By Ken Jackson
Staff Writer

The community of Harmony, as developed, was designed to create a shallow carbon footprint by emphasizing foot traffic over car travel.

Thanks to the efforts of Greg Golgowski and some of the community’s 1,200 residents, it remains that way today, eight years later.

Golgowski, an environmental planner for Harmony Development Company since 2003, was named by Gov. Charlie Crist to the Florida Greenways and Trails Council for a term lasting 18 months.

He said the board’s biggest responsibility is to advise state staff on green space and trail matters, such as land acquisition and funding projects.

“I’ve served as staff with bodies like that, so I’m excited,” he said. “I’ll be learning about others’ experiences working with trails, and I’ll get to see how trail challenges are met elsewhere in the state.”

Harmony features nearly 13 miles of walking areas — concrete sidewalks, crushed stone trails and natural trails — a figure not including six miles of cart paths on the golf course.

The residential starting points for trails are the neighborhood’s sidewalks, designed to create comfortable neighborhood connections. Harmony’s homes were designed to emphasize rear-alley parking to make streets pedestrian-friendly.

Every neighborhood home is within a three-minute walk from one of the connector sidewalks. Natural or crushed stone surfaced trails leave the paved network at multiple points to access protected lands and lakes.

While most of Harmony’s basic development plan was already in place when Golgowski came to the community in 2003, he’s had an effect on the natural component of the trail system.

“The natural trails, and the later ones we’ve put in, we had to find new natural land,” he said.

Harmony’s master plan calls for its 500-acre lake shorelines along Buck and Cat lakes to be left undeveloped except for trail and recreational access, with the shorelines protected by conservation easements. Natural trails are used by walkers, with horses allowed where soil conditions will accept them. The Harmony Development Company ultimately manages natural trails and their signs, however, many of the trails have been built and maintained by residents.

Here’s where Harmony’s residents come in — the economic downturn has limited funding availability for many community improvements, but the silver lining is that it’s spurred community involvement to keep the trail building program advancing.

“We’ve had folks clear trails and build bridges,” Golgowski said. “We’ve got miles of trail done for a few hundred dollars, thanks to their labor. And, it’s a great way for neighbors to get to know each other.”

A park or green space is within a three-minute walk of every home. Town Center commercial and workplace areas are all within 1.5 miles. Even more unique is that every home in Harmony has walkway access to Harmony Community School and Harmony High School without having to cross a major street. A pedestrian underpass tunneling U.S. Highway 192 allows safe access to the high school.

“I can’t think of another community that allows that,” Golgowski said. “The great thing about our plan is that it clusters and compresses development. It allows more people to live near the town center.”

Golgowski’s current pet project is a trails guide that can be printed in notepad version, with plans for a version that can be accessed online or a mobile version available to GPS-enabled phones.