SEBRING — When Ave Maria opened last year in Collier County, two large landowners in Highlands County started working on a plan to conserve their land so they could organize the same kind of city, minus the controversies that surround that development.

But after a series of fits and starts, the Rural Land Stewardship Area Program appears dead in Highlands County.

First, Lykes Bros. dropped out of the program. Now, Atlanticblue has put in a more traditional rezoning request.

Susie Bishop, an Atlanticblue spokeswoman, said Atlanticblue got tired of waiting for the state to review the program rules, and was discouraged by what she described as a new leadership in Tallahassee that stripped the program of incentives.

"They've been working on this for over a year," Bishop said of the rule changes. "Have we eliminated it from our ideas? No, but we're just not sure which way it was headed."

Originally, the program would have required Atlanticblue and Lykes Bros. to conserve parts of their property considered environmentally sensitive.

In return, they could develop a less-sensitive part of their land at a higher density than their agricultural zoning would allow, as long as the development could sustain itself without government money.

The county's application was initially criticized by the Department of Community Affairs last July, when it stated that it would only consider one of the two applications. Lykes withdrew its application the following month.

Atlanticblue opted to make what is called a comprehensive plan amendment application May 13, which is a request to rezone. Atlanticblue is asking to rezone several parts of its 65,000-acre Blue Head Ranch.

The massive land area, which covers the Highlands-Desoto county line from the area west of Leisure Lakes south to Venus, takes up about a tenth of the entire county.

Bishop said that the development plans for Blue Head Ranch will be pretty much intact, except that the conservation aspects are now voluntary. Still, she said, Atlanticblue intends to conserve all the natural resources on its property planned under Rural Land Stewardship .

And 50 years from now, Bishop said the county could still see a major "walkable, sustainable community" on their ranch. As with a Rural Land Stewardship plan, the yet-unnamed development would be sustained without outside government funding for its infrastructure and schools.

"That's still our goal," she said.

Bishop said the Highlands County Planning and Zoning Commission will review their new request next month, even though she didn't have an exact date yet.