While there is no immediate proposal to develop the 162 acres, its owners wanted to ensure city officials agree with them on what is allowed there.

Original plans for the site, which remain valid, also allow a clubhouse, fitness center and marina with 189 boat slips.

An effort to make the western half of the sprawling property a nature preserve, creating South Tampa's second-largest waterfront park, fell apart in December.

Development of the property stretching between South West Shore Boulevard and Old Tampa Bay dates to the mid-1960s opening of the Georgetown complex that eventually had 624 apartments.

In 2005, Motta Group, Fort Lauderdale, bought the property for $125 million. It planned to raze the apartments, and build 1,249 condominiums and single-family homes. Georgetown tenants were ordered out by Oct. 31, 2007.

Then the real estate market slumped. The Motta Group's plan fizzled in 2008 and the property went into foreclosure.

In October 2009 a group headed by DeBartolo Development bought it for $31.5 million.

The sale included an option for the Trust for Public Land to buy half the site through Hillsborough County's Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program, but negotiations broke down over the asking price and other issues.

Julia Cole, an assistant city attorney who deals with land issues, said the property is vested based on approval of the 2005 Motta plan.

"We created a process in our code that you could receive a vested rights determination, like a grandfathering," allowing the city's zoning administrator to make a determination based upon work completed, Cole said.

Based upon prior approval, the current owners spent more than $700,000 for engineering and demolition, according to their vested rights application. Those rights are valid until July 7, 2016.

Approval of the Motta plan was predicated, in part, on a 2005 determination by Tampa's then-chief transportation planning engineer that the former Georgetown site "shall not be defined as a large-scale development." Addressing traffic generated by the completed project, the 2008 approval allows for 6,316 average daily trips.

Ron Weaver, a Tampa land-use attorney and agent for the property's owners, said town houses and rental apartments likely will be in the mix. "They're still making their decision with respect to this fascinating economy we're in," Weaver said.

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"Whatever happens north of Gandy [Boulevard], in a lot of cases, affects us south of Gandy," said Al Steenson, president of Gandy/Sun Bay South, one of the civic associations notified in writing of the vested rights request.

Steenson said his worries about additional traffic are lessened somewhat by a requirement that the developers provide a signal at the project's West Shore Boulevard entrance.

"My concern," said Jerry Frankhouser, president of Bayside West Neighborhood Association, "is how do you enforce there's only going to be 6,000 trips a day" generated by the development?

Frankhouser's group will follow the project and lobby for improvements, he said, adding, "We really would love to have a park there," if only a small one among the trees bordering West Shore Boulevard.