundred neighbors in North East Lake have signed up for the email list. Join us, we send a bi-weekly email unless something urgent comes up we promise not spam your inbox.

Join by emailing me ([email protected]) or by filling out  the form on the left column to stay informed of ways you can help stop this annexation.

Our neighborhood is zoned agricultural with 2 acre lot minimums for a reason.

Email or call us with questions:

Save East Lake, Inc.
[email protected]