Comp Plan Preview

It is a Monday... not sure what that means other than a start of a new week. Last week was sort of crazy, so it was good to get a bit of a break in writing.

But we are back today with a big conversation. The Comprehensive Plan.

Tonight is the public open house. This will NOT be a presentation type thing. It is literally an open house. Go to the Lecanto Government Building and walk through the various displays they will have out. You can also ask questions to the people who created the Draft of the 2050 Comp Plan.

It is an interesting idea. No real public discussion or presentation (yet) that actually walks through it. Just an open house where you can walk through it yourself.

Interesting.

The PDC did have a good exchange with Eric Landon last week. They basically challenged him to provide them with a workshop opportunity to walk through the Comp Plan with them... the advisory board that will make a recommendation to the county commissioners.

Apparently, there was no plan to walk through it with the PDC members. The county staff was just going to bring it to them at one of the meetings early next year for the discussion and vote on the same day.

The PDC members were not happy with that plan. They wanted to have a presentation to go through the Comp Plan, ask questions, etc.... then have it come back in the future for the full discussion and vote. This way the PDC members could digest it a bit.

Makes me wonder what the plan is for the BOCC. Do they get a preview of this? Is there going to be a public workshop where they can discuss it? Remember, they cannot talk to each other outside of a meeting. This should be a very public process, but I have not seen any workshops or anything scheduled with them.

Hopefully they are there and just have not been announced yet.

In any case, go out tonight and get a preview on what is to come.

I will spend some time going through various sections in upcoming posts until we get to the implementation stage. This will help some of you get more information. I have uploaded all the documents into AI software and have been building some comparisons between the current Comp Plan and the proposed changes.

Interesting stuff.

One thing I wanted to point out which is a HUGE change and one thing I will ask about this evening.

The county is creating "Targeted Growth Areas" and "Rural Protection Areas". These are exactly as they sound. Here is a map.

The goal of the TGA is to drive the growth to those areas. They are the areas with the infrastructure to support the growth and areas that have been planned for decades. This is the brown area on the map above.

Mostly, everything in the middle of the county north of 44 until 41/200.

The goal of the RPA is to protect the rural development areas from overgrowth. This is the green on the map. Dark green is conservation areas.

Here are the goals from the document.

One interesting thing that is being proposed with all of this is something they are calling "Transfer of Development Rights Program" or "TDR".

Here is the goal.

Citrus County shall establish a transfer of development rights (TDR) program. The TDR program shall allow property owners in designated sending areas (Rural Preservation Areas) to sell their development rights to property owners in designated receiving areas (Targeted Growth Areas).

and here is the rest.

Basically... this program will create sending and receiving zones. The idea is that land in the sending zone can sell development rights of their properties. The developer that owns land in the receiving zone can buy those rights and apply them to their receiving lands.

This allows the developer to double the by right density of their land.

So land currently zoned Medium Density Residential that allows up to 4 units and acre would be able to double that to 8 units an acre... by right. They would NOT need to go to the BOCC for approval of that, as they currently have to do.

So. Take Tuscany Ranch. Some of those parcels will be 10 units an acre. If they buy the development rights from someone in the "sending" category, they can apply it to their project and get 20 units an acre.

Amber Ridge and our favorite developer James Dicks. He can double the density of his project there if he buys the development rights from someone in the sending area.

Not sure how I feel about all of that.

The idea is to preserve areas in the "sending" zone and keep them from being developed... and allowing more density in the "receiving" zones, presumably around the infrastructure, creating less sprawl by allowing more density and less need to "spread".

I get the concept, but how will it work in practice? How are the zones determined? Who has the final say? Is there a public hearing process for those changes? How does someone get added to a "sending" or "receiving" area if they desire to do so?

Lots of questions.

But the main question I have here is how they protect the land selling their development rights from ever being built upon. What is the mechanism to control that? How long does that last? How long does the developer have to build out their higher density project? What kind of housing projects can be built with this?

Hopefully we can get some of those answers starting this evening. Hope to see you there!