53,000 Lots to go.

Happy Friday. What a week. Looking forward to relaxing a bit this weekend and not spending the entire weekend researching... unless something comes up we do not anticipate that requires it... but hopefully we don't get that and we can get back to the hard stuff next week. Here is to hoping!

Today, we are going "light".

We often hear that growth is coming to Citrus County... and that is true. Commissioners, the Chamber, and so on tell us that we have 53,000 lots or so that are buildable here in this county. That is 53,000 houses that can be built and the county can do nothing to stop it.

And that is true. Those are platted lots and someone can build a house on them tomorrow and nothing can be done to stop it. It is true that those houses would represent growth that we cannot stop. I am 100% in agreement with that.

However, we have roads that desperately need attention. We have roads that need to be widened. Try driving somewhere... what used to take 15-20 mins now takes 30+. I used to be able to drive from my office in Crystal River (next to bowling alley on 44) to Citrus High School in 20 mins a few years ago. Now it takes every bit of 30 mins. That traffic in Inverness can be horrendous.

That is growth that was planned for. All of that traffic is from lots that were already platted previously. Something around 2,500 homes are built a year on already platted lots. It is not from the growth from the larger developments that have been approved. To my knowledge, none of those have been built. Crystal Ridge is starting.. Amber Ridge is close to permitting I believe. Other than that, I am drawing a blank on what large project has started.

What happens when those projects start to add rooftops? None of those projects are included in the 53,000 number since they are not platted yet. I do not know the true number but there has to be at least 10,000 homes that have been approved the last few years that have not even started yet.

None of those projects have added traffic to our roads, except perhaps 486/491 commercial growth drawing people here. But I would guess that the majority of the people who use those establishments live here and are not coming from other areas.

Then we have projects like the Pulte Project I shared on Facebook the other day.. 667 homes. There is a project for Southern Woods (74 homes), Citrus Springs has a new project (447 homes), Post Oak Ranch has 1,750 homes (I will write more about this shortly), Betz Farm has 1,466 homes, a project in Lecanto with 102 units, 200 apartments in Homosassa, Garden Street Communities Southeast with 390 homes, Hills of Lecanto with 38 townhomes, Hampton Hills just approved for up to 30 homes, and others we do not know about.

Those above represent an additional 4,497 units. On top of what has already been approved and on top of what has already been platted.

This also does not include large parcels of property that may be zoned something like Medium Density residential that can have up to 4 units per acre without BOCC approval.

I am all for letting people do what they want with their property so long as it is within the allowances of the LDC and Comp Plan. If you own medium density residential, by all means, build 4 homes per acre.. You will not see me complain about that.

However, that is NOT what we are seeing and we need to have that discussion. If we say water is our number one priority and we say that we have planned for the growth in this county, why are we approving beyond what was planned for? Every single project that comes before the BOCC comes because they need approval because they are asking for something that is not allowed by right.

Those approvals should be the exception, not the norm. Yes, it is true that the BOCC has turned projects down, but it is also true that projects they should have denied were approved... often because they like the builder, the design concept, etc... not because it is this great thing for this county.

Often we hear them say "Well they have rights to build..." and that is true... but they do not have the right to build what they are asking to build... that is why they are at the BOCC in the first place. Commissioners need to remember that. They can say "no" and that is ok. Saying "no" does not increase the risk of a lawsuit, as they may have you believe. There is nothing that says that the county HAS to say yes. The burden is on the applicant to prove that their project belongs, not on the BOCC to say why it doesn't. HUGE difference they tend to forget.

But question I have not seen asked nor answered...

If we planned for an additional 53,000 straws to pull water from the aquifer, what happens when we really add 65,000.... 70,000... 80,000? Has anyone had that conversation? Because those 53,000 lots do not go away if we approve developments with over 10,000 more.

It is true not all of those 53,000 lots will be built. It is also true that many of these projects may not even come to fruition. The Tuscany project has been "allowed" to build close to 6,000 homes for over 40 years, yet has not done so. Maybe they never get to that number... but they would not be allowed to build that many today if we held them to the LDC standards.

If we think traffic is bad now, just wait for these new developments to start coming online and no real plan on what it means for our water, roads, environment, etc.

Something to think about this upcoming election.