Comp Plan Update Task 3

Hello Tuesday!

Going to shift gears a bit today and talk about the Comprehensive Plan update that the county is currently undergoing. If you are unfamiliar with that, you can read about it here.

The county's chosen company is Inspire Placekeeping Collective. Regardless of whether we agree that it needs to be redone or not, this is the process that the BOCC decided to go through and the process they decided to spend $560k on doing.

Now that we are committed and the project is off and running, time for the community to buy into it. We cannot complain about it if we do not take part.

Today, they are starting the 3rd Task of the Comp Plan update with meetings with local stakeholders.

What happened to Tasks 1 and 2 you ask? Well they are apparently done since they are based around gathering information and preparation for the first major task... Task 3.

And now we are entering Task 3 with a day full of meetings.

I was invited to take part in this step of the process and will be going to the meeting today. I won't post specifics of that so that people do not randomly show up wanting to take part, but apparently someone in the county values my opinion enough to include me in the process... so for that I am grateful to have a voice in the matter.

I presume the website and all the other tasks are nearing completion as I was sent a link to a site to fill out a survey if I could not attend the meeting. Again, I will not post that here just yet as I do not want to sway anything as I am hoping this survey is statistically sound. I am also not sure if this is just a survey for the stakeholders or if it will be for the general public as well.

Update: The link is on the county website, so sharing here.

https://www.inspire-engagement.com/citrus-county-comp-plan

If I can share, I certainly will.

I did go through the survey, although I did not submit it. It is pretty thorough. It asks a lot of questions citizens are interested in. It allows people to give their opinion on various matters related to the county. It will be interesting to see the answers if this is the final survey citizens will participate in.

But this project will be called Citrus County 2050. I think it is safe sharing that detail and the graphic.

Honestly, I am not sure what to expect today for the meeting. I would presume it would ask similar questions as the survey I went through. I would also assume there will be more question and answer type things as well.

The meetings are held with small groups of 10 people at a time over an hour and a half. I assume that will allow for a bit of discussion within those groups and that feedback will be included in the study when presented to the BOCC.

I got curious on who was invited to take part in this, so I asked for staff to send me the list of those who were invited to participate. It is a public record document at this point, so no issues with me sharing this list. I did redact email addresses of those included as they do not need to be bombarded with emails from random people in Citrus County.

The commissioners were asked by staff to forward names of people who they thought would be a good person to include in this process. That is why you see their names next to some of the attendees. Interestingly, my name isn't on this list, so not sure who added me or suggested that I take part... But hey, I got a reservation for a meeting, so I am taking it 😄

At first glance, the list reads like the who's who of development decision making in Citrus County. You have people from the Chamber and Building Alliance, Developers, City officials from both cities, PDC members, Land Use Attorneys, a member of the school board and citizens who have been active in the community a bit with various things. It is a pretty broad group of people in terms of what they represent.

However, if I were to guess, I would say this list is largely composed of those who generally favor development. Some are obvious like the developers and the land use attorneys who generally work for developers and profit off growth and development... others are more subtle. I would have liked to see it a bit more "anti growth" represented, but they did certainly add some voices who have been vocal against it or at least want it slowed a bit.

I will keep you all posted with how it goes and share what I can about the process/meeting. We are spending A LOT of money on this, so I do not want to mess it up if sharing some details will do that.

Stay tuned.

As for the rest of the process. It is expected to take 17 months of so to complete, so they are looking at early 2027 for the final product.

But you can get involved before then.

Task 4 is where the community starts to have a say.

I do not have any details of those events yet, but as soon as I do, I will be sure to share them.

Tasks 5 - 9 will include 3 workshops open to the public. After each workshop, data will be analyzed and then likely included in the planning of the next workshop.

Again, once I have those dates, I will be sure to let everyone know.

I am looking forward to the meeting today and have some questions prepared should we be allowed to ask them.

Enjoy your Tuesday!