Double the Space?

I am back in town... Did you all miss me?

This morning I am sitting and watching the Planning and Development Commission (PDC) this morning and Citrus Hills is up talking about Clearview Estates and their desire to add more commercial square footage to its Development of Regional Impact (DRI).

Let's talk about this for a minute because people are confused about what exactly these DRIs are and all that.

DRIs were a mechanism put in place by the state to manage large projects. Beverly Hills is a DRI. Citrus Hills.. Betz Farm.. etc. These DRIs acted a lot like a Planned Unit Development (PUD) today and outlined what developers were allowed to develop. The idea was to coordinate infrastructure, protect resources, balance state and local interests and so on. The state phased these out in 2018, but the ones existing can continue to exist.

That is why we hear "they are allowed to build X based on the DRI that was in place".

In the case of Betz Farm, that is nearly 1500 homes. In the case of Citrus Hills this morning, that is 450,000 square feet of commercial buildings.

They are appearing at the PDC to ask to increase the allowable commercial square footage from 450,000 sqft to 808,600 sqft, or an increase of 358,600 sqft. According to the staff report, they "only" have 411,031 sqft available for commercial development on the GNC parcels on 44. This increase would provide them with more GNC square footage.

Let's talk about it.

This approval goes back to 70s and this area was approved for 45 acres of General Commercial Usage (GNC). The argument for this change is that development standards have changed since the 70s and that new commercial growth needs more square footage. That is why they are asking for more in this application, almost doubling what is currently available. They need the extra to meet current commercial growth demands.

Here is the problem.

Citrus Hills knew what they had when they agreed to sell to Home Depot. Now they are running out of available space to do other projects it wants to do and wants to add to the square footage amounts? This is exactly the issue people in this community have with these types of projects. They were approved for something years ago... people made decisions on buying homes, land, etc based on those approvals... and now the developer comes for changes that COMPLETELY change what will be allowed in those areas.

What about the people who purchased homes in the surrounding residential area? They likely understood those could be commercial uses and would not be trees forever, since they have been zoned commercial for decades... However, they did not know those areas would DOUBLE the allowable commercial square footage.

Would they have chosen those areas if they knew that the GNC would be doubled?

This is essentially allowing 3 more buildings the size of Home Depot to be built along 44, in addition to the 4 buildings that size they can already build... Also, the parking lots are not included in the square footage calculations, but they would have to meet parking lot requirements in order to build out those lots.

Imagine you made an investment in property in which 3 Home Depots could be built in your backyard. You are ok with that... but now there is a potential for 7?

That is what this will do.

And THAT is exactly the problem that people have with the up-zoning that we are seeing. Most people understand growth is allowed and these developments have approvals going back decades... but then those things can be changed on request?

Side note... This was approved 7-0 at the PDC this morning.

The other thing we see often is the change from the DRI to a PUD.

Betz Farm is an example. Yes, they are "allowed" to build upwards of 1500 homes. However, they have to follow the current land development code, which would not allow them to hit the 1500 homes. Instead, they switch it to a PUD with 1470 homes, getting some deviations from the LDC allowing them to build more homes than they would have otherwise been able to build.

THAT is the issue that people have with growth around here. The constantly changing of projects approved decades ago to allow them to build more homes (or commercial buildings) than they otherwise could build.