Well this is Interesting

Happy Commission Tuesday!

Today may turn into an interesting one.

On the agenda, we have a Land Development Code (LDC) amendment. This is being brought by Commissioner Diana Finegan.

This item, if approved, would be removing the red text.

This all came about back in 2022 when the Dix development group (Crystal Ridge) was working to get the project approved that would be going in at the Rock Crusher Canyon property. His engineers designed the project to utilize the drainage retention areas (DRA) and required buffers as open space. This allowed them to add more homes to the project than what would have been allowed in the LDC.

After they approved it for the Dix project, it was suggested by the county commissioners at the time (Davis, Kinnard, Kitchen, Carnahan and Schlabach) to make this change in the LDC to allow projects that come as a PUD to ask for this in their project. Now, almost every single PUD comes to the board using the drainage retention areas and buffers as their open space.

Now, we are in a time where the community talk about preserving the Nature Coast and wanting to tap the brakes on the developments. People want to see more green space and less houses.

Makes sense. We call ourselves the Nature Coast, so why not require more green space in projects? Why not have a set standard in the community going forward the preserves those values?

Well... our good friend Rob Batsel has other ideas. He sent an email to commissioners yesterday objecting to this change and provided the language that he would like to see used.

Basically, he is wanting DRAs to be allowed to be open space so long as they look "pretty" (my word). Make them landscaped and sloped nicely and they should be counted.

The argument here is that more space for development allows more homes. In theory, this reduces the price per home that is being built. He basically says that this lowers the per-unit cost.

Expect to hear this come up a lot at the meeting tomorrow. Commissioners know housing costs are a major concern in this county and they are eager to come up with ways to reduce the housing costs. The idea is that more houses equals cheaper prices. Higher densities equal more houses. Allowing less open space equals the ability for more density.

See how that works?

The problem is... these homes are not being sold as "affordable" housing or even "workforce" housing. They are being sold at market rates for the most part. That is $300-400k homes.

Further, they are not all being built at one time. Simple supply and demand would indicate more supply equals lower costs... but these houses are not coming online at the same time to flood the market. They are being built in stages based on market demand... so they can support the prices that the developers need for their profit margins.

He also admits in the email that if its an affordable housing project, they can get a 10% reduction in openspace. So if it is about lowering housing costs with density, the option is there.

All this does is allows higher density market rate homes which will not reduce housing costs and make them more affordable.

My challenge to the board (and to Batsel)... show me one instance where allowing the reduction in open space due to counting the DRAs and buffers has led to reduced housing costs to make them more affordable.

If I am a betting man... I am going to assume that Kinnard, Davis and Bays side with Batsel on this one. Davis and Kinnard voted for it the first time. Bays was not in office at the time, but she tends to be on the pro-growth side and certainly on team Batsel after the Betz farm contract saga.

So I expect them to go along with Batsel's suggestion in a 3-2 vote (Finegan and Barek opposed).

What's more interesting... Why is Batsel involved in this at all? Well he has Betz Farm (also a Dix project) coming to the PDC and then BOCC in a few weeks. If this amendment is to pass, that will affect how Betz is viewed because that project relies on the DRAs and Buffers to meet the open space requirements.

Interesting how all this is related, huh?

Enjoy the day everyone!