Comp Plan Amendments

Next Tuesday at the BOCC meeting, commissioners will discuss two Comprehensive Plan Amendments...

1) Transportation Concurrency
2) Open/Space Recreation requirements

First, we will hear them discuss Transportation Concurrency.

A little history on that.

Transportation concurrency requires builders/developers/etc to do transportation studies to show the projected impacts of their projects on the roads. Each road is given a level of service (LOS). If the project produces enough traffic to reduce the LOS, then the project pays its proportional share of the costs to expand the roads. The county would pay a share and the project would pay a share.

This is similar to what we have with water and sewer today. Some projects can be done with no upgrades. Other projects require upgrades like larger pipes or lift stations.

Transportation concurrency would be similar, just related to roads.

In 2011, the state passed “The Community Planning Act" (HB 7207) which allowed counties to opt out of transportation concurrency. This came up during the year when a certain land use attorney came to the board to suggest the the commissioners utilize the opt out option. The reasoning was that concurrency required developments to do costly transportation studies and that it hurt economic development.

Coming out of the crash in 2008, counties wanted to spur growth. This allowed them to help do that... and help make it cheaper for development to happen here in Citrus, including large residential projects. If they did not have to contribute towards road expansion, then its cheaper.

At the time, the commissioners said that roads were in excellent condition and there would be no real need for expansion at that time. They could find a way to address roads in the future, but this allowed growth to come... at a reduced cost and without the traffic studies concurrency required.

At the meeting, the land use attorney urged the commissioners to opt out because all the other surrounding counties were going to opt out. Keeping it, Citrus would be more expensive. Commissioners agreed and voted 5-0 to opt out. Fun fact... none of the surrounding counties opted out.

Worth mentioning, is this video of a citizen getting up to say her peace regarding all of this. She made a bold projection. She was the only one to speak in opposition. Two people spoke in support... the Citrus County Building Alliance and the land use attorney.

Hint.. she was right.

The board then consisted of Joe Meek, Rebecca Bays, Dennis Damato, Winn Webb and JJ Kenney.

Since that time, as we all know, growth in Citrus has skyrocketed and as a result of this vote, the developers/projects/etc have not had to pay for their share of the road traffic impacts. Roads have never been a priority of any board since this decision

It is interesting that 15 years after her vote to opt out of transportation concurrency (and just before an election), Bays decides to bring a "concurrency" topic to the board for discussion.

Where has this idea been all along?

In any case, I use "concurrency" because my understanding of it is that it is not true concurrency like we had. It is modeled after the Pasco County Comp Plan, who used the same Comp Plan consultant as we are (Inspire). I will await full details during the discussion, but I have been told that it is not quite the same thing and may not be concurrency at all.

Pasco calls is "non-concurrency".

So we will see what this is all about...

The other Comp Plan Amendment that is on the agenda is coming from Diana Finegan. She is bringing up the open space and recreation element that calculates how much open space a development project needs.

Back in 2022, when James Dicks was working on the Crystal Ridge (Rock Crusher) project approvals, they had asked for a deviation from the comp plan. They wanted to use the drainage retention areas in the open space requirements.

You see, the county requires projects to have a certain amount of open space (20% I believe). This means that they cannot just build a ton of houses with zero lot lines and no open space. They have to incorporate open space into their project.

Prior to the change, open space was just that... space that was open and not dedicated for another use. Dicks and his team wanted to include the drainage retention ponds as open space for the project. Previously, this was not allowed.

The board granted that deviation and asked staff to bring back a Comp Plan Amendment to make that change. They did so and it was approved.

Why does this matter? Because if a developer can no longer use the retention ponds as open space, they have to create more open space in their project. This means less homes... and presumably... less income. This may make a project no longer feasible.

Why is this amendment coming now? Well development is pretty accelerated and people have been clear... they want to keep the nature coast the nature coast. This means more greenspace and less homes. Removing the drainage as open space creates more greenspace in the communities. This would appear to be what people in this county want to see.

Not sure why the BOCC decided to make the change back then... aside from it helping a developer friend... so we will see how this goes.

Should be a fun meeting next week.