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Pasco Countymeeting record

PDD-22-7598

Published agenda

2 appearances between Mar 17, 2022 and Apr 19, 2022, at 2 boards.

OutcomeApproved by the Board of County Commissioners on Apr 19, 2022
Approved Staff’s recommendation.

Official title

Zoning Amendment (Regular) - New Port Corners MPUD Master Planned Unit Development - DCH East LLC, et al - A Rezoning Request from an A-C Agricultural Zoning District and an A-R Agricultural-Residential District to a MPUD Master Planned Unit Development District to allow for 3,400 residential units and 1,400,000 square feet of nonresidential uses on approximately 956.3 acres.

On a calendar

Mar 17, 2022Apr 19, 2022 · click a mark to jump to that appearance

Every appearance2 of 2 are in a recording

TranscriptWhat was said at each appearance is below it. Machine transcription, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 63% of 751 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.

  1. 1
    Planning CommissionP4Public hearingNo disposition in the minutes
    Open this item →
    2h 38m
    Amy Heiler

    Good afternoon, Amy Heiler with Long Range Planning. The item today you'll be hearing is uh the MPUD for Newport Corners. It is a rezoning petition in the name of PDD P 22-7598. The subject property is located within Commissioner District 4. It is also within the Central and Spring Districts of the Westmarket area.

    It's located at the northeast corner of Little Road in Decubulus, north of Plath Plath Road along the Little Road corridor.

    The applicant is proposing a rezoning petition from AC Agricultural District and AR Agricultural Residential District to MPUD Master Plan Unit Development to allow for a mixed-use development of residential, non-residential, and community-scaled uses, including retail, office, light industry, and other employment-generating uses. The intent of the proposed development is to act as a companion. Downtown to the city of Newport Ritchie through a series of well connected street networks, trails, land uses,

    and open spaces designed to complement and serve the surrounding community. Oh, sorry, I forgot to let you guys know. Um before we s get started, uh there was some ex parte forms that I submitted to the clerk's office. So I just wanted to let you know that as well. I apologize for not doing that at

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    first. Receive and file the exported form.

    Unidentified speakerVoice B

    Move to receive and file. All in favor?

    Charles GreyChair

    Aye. Aye. Motion carries.

    Unidentified speakerVoice B

    Okay.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    So we're clear, can you at least say who the f ex party meetings were With the form. Who those X party? Meetings were with

    Amy Heiler

    Who they were from?

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Yeah.

    Amy Heiler

    I can there were about nine of them, so I can reach out to the M.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Was it with everybody on the Planning Commission?

    Amy Heiler

    I think so, yeah.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Okay.

    Amy Heiler

    Yes.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Okay. That that's that's good enough.

    Amy Heiler

    Thank you.

    Charles GreyChair

    And I know I met with someone that were not on the Planning Commission, so I think we've got those two.

    Amy Heiler

    Yeah, thank you. Okay, so to continue on. So um with the applicant's request, the intent of Newport Corners um of this development is to act as a companion downtown to the city of Newport Ritchie through a series of well connected street networks, trails, land uses, and open spaces. Um as of January twenty twenty, we have actually been in um conversations and negotiations with a developer and the app. Applicant on Newport Corners. We also you have heard the comprehensive plan amendment that's currently

    at the state right now through review. So between that time and now we've been negotiating land uses, connectivity, placements, designs in the sub-area policy, as well as the MPD conditions of approval. and to ensure what what some of the negotiations that we came up that we went through were to ensure that the original intent of Newport Corners was achieved as well as maintained a balance of non-residential and residential uses within the Newport Corners

    area.

    So just to give you guys a little history background of Newport Corners, so on August 10th, 2010, the Board of County Commissioners approved a reclassification of Newport Corners. At that point in time, the reclassification was re uh amending the comprehensive plan's future land use from a series of higher density residential future landscape. Land uses to Newport Corners flu classification. At that point in time, the approved entitlements for

    Newport Corners considered the existing

    considered the existing density set by those established residential land uses at that time. And the only change then was just an increase in intensity. So back in 2010, the approved entitlements for Newport Corners were 3,397 dwelling units, as well as 4.8 million square feet of non-residential uses. So at so as it sits now, that's what's currently approved. On December 9th, 2021.

    Oh, okay, so here's your visual of what the future land use now looks like as it is. Existing. And so on December 9th, 2021, as I stated before, the Comprehensive Plan Amendment was presented to the planning or the local planning agency for review. The Comprehensive Plan Amendment was a text amendment to the existing future land use classification. The proposed amendment increased the residential density by three units, so it went from three thousand three hundred and ninety-seven units to A

    flat 3,400 units, dwelling units. It reduced the non-residential entitlements from 4.8 million square feet to 1.4 million square feet of retail office, light industry, and target industry. It also re-established the three village categories: being the Northeast Village, the Village Center, and the neighborhood general. And then we also created a connectivity plan. As a guiding planning tool for this area to ensure that the Newbore Corners was developed in a well

    connected and cohesive manner.

    So on January 25th, at that public hearing in December, we approved the comprehensive plan to the Board of County Commissioners on January 25th. The Board of County Commissioners approved the comprehensive plan amendment to DEO. DEO is currently reviewing it, and we have not received any comments or any concerns from state or federal agencies as of now. And on April nineteenth, uh the comprehensive plan amendment as well as the rezoning petition is scheduled for

    adoption. So the proposed amendment as well as the accompanying rezoning petition are currently scheduled for the April nineteenth public hearing.

    So here is the amended map two-9. Um so this is going to be embedded within the comprehensive plan. And this area um Should your visual so this is going to be your sub-area map identifying the village center, village general, and village northeast village for Newport Corners. So this is going to delineate the geography and the area for those specific uses.

    In the current or in the proposed MPUD, these are going to be your entitlements that we have approved alongside the sub-area policy. And so within the MPUD conditions of approval, we have allowed for the following entitlements: 1,825 single-family, 400 townhomes, 700 multifamily, and 400.

    And then the non-residential uses are set forth as 350,000 square feet of retail and 1,050,000 square feet of office target industry and light or target industry and light industry. And so just to give you a perspective, so the purple area being the um the Northeast village, the purple area is going to have uh up to 300 single family attached, 700 single family detached, 100,000

    square feet of retail, and 300,000 square feet of target industry and light industry in that that area. The yellow area is going to be your neighborhood general, which is permitting up to 400 single family attached, 1,125 single family detached, and 475 age restricted units. And then the village core being your red area, that is going to permit up to 400 multifamily units, 250,000 single-family

    or sorry, square foot of retail, and 750,000 square feet of office target industry.

    And those were your entitlements. And so, as I stated before, we also established the use of a connectivity plan as our planning tool for this area. So, as you can see, this is a conceptual plan that delineates single family attached, single family detached, our village center, parks and open spaces, trails, and the northeast village. So to go through a little bit of what's going to be planned in the connectivity plan, the Northeast Village is to allow for multifamily units as well as single-family

    detached and attached, civic, public, semi-public, and employment generating uses. Through the last two years, we have done negotiations with the applicant and the developer. So within the Northeast Village, we are prioritizing the employment generating uses. We have established set packs and specific locations for the residential components so they do not impact the non-residential uses and allows for enough land to prioritize employment. Generating

    uses in this area. We've also been in negotiations with Parks, Recs, and Natural Resources to establish a potential site for an urban rec center in this area. As it relates to the Magnolia Valley Park District Park, we are working with Parks and Rec as well as the developer and the property owners to ensure that this Area is provided enough park space to meet the level of service for a district

    park if Magnolia Valley does not have the opportunity to achieve that. And so by establishing this land or setting this land aside for an urban recreational center in this area, Parks and Rec has agreed to, and the applicant has agreed to reserve up to 10 acres in this area. Area of upland acres for a potential recreational center for a period of two years to determine whether or not the county actually needs it or not. And then there's also been negotiations in

    this area with the Office of Economic Development, as previously stated. The original intent of Newport Corners was to preserve the employment-generating uses in this area. And so through negotiations with Office of Economic Development, we have maintained the intent of this area to preserve the employment generating uses as it relates to the employment center that's to the north, so the this government center, as well as established

    a flex site for industry target industry uses in this area. So the Flex site will be no less than 300,000 square feet of potential office target industry in this area.

    Oh okay, sorry, confusion. Uh neighborhood general. So we'll go into a little bit of neighborhood general. This is where your um uh residential users are going to be located. As you can see, the yellow area is going to be your single family detached, the orange area is your single family attached. Here we go. The orange area you'll see around here is like your single family attached. We also have it uh if you see the red area being your village core, we have established a linear park along uh

    the proposed or potential road vision road U as it relates to the vision park, which is going to be along your river system, and that's where your um uh alley loaded product being your Single family attached and fingal v s family detached are gonna be located.

    And then the village center, we've also worked diligently to ensure that the village center is developed in a way that it complements the downtown of Newport Ritchie. So the intent of the village centers is to achieve that downtown feel. You're gonna have your multi your mostly uh non-residential uses, um vertically integrated opportunities with uh multifamily and and your ground floor non-residential uses. We've also established frontage guidelines. In this area, we've actually been able to, in

    the comprehensive plan, allow for the design setback, extr extra provisions to ensure that this area is developed in a way that meets the intent of a downtown rather than just your out parcels or whatnot for commercialized development. Yeah. We've also negotiated the uses in here as being C2, C3, C1, C2, C3 uses, but we've prohibited uses such as auto-oriented car washes, any

    maintenance work, stuff like that, retail along those lines. So the idea is to ensure that you'll have your retail office, restaurants in this type of location.

    And then, as stated additionally to the connectivity plan, we have our pedestrians, parks, and trails. So this is going to be the visual in the connectivity plan that identifies your riverside trail, your nature trail, neighborhood trail, multi-use trails. So throughout Newport Corners, we've established a well-connected series of multi-use trail systems. So you can actually the The intent is to not be auto-centric, so you don't have to get into your car at that point in time. You can actually utilize the trails

    to walk between uses, as well as there is a potential for a trail connection along the Cubulus to Newport Newport Ritchie, which will further solidify the connection between the two downtown areas.

    Chris Williams

    Can can I interrupt for a question then? Yeah, sure, go ahead. So can you confirm and I don't recall, is there is there a currently a a sidewalk along Plath? Between little and No. Okay, and so is that planned here? It looks like there is one, but I just want to confirm that.

    Amy Heiler

    Yeah, it's a multi-use path, twelve feet. Um and so the multi-use paths can also be used for gar golf cart access. Right. Um so the multi-use path is going to be a long plath. Um and

    I'll go to this one. Um, so you see the purple, the orange area. I wish this was like the red little, not the mouse, but the red. Um so the orange is going to be your plath realignment. So we're realigning plath up to the cubulus. That is going to have the multi-use trail along Plath Road as well as um Vision Road U. Um, because we've had some uh discussions. with the community to the west of Osteen who wanted to have access to the downtown

    center via golf cart. So we've made sure that we allocated the multi-use trail along Vision Road U and then up through Pat Plath Road to allow for that golf cart access.

    Chris Williams

    Well well the trail be I'm I'm just asking to make sure that students who would be zoned here to Cody River Elementary would have Will that be completed down to that school or Does this contemplate that?

    Amy Heiler

    Um that I'm not sure and I can ask the

    Chris Williams

    Maybe Mr. Hobby can answer that

    Amy Heiler

    one. Yeah, you can probably answer that one.

    Chris Williams

    Okay. Thank you.

    Amy Heiler

    And they also have a presentation for you guys as well.

    So um and then this is going to your ma b be your master plan that basically encompasses everything that I just described. So, with that, we recommend approval of the Master Plan Unit Development Rezoning Request to the BCC, subject to the conditions of approval. And if you have any additional com uh questions, I can be happy to answer them.

    Charles GreyChair

    Um Amy, did you say uh at one point that you're gonna have some uh s some degree of architectural control over the

    Amy Heiler

    correct

    Charles GreyChair

    housing and things that you're

    Amy Heiler

    building? Uh those conditions are set forth in the comprehensive plan. Right. Um and it's

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    a

    Amy Heiler

    zoning condition also

    there's a zoning condition that requires architectural features. I think it's conditioned.

    The frontage guidelines.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Well no there's it's fift I think the Chairman's asking about condition Mm-hmm. Fifty four has architectural design standards in it.

    Amy Heiler

    Thank you.

    Charles GreyChair

    Yeah. Um yeah, I think

    uh one of the representatives for the developer that, you know, I I want to make sure that This is a big piece of property. We want to make sure it's done right. And I know that you all have been working on it for a long time. Yeah, I know that Uh Mr. Hobby who's from here. Um Put a lot of time into it. I'm from here. I don't wanna drive by a development like this and be Disappointed. And I don't want my friends and neighbors to be disappointed. So this is very important to us. Yeah.

    So we want to make sure that we stay on top of this and we get What we think we're getting and What I don't want to see is there are developers to go in there and And just bull those a bunch of trees and Build a bunch of cracker boxes and leave. And uh So it's really important and I think I don't know. I haven't talked to the board members, but I'm sure they're gonna feel the same. So

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Well I mean the Planning Commission may wanna review condition fifty four to see if that's sufficiently addresses your concern because that's I think the condition the staff imposed to attempt to address your concern.

    Charles GreyChair

    Okay. Yeah, that's Yeah. Yeah.

    Unidentified speakerVoice B

    Mm-hmm.

    Charles GreyChair

    Thank you, Amy. Nice job. Yeah, the pointer.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    So if I might get my own. Playing up this Clark Hobby for the record, if I can get my PowerPoint up.

    Pardon me, Mr. Chairman. While we wait, I'll go ahead and introduce Clark Hobby again. I'm with uh the applicant representing the applicant, and we have with us today uh a whole bunch of folks from Lenar Homes. We have uh several professionals from Clearview Land Design, including the project landscape architect, uh civil uh engineer as well as the uh pl chief planner for the project we can answer any questions you may have. I'm just gonna flip you th few of a few things

    here which may be helpful for various members of the public. This is a critical NFL project, and everybody on our team has been made well aware of that for over two years. This is a project we've got to get right. It's critical to West Pasco. And we know that. We're at Maine in Maine and we have to put our best foot forward. And that's been my admonition to our entire team since we first started meeting on this in very late 2019. Just wanted to provide

    a little bit of history and for the benefit of our our friends and neighbors here. So this is an aerial uh view of the Plath and Little Area. Hopefully I'm coming through here. Here we go. You can see where this is where Little Road ended up being constructed and where the bridge was put in. In nineteen seventy four Little Road and the Bridge did not exist. And as a result of that and the fact that there were no other crossings of the river from downtown all the

    way east out here. Very little was developed in this area at all. All of the lot lines you see here where River Ridge and all of our other wonderful communities have been built over the years did not exist. And in my mind, the construction of Little Road and the bridge over Little Road was the single most important thing that's occurred in West Pasco since the construction of US 19. It has spurred economic growth, residential growth substantially since the bridge

    and the road were built in the late 80s. Believe it or not, for many of our friends here, it still did not exist as of the early eighties. Yeah. Why do I bring that up? The article you see here is an article that quotes the the then Chairman of the County Commission, uh Mike Olson. talking about how Little Road and the County's plans for Little Road and the and the bridge over Little Road could not have occurred but for the family that still owns the property today and who bought it originally for Orange Groves.

    gave the right away for a little road. So but for that gift and if you read this article he says basically the county couldn't afford to do the little road project. As a result of all that You see the build-out of virtually everything from 54 all the way up to 19. Previously, most of the development from 19 was within about a quarter or half mile of it, and everything from that area on through and all the way over to where we know the edge of development at the Nell

    Ridge Road extension has occurred as a result of Little Road. So it's been a major And the reason why I say that is We've all enjoyed the wonderful view of this property for years. It's great to have pine trees. As a kid it was more important to me to see the orange groves. I love the orange groves, preferred them to pine. Uh but there's a time and a place for everything. And this site's been planned for major development for many, many years, as I'll explain, and we

    are at the right time, the right place, we have the right team and the right plan for this site. I would just point out to to our our friends in the in the community, the last two comprehensive plan cycles that analyzed the entirety of the plan and all of the county had either res three, res six, or res nine. on all of this property. And the residential component of this uh development are virtually unchanged since at least the late nineteen nineties.

    So it was always planned for a lot of residential units, and that's what's built out around us to the south primarily. What happened and what Amy was talking about earlier that made this site different was the county I think rightly decided in 2010 that just having a sea of residential units wasn't enough. And we needed to do something different. And what we didn't need to do is have strip commercial all the way from the cubelus all the way down to the river. What

    we needed to do is build a sense of place built around discrete commercial corners and that's what you're seeing on these four corners here, if I could find my there we go. These four corners are only 12 and a half acres apiece. So they're not large enough for big box retailers that we've seen at the other corners at Ridge and going further up Little. It's not going to be like that. This is going to be neighborhood-serving commercial that will allow us

    to try to build a real downtown around our community. And everything in our team's focus. Has been to make those two uses be mutually supportive of one another to create a sense of place. And that's really what the Comp plan policies for this are all about. You all are undoubtedly aware that the Harbor's Plan was adopted in 2005. 13 and it further refined what the vision for the area was. And basically the the upshot of it is everything

    that we would all want: sense of place, walkability, parks, open spaces, the things that make real communities last for generations, and that's what this plan is built around. So you saw the master plan earlier. My client Lenar Holmes is going to be building an uh the uh residential component that lies south of Decubelis. Uh the current landowner, the Harvey family's entity will own the four corners for the for si for the future for right

    now and own the Northeast Village. You heard a pretty um long discussion about what those include. but I'll just point out a couple of other things in a little greater detail. The village center area itself already has in these MPUD conditions. I cannot see that here we go. We're way over here. It sings so slow. The plan here is to focus everything around this beautiful linear park and uh walkable area called Vision Road U. So they are MPUD

    conditions that require the buildings along there to face the road. And then within the residential areas that abut it, and I'll get to this in a minute, I'll go ahead and flip to that now. you are seeing areas all the cross hatching and again come on my little guy. Come on so slow. Here we go. All of these areas and an unprecedented move and commitment by Lenar, all of these units are all alley loaded product. The reason why we're doing that

    is we're trying to create the sense of community, the traditional neighborhood feel where people are looking over their downtown and the downtowns all focused on this linear greenway. that's gonna run all the way from the middle of or from the western edge of the village center all the way into the park system that you see listed as Vision Park on here, which again, sorry for the delay here, it just takes a long time for the pointer to commence. So I'll just go to the next slide. Again, a lot of

    pedestrian connectivity, lots of multi-use paths, all of the sites interconnected. And to Mr. Williams' question, we were not going to build a multi-use path down Plath, but if you look at the connectivity plan, we bring our main east-west road that has a multi-use path, and then there'll be a path that goes all the way through our westernmost uh phase of development. So if there are students down there, they would just cut up through those paths to the center.

    Chris Williams

    Well I'm sorry. Back up. So yeah, but they um 'cause Cody River is just to the west of that. So where are you saying? I'm sorry, Clark.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    It's okay. And again, I'm just hoping I can get the pointer to come along with me. Is it on here? I don't see it.

    Chris Williams

    Is that butt up to the right-of-way?

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    So there's a multi use path cutting all the way through here, Chris. So then they would be able to walk all the way through the community from there. It just won't be built along the Plath Road from the intersection at Little to that point.

    Chris Williams

    So I guess that's that may be a question for staff is when when do we think there might be a Path. here to the school entrance.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    What

    Chris Williams

    is that distance? Does anybody know? Um Uh It's not very far, but let me try to measure that real quick.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    It might be better, Chris. How about I do this? Because once I sit down and we have public comment, let me try to get some of those answers. I I think I can give you better info if I do that from our our team. Again, we're trying to create unique open spaces and unique places that will build a community. Some of the uh concepts you see in the northwest corner of the slide show you what the multi-use paths are intended to look like. Uh in the northeast corner uh we are going to have special decorative pavers that go out in little roads

    so we not only create a place that pedestrians will like to cross, but it will visually create a safety visual look for drivers so they know to slow down. We will be installing, and this is all part of our first phase, uh, pedestrian safe zones in the middle, so it's easier for the pedestrians to get across. And then the slides on the bottom, you're looking at the representative views of what our park area is going to look like. That's the focal point of the Vision Road use system.

    And you can see in the uh top here on the left. You're seeing what our landscape architect has laid out is this beautiful, beautiful visual that's running down through the middle of the site. And you can see how both the townhouses and single-family detached units on either side of it are alley-loaded so that they're overlooking this beautiful green space. And then the next page, this is the latest representative. Of what our park plan is going to look like. The

    intent is to build a combination of active areas, but all focus around the beautiful tree and forestry that's down in that area, and then have a really nice multi-use path area that goes along the river that starts there and runs up through the site. Uh just a couple of other things and I won't belabor them, but we're obviously that the site has planted pines on it, and the pines were planted there as a production crop after the orange grows froze. you

    know, and they're going to be forced it at some point whether this project happens or not. Having said that, we understand that we have to, as part of creating a community, we don't want to just bulldoze the whole site and not create open and green spaces. So when the site was laid out, this first slide I'm showing to you shows then dark green the wetlands on the site that will not be impacted, which are significant, and then the co-location of green spaces and parks. Throughout the site that abut

    them and enlarge them. And then on the next slide, you'll see we've also co-located a lot of ponds in those same areas. And the net effect is when you look at it all, we've created a lot of open spaces throughout the site. And again, we think that's important as a planning team to create a great community. We don't want to start with just a bulldoze site, the site's too special. Yeah. Um I'm probably most of these slides you've already been um hearing from Amy on so I don't think I'll

    really spend any time on that, but I will say just a few other quickie things. You are guided by the comprehensive plan on this. The comprehensive plan tells our team what we have to do and the landowner with the site. The site's not planned for rural Never has been, and we have to build a community on it and focus on issues that ensure compatibility. And that's what our team's been trying to do for over two years. Lenar Holmes

    has been leading the project and has given our planning team and design team a free hand to try to create the sense of community. The conditions address a variety of things from the creation of employment uh entitlements, employment sites, parks, park sites. Uh we've done a couple of very unique things and I credit Joel too and his client. They have given unprecedented control to the county staff for the Village core area, village center area

    where those uh those four points are about the design. They actually the conditions say that the county staff has to approve the building orientation, its facades, signage, architectural, landscaping, and parking in all four of those corners. We don't normally do that kind of thing, but the reason why they did it here is they're committed to making sure we

    Just a couple of other quick things and then I'll I'll wrap up. Um we all know that Neighbors are going to be concerned about traffic on a project of this size, even though there's a lot of entitlements already in the comprehensive plan. When we got started, we asked that staff work with us to do two major things on traffic. Number one, the site had a series of on-site collector roads at very wide widths that would have made it very difficult to plan a community around and to have Pedestrian

    connectivity. And what we did instead of just having large collector roads was create a street grid network with smaller gauge roads. Has the same effect, and we're gonna have basically two parallel systems to Little Road through our site to divert traffic and keep it on there to go up to the cubelus. And then the second thing is the original comprehensive plan entitlements for Newport Corn. Were way, way too high and were of a regional scale. There was 4.8 million square feet of non-residential

    entitlements. We took it down to about 1.2, 1.3, but we preserved more than will be sufficient for the employment uses. But what we don't want to do is overwhelm our neighbors. We are resurfacing. When we get to it, we'll be resurfacing the existing uh section of Osteen Road when we make any connection there. We're obviously available of the nature uh importance of nature and the natural features here. We're respecting the 50-foot setback from the river

    that's required by the comp plan and the LDC. There will probably be discussions about schools, and that's obviously addressed by Chris's department. But I would tell the Planning Commission that you know we're in discussions, and I think we will probably end up having a charter school of some size in the Northeast Village that I hope will help provide capacity for our students. We will very likely have an active adult or retirement phase. In the northwest corner, that we feel is a good fit for

    our neighbors there and won't generate any students. Um And then before I wrap up one last thing, we did agree and created a series of monotony controls for our residential products and special landscaping standards that actually, in some cases, exceed what the board is going to adopt next week on landscaping. So there's been a big commitment by Lenar and the landowner for any residential areas. It has to better

    landscaping than we've been doing on forties and fifties and townhouses and so forth. And then again, special monotony controls and architectural features. So again, we don't want to have very low level entry-level product on the field. Um with that, I just want to thank the county staff who's worked with us for over two years on this, particularly Terry and Amy and the transportation uh staff because there's a heck of a lot of work that went into this. Happy

    uh St. Patrick's Day to everybody and thank you for your time. I am happy to answer any questions.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Clark. Could you do me a favor 'cause it It was only briefly covered, but in your connectivity plan could you Get somebody to put it back up and then clarify which of those trails and roads are accessible to the public

    Because there was a lot of there was a lot of trail and which ones are available by golf court, if you could

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Well and I may call Hannah up here to give us Hannah McAleer. Hannah come up here if you would. I believe all of our trails that are shown on here are accessible to the public. The only ones that would not be w are in the one potentially gated area that's northwest of the village center. But Hannah, if you wanna this is how you point if it'll work.

    Unidentified speakerVoice D

    Okay, that's great. Hannah Macklear, Clearview Land Design. Um To Clark's point, all of them will be open access that are not behind the one gated area. Which one's it, Clark's point? It's the tab. Gotta hold it. There you go. So The area that is west of Little and north of Vision Road U will be gated and there aren't really significant trails within there because there aren't a lot of natural features to highlight. So um all

    the other trail systems and sidewalks will be open. um anyone can use them. So um the multi-use trails, we have a multi-use trail along the north side of Vision Road U that will be golf cart accessible. And then also we have the multi-use trail along the Plath extension, so from Little Road up to Dusty Lane. We will um that will be a multi-use trail that golf carts can use and back out to

    um this section of Dusty Lane from Plath to Little Road. And then the river trail we envision being more bicycle pedestrian friendly. We don't propose golf carts on that. Um and also on top of that our Our all of our internal roadways are going to be low speed. Um so they should be golf cart friendly, pin pending a resolution on that.

    And also I I I did look up, Chris, the um the distance from the school entry to Little road is just under a mile at fifty two hundred feet, measure you know, give or take, measured it on Google Earth.

    Chris Williams

    So and yeah, if And my I guess my request would be, you know, if you just work with us, you know, because we're obviously a butt to to the in and it might be That maybe it's best to connect That Kind of that northern where that's a little bit more. Multi use. Trail. Yeah, maybe in there or maybe it's along plath, but it's just you know, if you can just work with us on the best and I don't know Yeah, I don't know what

    the best connection's gonna be for us, but you know, maybe we can work together just the best way to get any of those kids who are going to Cody River to to be able to walk into the school site. We can do that. Okay. That'd be great.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    All right. Happy to answer any other qu questions, Mr. Chairman Mariano.

    Chris Williams

    several. Um What's the purpose of the golf carts? Is there a golf course in here or

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    No, that's a newer design feature where people are trying to encourage uh L less usage of automobiles, basically. It's and it's a convenience factor for a lot of communities. Okay.

    Chris Williams

    And in your remarks, you said this was I wrote down two thousand and ten before the Board of County Commissioners at Is that right?

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    In 2010, that's when the Newport Corners concept was originally created. And then again in 2013, as part of the adoption of the Harbors Plan, there were a whole series of community meetings that further refined the vision for Newport Corners.

    Chris Williams

    And this is twenty twenty two. Can I ask uh maybe it's a dumb question, why did it take so long?

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    I for whatever reason the seller's family wasn't interested in selling this property for a long time. I told Mr. Gray uh sometime that we had other clients that were very interested in buying this as much as twenty five years ago and made offers and the family didn't want to sell.

    Chris Williams

    And My last question is It's more of a request. Can we look at long term care or nursing homes eventually in there? I think this came up uh several weeks back and I advocated for something then. And I would hope at some point in time that the uh market in that particular age range Or that particular uh service Maybe looked at at some point in time.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Absolutely. And uh Joel just was reminding me that and it I knew they were already allowed in the northeast village. They're actually allowed in the four corners as well. So

    Chris Williams

    And my last question is The term employment centers come up often before this before us, before different groups, newspapers, etcetera. Will there actually be some employment in this area? I would h hope the answer is definitely

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    There's a commitment in the condition to a twenty five acre site and we've entitled I believe it's about I wanna say it's about a million square feet of employment generating uses as well.

    Chris Williams

    That's all I have.

    Donald E. Anderson

    Thank you.

    Chris Williams

    Okay.

    Donald E. Anderson

    Mr. Chair, I I have a related question to that, uh, Clark. And that's the movement from the four point eight million square feet non residential use to the what is it, one point four. Right. Maybe staff is better served to answer, but what's the logic with that reduction in a space that's a hundred and some.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    I can I can speak to it. Um When Newport Corners uh was approved in 2010 at the time, there was a proposed constitutional amendment that was being considered where it would have required a referendum, so-called hometown democracy, for any comp plan changes. Uh and so you would have had a vote by the populace on all of them. And so I think the county and the applicant at the time and uh an abundance of caution were basically way over entitling

    the property. But the problem I found with it when we started analyzing it, it would have allowed very, very large amounts of non-residential up against the neighborhoods to our west. For instance, you could have had a regional mall there. You could have had millions of square feet of light industrial buildings right up against those neighborhoods, and we didn't feel that was appropriate. There are sufficient commercial and other employment uh entitlements that we're

    leaving and entitling through this process that will be more than sufficient for the build-out uh of the appropriately scaled non-residential in this area. It would still be considered very large for this area. It's over a million square feet.

    Donald E. Anderson

    Yeah, just looking at it though from the perspective of Nearly a thousand acres. I

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Well, uh again,

    Donald E. Anderson

    I didn't know the economics of that.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Yeah, the the the northeast partial itself is about two hundred acres, and almost all of that could end up being employment generating and has a lot of entitlements now. So if there's a will, there will be a way, but there is a commitment at least for twenty-five acres of that to be employment generating for the time being. All right. Thanks, Clerk.

    Charles GreyChair

    Anything else from up here? Thank you. Anything David. Okay.

    All right, well if not, uh we're gonna take a ten minute recess.

    Susie Johnson

    Later.

    You can see it. Well you play golf too, huh? I do.

    Charles GreyChair

    Oh right.

    Susie Johnson

    I didn't even I played for once this morning. Oh Cool.

    Charles GreyChair

    All right. I think uh we're we're gonna hear from the public now uh with comments or concerns and Um I think we have somebody on WebEx will we'll hear them first, please.

    Denise

    Mr. Chair, yes, we do have um Edward Mulligan on WebEx. Mr. Mulligan, if you would please state your name and address for the record and whether you've been sworn.

    Edward

    Can you hear me?

    Denise

    Yes, we can hear you Mr Mulligan. Please state your name and address for the record and whether you've been sworn.

    Edward

    My name is Edward A. Mulligan Junior. And my address is [address removed]. And yes, I have

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    been swallowed. Denise, can we also was he one of the ones that registered or didn't

    Denise

    Mr. Mulligan did register.

    Charles GreyChair

    So good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. You've been sworn, you said? Yes, sir. Okay, good. Thank you.

    Edward

    Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am the Vice President of uh Lexington Commons HOA. Where I am presently at right now. As you can see. Um So until this project uh came to light. All sixty eight owners here had no idea that that our little finger development was surrounded on three sides by commercial Zoning. How this development got into commercial zoning I guess is a topic for another

    time. But As the residents here, we don't condone the project that's going on because I guess we're gonna lose our woods and everything that surrounds us. But we understand that progress happens and if we're gaining a thousand people a debt to Florida, they have to go somewhere. But What we all uh agree on here is that we would like to see the lands around us that directly impacts us on the three sides be zoned to

    have a lesser commercial footprint as proposed by Lenard.

    Yeah, that's basically how we feel and uh you know, I mean like happen, but we would love to see a smaller commercial footprint, which is what they're proposing.

    Charles GreyChair

    All right. Um is that that is that pretty much your main concern?

    Edward

    Basically yeah there our main concern is that uh you know we don't want a car wash coming up right against our property line. We don't want a giant commercial building uh you know, it's I understand that there's there's need for for jobs in the area. Uh there is now um Bossett is creating a a large job opportunity at the end of Ridge now that you connected it to the Sun Coast. Those people are gonna need a place to live. I understand that. Well as far as we've already I mean we have an established community

    here and to start putting building up buildings up around us, uh just basically be a sin. I mean, you council members uh, you know, seem to care about You know, them cut in bulldoze and everything and making it look like a cookie cutter. I appreciate that. Nobody wants that. And it sounds like Lid Art is doing a very good job of their planning. But as far as the way the the land is zoned right now, uh it it just doesn't fit the area.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Do we have a map that shows where this gentleman lives? Really have no idea.

    Charles GreyChair

    Okay, we're northwest uh we're gonna pull up a map so we're gonna see you but we don't wanna have a visual for so everybody can see where you are.

    Denise

    We're just gonna change presenters a sec a second and I'll bring it up.

    Charles GreyChair

    Okay.

    Denise

    So this here is Lexing Lexington Commons here, um, on the north and south sides of Corinthian Way, on the east side of Little Road.

    Charles GreyChair

    All right.

    Denise

    For um purposes of understanding this is very close to the government center, very, very nearby.

    Edward

    Yes, we can.

    Okay, great.

    So as you can see all the wooded areas around us.

    Charles GreyChair

    Yeah.

    Edward

    And you know, as far as Lenard is concerned, uh development uh Um housing is ideal for us because Raoul. it it just helps the value of our our community to get better. If you start putting commercial buildings uh you know all that land It it's not

    Charles GreyChair

    All right. You're cutting up uh cutting out a bit, so uh But I think we got the gist of what your concern is. What uh we're making a note and I'm sure the Applicant's making a note. and when he has his opportunity to come back up and answer some of these questions. Those that's one of the questions he will address. So maybe you can get an answer directly from the I hate to say the horse's mouth, but Yeah.

    Edward

    I'm not looking for s any answer. I'm just I'm just uh the tell telling you our s sentiment about the way that uh the land around us is zoned right now for commercial. That way Lenard is trying to Oh. But less

    Yeah. We're mo we're we're more for that than just leaving it the way it is. Well, that's gap refer.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    I think he I think what I'm hearing say is that he supports the request because it's that northeast village will not be entirely non residential as it is today.

    Yeah.

    Edward

    Yeah, so it's a it's the

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    applicant's nodding his head, so

    Edward

    Yeah.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Because it well factually that's accurate. The entire Northeast Village will not be all commercial. There is a 25-acre employment site that's required. And the area right next to the government center is not going to be typical single family residential and the area along the North South Road won't be. But The rest of the land could be residential under the the way the conditions are drafted. So we won't be able to do that. It likely is not going to be Commercial all around him. But

    I will tell you that staff did not want single family residential next to the jail at the government center. So That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So there are requirement there are some areas that Staff did not support single family residential in that northeast village. But if the If the concern is that there was going to be commercial all around them, that shouldn't be a concern anymore.

    Edward

    Okay. Well that's that's what we're looking for. We're

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    I was just saying I don't think anybody I don't think anybody in your development in your subdivision should have assumed that we were gonna put single family residential across our jail, right next to our jail.

    Edward

    Well no, I d I don't think we assume that but the the fact brought to us that the the land around us was zoned commercial. And art is trying to have the land owned. to make it a smaller footprint is what we're We're an acceptance.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    I I think staff has done a good job of ensuring that the areas that should be residential in that area are residential and the areas that should be non residential are going to be non residential. So But the applicant can address it further if they want to when they get up.

    Charles GreyChair

    All right. Well thank you very much. I appreciate it. And uh Yeah. Okay, thank you. And let me just say before anything anybody else comes up, what we want to try to do, because I know there are a lot of people that may want to speak and some people that are here that aren't planning to speak, but If you do speak. Uh what we'd like to do is to try to keep s keep it to be something new that you're gonna bring to to our attention. In other words, Uh we kn I know somebody's gonna bring up traffic and we're gonna have to d uh address

    those issues. but it doesn't do any good for ten people to bring up traffic. So Try to bring up something new so we can move through, give everybody a chance to Say what's important to them. and then get the answers that you need 'cause that's that's really where we really want to go with this. We wanna get these answers Mm-hmm. So um If you want to uh to come up and speak uh and you've been sworn, please come up and state your name and address.

    Denise

    Mr. Chairman Mariano.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Get to the people in the audience. We have nobody else on WebEx.

    Denise

    We have no one else on WebEx. We clarified those people were just listening.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Okay. All right. Thanks.

    Denise

    So the first person we have signed up to speak is Mr. John Russell. And followed by Penny Russell.

    Charles GreyChair

    Okay. Mr. Russell, would you give your name and address please for the record?

    John Russell

    John Russell, [address removed], which is in Heritage Lakes on Little Road. Yes, I have been sworn. Thank you. What I had to say would take way longer than three minutes. And so I have sent an email, you may have gotten it, with my main concerns. I come from a background with uh Clear water parks and recreation. I worked for the city for almost thirty years. and I was a maintenance manager for parks and recreation and

    a project manager. And I found out at that time that my left brain and my right brain were fighting with each other. because they have to deal with laws, ordinances, permits, all this stuff. And then I was in the environmental situation with parks and there was beautification and water management and all this sort of thing. So my comments are first of all to compliment, I think Um Mr's

    Hobby and Two and their et als. I think they did a great presentation on that. My main concerns in the email I sent uh w where the from the left brain side, the objective side, and they dealt with traffic. and with the stormwater drainage. The

    Only one thing the left is my right brain. which is arguing with me on this and said this is an absolutely beautiful design. Let's pick it up and set it down on Ridge Road and the Suncoast. Would be really nice over there. Because then people could get to Tampa and Crystal River and all that stuff. Well, I know that's not gonna happen in reality. But I do Hope that you will read the email. And um Hear our thoughts or my thoughts on

    it and if I can be of any further assistance, I would appreciate it. Thank you for your time.

    Donald E. Anderson

    Thank you, Mr. Russell. Can I ask Mr. Russell when he sent his email?

    John Russell

    Yeah,

    Donald E. Anderson

    go ahead. Mr. Russell. Mr. Russell.

    When did you send when did you send the email?

    Unidentified speakerVoice E

    Yeah.

    John Russell

    This morning.

    I apologize for I just didn't even know about this for Reasons I was out of the area until I got back and they s we just had to sit down and put that email together.

    Charles GreyChair

    Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate that.

    Denise

    May may I ask a question from staff? I apologize. Yes. What email address was it sent to, sir?

    John Russell

    to each of the commission for the Everyone has individually.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Did anybody receive this email?

    Charles GreyChair

    I haven't seen it but I've No. He sent it this morning, so

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    I don't think

    Charles GreyChair

    I have.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    But sir, do you have a copy that you want us to receive and file or because it doesn't look like anybody got your email?

    John Russell

    Um no, I don't have that with me. I can bring it in subsequently if that's acceptable.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Why don't you just bring in when it goes to the Board of County Commissioners? Send it to the Board of County Commissioners and bring it in at that time. And they can receive ask that it be received and filed.

    Chris Williams

    Yeah.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Of public horses.

    Well unless somebody can print it out at this point it's probably not gonna do us any good. So I wouldn't worry about about it.

    Unidentified speakerVoice E

    It's here if you want this way.

    Charles GreyChair

    I think as as was suggested, I think if you can get it to the Board of County Commissioners and That way they can uh t be take advantage of it and If he sent it and just hasn't arrived yet, you know, it's gotta go through China before it gets here. So

    Susie Johnson

    watch out.

    Charles GreyChair

    I'm watching out. I'm not worried about it.

    Susie Johnson

    Oh

    Charles GreyChair

    yeah. So Uh i if we get it, you know, we'll certainly read it. You know, then uh

    Our county email or my our personal

    Unidentified speakerVoice E

    email.net

    And six more.

    Charles GreyChair

    Sorry. Well if you get it to the county commissioners, maybe uh take a hard copy to the meeting.

    Unidentified speakerVoice E

    Okay. I'm Penny. I'm John's wife. I hesitate to get up, honestly, but I'm just gonna read what I think.

    Charles GreyChair

    Penny excuse me a minute. Is Penny next on the list? That's correct, yes.

    Unidentified speakerVoice E

    Um But I I'm going to read what I had. My mind has been modified a little bit since listening. Uh Oh. [address removed]. Thank you. Sure.

    Yeah.

    [address removed].

    Charles GreyChair

    See now you know how I feel.

    Unidentified speakerVoice E

    Okay, again, since I maybe you didn't hear this, I somewhat hesitant to come up, but I'm gonna read what I prior ha thought. Uh with all due respect, uh I guess my biggest question is when in the is enough enough? Um I applaud. I'll tell you these guys did an amazing job. It sounds wonderful and I don't know how it could get any better, but I'm also cynical. um regarding what will really happen. Things don't always happen as presented. Um I'm not speaking as someone who um is just talking

    off the top of my head, but I am speaking of someone who uh is against Any more. building or development that has to do with removing just plain old nature. I don't know about you guys, but that's what we live to do, it's what we've raised our family to do. Um I'm not a tree hugger. I'm not someone who has nothing better to do with my time. Um And I would never attempt to list the multiple concerns like you said that are pe I'm sure people are eager to and pretty soon gonna tell you all the problems. But who I am is I'm

    a person who appreciates, respects, and um I understand that being part of the solution is better than p being part of the problem. Um I'm also someone who appreciates uh the endless benefits of being outdoors. Um Mm-hmm. clean air, shade, quiet wildlife, just anything and everything. I'm sure the majority of us were re raised, fortunately and raised in such an environment and that's probably why we are hopefully the decent people we are. There's a whole lot more I could say on that. Um I also have to

    say we've been in Florida since eighty. We've been in Pasco for eight years of those of of the last 42 years. Um but I would love to see Pasco. One reason we came here is I'd like us to think that we could be a county that would stand for maybe doing things a little differently. Again, it sounds as though that's what's gonna happen with this. It sounds like it's a moot point to refute it because it it is gonna happen. Um but I'd like to make sure whatever I can do to help this be something that's proactive and and offers as much good as anything is really what

    is in my heart. The other thing I would like to say is I bet most people here We want our children, but more specifically our grandchildren to live in a place that's at least as good as, if not better than the place that it was when we got here. And I'm sorry, but you know, I just my ears go up and I wish nothing was gonna happen. Um we're fortunate we live in a piece of property that we have five endangered species on. And so this doesn't affect me directly, but this all affects everybody indirectly. And

    that's all I have to say. Thank you.

    Charles GreyChair

    Thank you very much. Any questions?

    Okay.

    Denise

    Next person is David Robeson, uh followed by Marvel Robison.

    Charles GreyChair

    David,

    Unidentified speakerVoice F

    if you could give us your name and address, please. Okay. Uh tell me if I'm talking too loud or too softly, because I don't know. Uh David Robison, I'm at [address removed]. Thank you very much and thank you for your service. I'd like to just uh tell you how I feel. I've been watching Pasco County now for twenty five years grow. into a gridlock. And I'm living the same nightmare I lived in Orange County, California. I watched Orange

    County, California grow. From a half a million to five million people. from private roads to build the new cities, to ten lanes on I five going both ways to San Diego and Los Angeles.

    that everybody I know that lives here m moved here because it's a rural area. And real lives do matter. Okay? Real lives matter. And we don't want to see that Florida turned into California, okay? Yeah. It's really emotional for us because I saw the same thing when I moved to the state of Washington. So I moved down here. Pasco County, New Port Richey, beautiful little city, right on the northwest corner of the metropolis. It's basically rural and now it's

    turning into gridlock again. So

    First of all, you have to understand that we the people don't want more people. Okay. Which means we really don't want development, but we know we can't stop development. So let's here's a solution that I came up with. And this is the same solution Santa Barbara uh city came up with in California. You can't build unless you're building on an existing sewer electric and water meter. That way you're not destroying any more land You're not destroying the land, the lives, the livelihood

    and the habitats of the people and the animals that are there. You build up and you can build bigger on existing electric, sewer and water meters. That has kept Santa Barbara manageable. It's not Los Angeles, okay?

    Yeah. It'll keep your population down. You won't have any future ghettos because you're gonna build

    So I just hope that makes sense to you and uh It's very emotional. It's very o uh overwhelming for us. Okay. I just need you to know that.

    Charles GreyChair

    Okay.

    Unidentified speakerVoice F

    Thank you very much.

    Denise

    Next is Ms. Margill Robison.

    Charles GreyChair

    Ms. Robinson, if you can uh state your name and address.

    Margot Robison

    I live it. My name's Margot Robinson. I live at [address removed]. And uh

    I noticed in the beginning of the presentation that they said that none of the state agencies had uh foreseen any problems with this development and I was just wondering if Swift Mud was gonna rubber stamp everything this close to the Cody River. Because uh I know down in Uh South Florida they're having huge problems with drainage into uh with Lacucci that's running down in the Gulf and creating The um The

    green You know, in twenty eighteen when we had the bad algae problem, going out in the Gulf killed all the fish and everything. That was basically from the

    getting into the rivers and then running out into the Gulf. So I'm just concerned about more development on the Cody River. And uh one of the solutions to that problem is to uh stop chemical spraying into the lawns. In other words, to make the landscaping has to be natural Florida landscaping. not uh, you know, green sod they bring in the squares and lay down. So natural

    landscaping I think and a development would be much More advantageous for Raw. Not harming the environment. The other thing I noticed on the on the plot was the uh uh green areas and all the wetland areas, I I think what, about a hundred and fifty eight acres or something. And It appeared that that it was fronting Plath and most of the green was plaffring plath and it was really nice looking the way they laid it out. But

    is that going to remain the existing two hundred foot pine trees, or are they gonna bulldoze all that and put in this crap they bring in from the nursery? Yeah. That's I think would be very important to demand that they keep the pointers.

    It increases your property values. If you're surrounded with those big, huge pine trees, you can get more money for your for your house. So Yeah.

    Um, yeah. Been reading some of the Pasco people uh One was uh a lady had written an email posted on Facebook said after twenty-eight years in Pasco, I own these three homes there. raised three daughters, a single parent in Pasco schools. All my children graduated with Bright Future scholarships. And she says, I thank the Lord I landed in the state of Florida, but I had to leave Pasco after twenty eight years. The overpopulation is

    just more than I can bear. I had to move north.

    And uh that just kind of uh says a little bit about what's going on in Pasco. Another lady, Nancy Thompson, says I'm sickened by what's taking place in my Pasco County. I want to experience nature and nature's being destroyed. The amount of development here is staggering and unchecked. So I I do really like the way they laid out this development, it considering they uh drop

    the commercial down to one point four mil. uh square feet. And the fact that they incorporate a lot of green.

    Charles GreyChair

    Trying to let you finish, so

    Margot Robison

    Okay.

    Charles GreyChair

    Okay. I'm just trying to make sure everybody else has things. Okay. Thank you so much.

    Denise

    Next up are Laura Jesky, followed by Mark Jesky. Yeah,

    And I do want to say that Mr. Mark Jeski has been granted five minutes time.

    Charles GreyChair

    Laura, if you'd like to give us your name and address, please.

    Laura Jeske

    Thank you. My name is Laura Jeske. Um I live at [address removed], and I've been sworn. Um thanks for the opportunity to voice my concerns.

    Okay. Pasco County government seems to be losing sight of what's really important to our quality of life and that of our children and grandchildren. I wonder what you will tell your children and grandchildren about your decisions and the lasting impact of those decisions in years to come. I encourage you to seriously reflect on that. You all are in a powerful position to determine the quality of life of all of our lives in the county. for many generations to come. You can already see the gridlock that the county has facilitated.

    You can see the strip land that the county has authorized, and you can see the extended time for police calls to high density crime housing while citizens wait and wait for ambulances and trucks fire trucks stuck in traffic. If the developers were made to pay for their real impact on our environment and our quality of life, I doubt that we would see nearly as much building as being done now. Why can't they pay for the needed improvements of infrastructure before they build new housing and new business sites? Does

    this county s really need a few more strip malls? Construction jobs are good for the county. Good for the economy, in the right proportion, but they're temporary. The cost of new roads, schools, police, utilities and gridlock are permanent. The county continues to rubber stamp and approve because some folks thought fifteen ten fifteen years ago that this was a good idea. Well I don't think it's a good idea anymore. Haven't we learned anything in ten or fifteen years that would cause us to make different decisions today? I

    believe the county is being influenced too much by mega developers and builders. They are walking away with millions, with essentially full approval of the county, as we watched almost total destruction of wildlife habitats with the county's blessing. The developers will be long gone when the drought comes and we no longer have enough water for our homes. They'll be long gone when their high density housing turns into a slum. They'll be long gone when the schools are overcrowded and they'll be long gone when the roads they help trash finally need repair, improvement, or expansion.

    Most of us moved most of us have moved to Pasco because of its green space. The county is developing and paving over the best parts. It's trashing our future and that of our kids. This has to stop and you can make that happen. Thanks for your consideration.

    Charles GreyChair

    Does these people come up and speak? If you have questions, let me know. Okay.

    Should I come up, sir?

    Mark Jeske

    My name is Mark Jeske and I live at [address removed]. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, members of the Commission. I'm going to reference um eight articles in my speech. And I would please request permission to submit the first identifying page of each of those articles into the public record.

    Chris Williams

    All right.

    Mark Jeske

    Thank you.

    Chris Williams

    Move to receive and file.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Second.

    Mark Jeske

    Pardon? Aye.

    Charles GreyChair

    All in

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Can you pass those out to the us now? Sure. Or do you need them for your speech?

    Mark Jeske

    Uh I just have the first page. Do you need the whole record uh uh no

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    whatever you want us to have? You could just give those to the clerk so they c we can view them while you're speaking. Sure, sure, sure. Thank you.

    Mark Jeske

    Yeah.

    I have an article where County Administrator Dan Biles said that in 2021, the first time we have a very good thing The county issued permits totaling nearly four billion in approved property value. a 56% rise above 2020 and double 2019. I have an article where Assistant County Administrator Sally Sherman advised that the County had to hire 10 new staff in planning and 14 in building code review. I

    have an article where County Property Appraiser Mike Wells states that Pasco County's population could reach almost a million by 2040. Current population is around 562,000. Is there anybody in our county who is wondering if enough is enough?

    Development can be good for the economy and the tax base. But this is way too much of a good thing. I have several articles in which experts have studied the effects of uncontrolled developmental sprawl. They all conclude that uncontrolled development ends up costing the communities a lot more than it generates in economic growth and tax gain. They all conclude that development must be strictly

    managed. for the good of the community. Think of how many thousand animals live on almost a thousand forested acres. The planned tree buffers around the wetlands are meager at best. I have an article on an extensive survey on the limited success of moving tortoises. Yes, there are rules about how it has to be done, but who will monitor whether it's done right and the continued survival of hundreds of relocated

    tortoises? Does the county have the resources to enforce that?

    I, like many others, am very concerned about increased flooding on the Cody River. Many of us, including me, live within a block or less of the river. Land stripped of its vegetation along the river is not going to absorb the same amount of rain and runoff as the current forests do. What will be done to control the flood risk? Is that in the county plan? Considering the millions of dollars at stake with this project and the long planning period it has had, it

    is probably unrealistic to think that we can stop the speeding train. But why can't we slow it down? Slow it down a lot. A project of this size should be phased in over a long period of time, especially given the current construction madness in our county. A phase development over 20 years or longer would give the current residents and the wildlife an opportunity to acclimate to the

    change. It would also give more time to react to flooding issues. respectfully You folks are the planning commission. Not the approving commission.

    It's time to emphasize planning for the sake of our quality of life. and not automatically approve projects. It's time to put the brakes on development for all our sakes. And our children's sakes and their children's sakes. It's time for true managed growth. Please.

    Thank you.

    Denise

    Mr. Chairman, uh next uh site to speak, Donna, I believe it may say Ryan, and then the other person is Charlene Lasseter.

    Charles GreyChair

    Donna Bryan?

    Sethama? Brian?

    Denise

    No, this certainly says Donna, just the last name I'm not sure about.

    Charles GreyChair

    She left, Mr. Chair. Oh she left? Okay. Charlene.

    Denise

    Charlene Lasseter?

    Charles GreyChair

    Yeah that's Charlene.

    Denise

    Okay. After Charlene will be Anne Corona.

    Unidentified speakerVoice G

    But Dr. Newman Commissioners and thank you for this opportunity. I'm Charlene Bailey, B A I L L I E Lassiter, and my family has been in Pasco County for five generations, and I'm very concerned about this project and the impact it will have on the area. The county area. Yes. I live at [address removed] and that's the section that's west of Rowan.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    And were you sworn?

    Unidentified speakerVoice G

    Yes, I was sworn.

    Um

    This is a very precious piece of land. So once Little Road was put in, I've we've driven by it many times. I can't say I've driven by it all my life because I've been here and it wasn't. Um I know you ask us to make it short, not be redundant. And I condensed this last night. Mainly I'm going to speak about the wildlife. the other's been addressed.

    Um they're begging you to stop or slow this down. And there's nine hundred and fifty six acres for which they will not be able to find safe haven.

    The animals have already been displaced from a couple other areas recently and that is Copper Springs.

    the area near Little Road or the Veterans Place that they're redoing. And also right by the river at River Walk Preserve. So If the buffers near the area, the highways Those need to be enlarged. Where are the animals gonna go? All taken. Everything's gone, or will be gone. And um also my

    main question is, have you the planning, are there any underpasses for animals? Or animal corridors under the roads? Any of that area? And also I saw on the county's website protect, conserve, and manage if you recognize those words. Um another thing is

    How about the maintenance of some of the areas I don't know that you maintain habitat areas, but so to enlarge them, make 'em bigger, do the underpass and have your park areas a little larger, the areas for um maybe picnics or something that people are not continually walking through and traveling through. So you're

    not destroying the habitat, the Natural growth that's there that the animals need, the birds, the other wildlife. Another thing is um Improve the water quality. I can imagine what this is going to do with the quality of the uh water along the Cody River, this is a lot. Once you get all those impervious areas from

    the roadways, the concrete, the driveways, all the runoff. And when the runoff is not necessarily handled or Say pitched to the river. Where is it gonna go? Is it going to flood us downriver, across the highway? Um this has happened in other areas where It can't handle it. You've taken all the natural land or the places for it to soak in

    And so please s actually, like Mark said, slow this train down. And could this not be phased in over a long range of time, say a fifteen year period, For The acclamation also.

    Charles GreyChair

    Because this is overdevelopment. Sorry. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

    Anne Corona

    Oops.

    Ha ha.

    Good afternoon. Can you hear me? I know I'm really short. Yeah. Um Anne Corona, [address removed]. Um we entangled with

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    the right-of-way. in? Were you sworn in?

    Anne Corona

    Yes.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Okay,

    Anne Corona

    thank you. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't. Um we in Tanglewood have been fighting against the encroachment of the bulldozers for a year. Shannon Shannon Whitware and I are very familiar with all the problems we're discussing here. Wildlife, traffic, schools, um infrastructure. that all holds true. I myself right now am concerned about see when I see this um pro project About the the extent of the commercial resident uh commercial

    light industrial industrial I'm concerned about the extent of crime. I don't I don't think that type of development belongs in this area at all. I don't like the look of the project. Um it's like twenty pounds of horse feet in a five-pound bucket. That's my opinion. Um my daughter works for Matamy Homes in I'm sorry, she works for Pulti, she worked for Matamy. The Matamies in Jacksonville are much nicer than the ones here. She tries to explain planned um residential Planned development

    to me. She's failing so far. But when I sent her the stats on this particular project, she was appalled. She said, the overdevelopment in your area has got to stop. And she's a builder superintendent. 1,000 acres, 3,500 homes, and this accessory nonsense is a massacre. But my main concern is the safety. Has anyone at all considered the impact of the safety on the citizens of Pasco County with this

    large influx? Of individuals. I know the sheriff has because I've talked to him all the time. We have the lowest number, close to the lowest, out of 67 counties, we are number 63 in a ratio of deputies to 1,000 citizens. That's terrible. When you dump something like this into an area, it can only get worse. The impact will be devastating. Um and your taxes are gonna go up because we're gonna need more deputies,

    more cars, more helicopters, more fire and EMTs, more ambulances. How much of this constant impact on your safety are you willing to take? Um, the sheriff and his command staff and deputies are incredible, but he is not a miracle worker. There's only so much he can do. One charter school for this? Really? See what they do in Jacksonville is first they think about the infrastructure, then they build. I think that's a very interesting approach. You need to think of that, you

    need to consider safety, and you need to stop this continued message. Massive destructive over development. Thank you.

    Denise

    Next is uh Shauna Pateiro, uh uh followed by David Bryan.

    Shauna Patero

    Hello. My name is Shauna Patero. I live at [address removed].

    Um I recently moved to Pasco from Pinellas about five months ago to escape the congestion to a more rural atmosphere. I just bought a home off Plath Road.

    because of the rural area. I won't take too much of your time, but I am here to object to the corruption and build of New Port Cour Newport Corners. Nine hundred and sixty acres Three thousand homes, imagine it right now. How many homes that is? I'm a born and raised Floridian, and I'm saddened by this plan. I'm here to be the voice for the animals and for the people who couldn't make it here today and couldn't get off of work.

    Um your residents do not want this to happen. Um I brought and started a petition when I first heard about this build and this plan. Um it's called Stop Stop Newport Corners Petition. I started it a few months ago and I brought it to submit so everyone could see. Um I have printed out Oh geez.

    I have printed out everyone's reasons for signing. Um we have hundreds of comments on why they don't want this to happen. Um and I also brought the actual petition itself along with every Single signature. I have 1,196 signatures against this right now. It's growing every hour. Just as I printed this today at work before I took time

    off to come here, it was still more people were signing. So I just wanted to submit this paperwork so you guys had it.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Do you want us to receive and file that document? Yes. Do you have is that an extra copy that we can do? This is

    Unidentified speakerVoice B

    yeah, for you guys, yeah. Move to receive and file?

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Second. All in favor? Can you please give that to the clerk?

    Shauna Patero

    Sorry. Okay. Think about your drive here today. I drove here today about one PM And it was congested. Now imagine that more many homes with that more many cars coming here.

    In my app. Okay.

    To me this is insanity. Don't turn Pasco County into Pinellas County. I moved here for a reason. Save these animals.

    And mostly I what I'm concerned about, we're going to move and pretty much murder these animals because when they're displaced, they don't know how to react. So people can drive their golf carts to other people's houses and to a store. It's insanity to me. I disagree with Lenar and the representatives. We need to keep our trees and keep our animals and focus on our ecosystem for once. I live right next to where they're planning on building

    this. I live off of Plath. It's a dirt road, right next to Cody River Elementary. Cody Rilla Cody River Elementary does not have sidewalk for walkers. These kids can't walk to school. Um there's a serious concern for traffic in and out of the school. There's only one way in and out of the school and one way out of the school. So emergency vehicles have no room. And our road, Acropolis Lane, is the only other option on the west side of the school, which is a private road, R

    Road.

    Charles GreyChair

    Excuse me, you're three minutes up.

    Shauna Patero

    Okay.

    So yeah, that's it. Thank you for your time.

    Charles GreyChair

    Thank you very much.

    David Bryan

    Thank you. Uh my name is David Bryan. I live at [address removed]. To answer your question you wanted to know where I was in relation, people where they are. I live on the Cody River. Mm it's out my back door. I'm right in off uh River Crossing. And Galen Rhode. Been there over twenty-four, twenty-five years. Everybody's brought a nice shiny project here. Nobody wants to talk about the downside. I gotta sink hole. In my house, right next to the Cody River, they

    stopped drilling at a hundred and ten feet, no bedrock. All state handed me a check and said, see ya. During the course of my hearing with the attorneys for the insurance companies and my attorney, found out in my little neighborhood there's seventeen sinkhole properties. Mine isn't one. I didn't go through it, they just gave me a check and left. Your staff could have went to the property appraiser's office and found out because you get a discount when you have a sinkhole. They could have told you this very area when you call an insurance company is

    called a red flag sinkhole area. I want to know how I live on the east side of that river, And I don't have a bedrock there. And on the other side, you're gonna build all this stuff without even doing any drilling. To find out where the bedrock is? You can't predict sinkholes. I get that, but you can look at history like the insurance company does. Cost the benefit. They won't sign they w y I had to go through Citizens. And now you're gonna go over there and I fixed

    my house. When you do construction, there's a lot of destruction. There's a lot of movement of the ground, there's a lot of that going on. When you start disturbing that, and all of us in that area start having more sinkhole, Problems like crack tile, crack who who's gonna fix that? You guys cause you approved it? The builder? I want to know, so when I go to my attorney, I can tell them that this was put on the record, plausible deniability is gone. No your staff for two years never told you that that's a red flag SINCHO area per insurance companies.

    They could have went over to property purchases and brought you this stuff. You guys need the look who's telling you stuff because years down the road, well if it goes bad, your names are gonna be the one to approve it. 2.2 miles from Plath Road is a huge sinkhole right by the varsity club. This stuff happens. I moved up here from South Florida. I didn't know about sinkholes when I bought my house. In mid Florida in this area, It's almost like a bad ex wife that won't go away. They're everywhere. And they're asking you

    to approve this stuff and none of these intelligent people with a lot of millions of dollars on the table have told you the downside. You might want to ask yourselves why. So if any questions

    Charles GreyChair

    Do you have your documentation?

    David Bryan

    Do I have I know I didn't bring it but if you're you up there I wouldn't take a citizen's documentation to base my reputation. But I'll give it to you. I'll

    Charles GreyChair

    give

    David Bryan

    it

    Charles GreyChair

    to S. Excuse me, sir. Talking. When you come up here and make a assertions like you've just made You need to bring documentation so that we can document it in our file. You can't just come up and make it you

    David Bryan

    have a staff that you make. You're making these big decisions. You're

    Charles GreyChair

    making the assertions. We want

    David Bryan

    to know

    Charles GreyChair

    if that's true. I don't I'm not gonna check it. Charles Gray.

    David Bryan

    You came

    Charles GreyChair

    here to t to tell us.

    David Bryan

    Mr. Gray, if you want I'll bring them to your office, I'll show you the file. You're supposed to bring them to the

    Charles GreyChair

    meeting.

    David Bryan

    But But

    Charles GreyChair

    you're

    David Bryan

    here today.

    I see where where your side is,

    Charles GreyChair

    Mr Gray.

    David Bryan

    I see what side you're going

    Charles GreyChair

    to. You see where I am. Yeah, I've only lived here how much longer than you.

    David Bryan

    Damn, old by the look of you, you're a whole lot older than me. So I would say ask yourselves people.

    Charles GreyChair

    Yeah.

    Susie Johnson

    Yeah.

    Denise

    I believe his next name is Susie Johnson. I may be mistaken on the first name, but certainly the last name is Johnson. Followed by William Cahill. And then the last person I have signed up to speak is Dominique Cyprion.

    Charles GreyChair

    Okay. You would like to come up in that order, please.

    Denise

    Couldn't really.

    Charles GreyChair

    Did you hear that say that first name again?

    Denise

    Absolutely. It appears to be Susie Johnson, but I'm not certain about the Susie. Certainly the last name is Johnson. She's coming. Followed by William Cahill. And then Dominique Cyprion.

    Susie Johnson

    I hope we don't know. Um

    Susie Johnson

    Hello. I've been sworn in, yes. My name is Susie Johnson, [address removed]. Thank you. Uh one of the things I'd like to do before I start is address the comments from the Lenar representative. As he made some kind of subtle manipulative comments to tell talking about the trees and the forest and how every forest or has its time, you know, it's all going to be cut down eventually. You know, that's kind of the implant some things in your head that make you think that, well, it's time for it to go. No,

    it's not time for it to go. Like everyone else has said before, overgrowth is too much. You know, we all need development, yes, but this is too much. You know, and the other woman said about Pinellas County, I was gonna bring that up too. You know, living in Pasco County and if you go north, Hernando, Citrus, you look at those counties, isn't that what you want our city to look like and our county to look like? You go to Pinellas, what do you see? Nothing but buildings. There's not even any property left to build on. It's nothing but buildings. Go South Hillsboro,

    Sarasota. They're building up like crazy. We want to keep our county and our city beautiful and not something people wanna r wanna run away from. Thank you.

    Charles GreyChair

    Thank you very much.

    Unidentified speakerVoice H

    Good afternoon. Uh William Cahill. I live at uh [address removed]. Uh my first item is I have a question, have there been any uh comprehensive independent studies in regards to wildlife habitat destruction? um as well as stormwater runoff and pesticide seepage into the Cody River. Do we know has there been any

    Charles GreyChair

    answer them when he comes up.

    Unidentified speakerVoice H

    Um somebody from the applicant. Okay. Um I hear a lot of talk about concentrated new downtown area. Um in that center of the building there. Um won't this take away from our what I consider to be a maturing downtown area of New Port Richey as is. Um I spent many years I've been here since two thousand two um and moved up here from Penellas and I don't wanna see Pasco become Pinellas. Um Trinity

    Commons was built in hopes of my opinion to compete with downtown Newport Ritchie and it failed. Is that what they're gonna build again? Another failed downtown district and how is it gonna affect our our our businesses that exist down there? Um My last point is I think we all can agree that we're I think we're heading towards a housing market crash. What happens when the bubble bursts and all of this cleared land sits undeveloped and unused, yet destroyed, like what happened on Bailey Bluff in Holiday, right

    across from the Anclo Power Plant. They destroyed all that land. The housing market crashed in 2012, and now it just sits three quarters wrecked. Do we have any guarantees that they could do this in phases? You know, 'cause it sounds like we're not gonna be able to stop it. You know, but how do we make sure that it gets developed and gets developed intelligently and not greedily?

    Good. That's it. That's all I have. Okay.

    Charles GreyChair

    Any questions? All right. Thank you very much. We'll try to get you those answers.

    Dominique Cipriani

    Hello, my name is Dominique Cipriani, uh [address removed]. I'm a significant other of William Cahill. Um not to be redundant because everyone has voiced legitimate concerns about this beautiful jewel that lays on the Cody River and beyond. So the appeal is to please consider and plan forward not only the impact of what's will happen to this. community and the land but also the impact of As we kayak down the Cody River, myself and

    Bill, the impact of one home being developed, the debris and the lack of responsibility from the builder who's just gonna go away. Imagine the impact of such a huge project. So please preserve this jewel. Preserve the collective happiness and the collective almost higher consciousness of this area of nature. And please consider something else moving forward as opposed to this. Progress is important, progress

    can't be stopped. But as the gentleman had also mentioned, please careful planning is really important to the community and the whole Gulf area. For setting a precedent. Thank you very much.

    Charles GreyChair

    Thank you.

    Denise

    Mr. Chairman we had signed up to speak, but perhaps some folks may have

    Charles GreyChair

    All right. So anybody that's not hasn't signed up to speak, or is there anybody that now would like to speak?

    Okay. It's gonna full.

    Madeline Taff

    Uh my name is Madeline Taff. I was sworn in. Um I live [address removed]. Um I live off of Lindy Lane, one of two smaller roads off of Little between Plath and Massachusetts on the Cotee River. Uh driving into our home we are greeted by deer, raccoons, and six gopher tortoises. The other day a bobcat actually got one of my chickens. From our back deck, uh, we watched a family of otters and

    the occasional gator. Uh where are these animals gonna go? Uh has Lennar studied the Coti River? This time of the year we can walk right across but give it a few months and this small looking river turns into a literal raging river. And I'm worried that this new development will flood out my land and screw up the entire ecosystem and poison my well water. As a mother of three, there are plenty of parks for my children within a three mile radius. And

    in my opinion, we don't need any new ones. It sounds great on paper that they're gonna provide all this stuff for our kids and Blah blah blah. But at the end of the day, we are very happy with going to Starkey Park and use those trails, which many of the trails in Starkey Park are unused. And I don't really think we even have like that big of a big biking community or even a community that would use these new trails that are uh wanting to come in. Anyway, so I just wanna know what Leonard

    is going to do to keep our water clean and to stop the flooding and I don't know, don't mess up the river.

    Charles GreyChair

    That's all. Okay. Thank you very much.

    Uh I think there was someone else that raised their hand. Yeah, come on forward.

    Amanda Dosher

    Good afternoon. My name is Amanda Dosher. For the record, address [address removed]. Um to give you kind of a an if you don't know where that is, Cody River. I have not, ma'am. Do

    Amy Heiler

    you

    Amanda Dosher

    swear

    Amy Heiler

    from the top?

    Amanda Dosher

    Yes, I do. Thanks. So right where Cody River Elementary School is, where the the um private road right down Cody River. Um I've lived there my entire life. My grandparents generational, same thing. Back when um part of that land used to be groves. My grandfather had a dairy farm back there. So again, the nature is obviously very important to me. Um what's more important is now that Youth and Family Alternatives was built off of Plath Road. We are we completely flood every year. Three out of the five acres we're underwater, I'm talking knee deep. and and higher.

    So Yeah. I don't know what's gonna happen to Cody River. Not forget my little property 'cause that's probably nothing anyone cares about, but that entire school come summertime. You know, the flooding and stuff, not even necessarily on the river side. We're talking just the flooding within that own area. That little section there. west side of where this development is going in. Um Has anyone ever considered, I understand that development happens, have you considered making that into um maybe a county-owned preserve, equestrian park, something like they've done in

    Ocala, that massive park where that brings in a lot of money for the county, but it also preserves the land. Um an extension of Starkey Park or something where the land can still be preserved and the county still make money off of it, still employ people to um you know, run the parks and services or whatnot. So that's just a sugg uh suggestion of mine. Um Yeah, and just the flooding. I mean as kids we used to ride our horses in that property and it is being destroyed by trash and whatnot back there now, but there's so much wildlife.

    There's there's everything from eagles and hortresses and deer and So, I mean truly, if you looked at that one map that shows that piece of property where we go from the 70s until now, this is the only land left, you know, undeveloped. Well yeah, so where does that all that wildlife go? You know? Um then you're talking widening the roads and having even more t so what is Little Road gonna be a six lane, eight lane, ninety mile an hour road? Um Plath Road. Again, there's no sidewalks that come down Plath Road currently. So when you're talking walkers, they'll have to go

    around the entire Cody River to be able to walk to school down Acropolis Lane, which is a private road. So I think there's just a lot more that needs to be um That needs to go into that planning phase, uh, if it's truly gonna happen on how those kids are gonna be able to walk and whatnot. And and one other thing, with the golf cart situation. They're talking about leading it into downtown New Portie. Um the only way they would go through that is through Massachusetts, like down Massachusetts. Otherwise they're cutting through people's neighborhoods to get to downtown New Porgy.

    There's that's not a direct access. There's no highway that goes through that neighborhood. That's all all private um you know neighborhoods back there. Um otherwise are taken plath road. Again through Plath Road, the private road, if you know where that goes, the extension of Plath to get to um downtown Main Street. So That's all I have to say. Thank you for your time.

    Charles GreyChair

    Thank you very much.

    Anyone else?

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Mr. Chairman Clark Hobby again. When I hear these comments, uh

    a lot of what my family thinks of Pasco County, being from a an older Pasco County family and having had so many friends and feeling my my father was welcomed over here by many of our friends on the West Pasco side when he started working over here about nineteen eighty. and I share a lot of the same concerns that they have about The view of the easy. The way the area has grown up Preserving nature. These are all

    considerations that go into and through my mind When we started planning this project. And that's why we are trying to preserve a lot of the areas on the site that we are. creating the beautiful trails through the site. And I know for for everybody who's from here or someone who's just moved here recently, we would love that a lot of these areas in West Pasco County that we don't own stay the way that they are, especially when they're undeveloped, because they're beautiful. I

    wish the orange groves were still there. I wish the orange groves were all over my hometown in Dade City. They were everywhere. They're gone. Times change. We have to plan property in accordance with what the comprehensive plan says. And what I tried to do on this project is to make it the very best I could within the rules that I have to follow with our planning team and our engineering team to make this the a credit to West Pasco County and to be something we can be proud of.

    I'll address a few comments, but I hope you'll understand that we share all those same concerns, and I know that our neighbors feel strongly about that, and I'm not discounting that in one way. But I have to follow the law and I have to follow the comprehensive plan when we plan these kind of projects. That's what we're following and what we're we have to do. I'll address a few things just for the there were numerous uh questions about the the trees and the pine trees. And again, we're trying to preserve a lot of areas

    down by the river and create other open spaces and green spaces with the trees, but I just want everybody to understand. Orange groves got planted for a financial gain for the property owner and when orange groves went away everybody planted pine trees for two reasons. Greenbelt, to keep your taxes low and number two it's a production crop so You plant pine trees and they take about 30 years to fully mature, then they get cut down. The same property owner owned the property at the

    northwest corner of Massachusetts and Little, and they've harvested pine trees there at least once, and they're replanted now. It takes a while to come back, but it's a production crop. So I just want everybody to know they weren't planted just for a view shed for the property. owner or for neighbors. They were planted for financial gain. Um When we talk about sprawl and things like that, it's important to remember this is the antithesis of sprawl. This is called infill development.

    Everything's developed around this because uh the landowner gave the right away. excuse me, the right-of-way for Little Road and for the bridge. And everything's built around it as a result of that over ye over the years. What we're trying to do is take the last big hole in the donut and do a quality project that will complement all of West Pasco. and downtown Newport Ritchie 'cause it's in close proximity to it and that's near and dear to all of our hearts. Um With regard to flooding, a lot

    of the communities that were built down to the southwest of this site, there were no Swift MUD rules when that some of those developments were built back in the day. And we have to follow the Swift MUD rules now that say that we cannot neither increase the volume of water being discharged or the rate of flow. And in our community meeting, we had a f fairly lengthy discussion from Toxie Hall at Clearview to explain to neighbors that the point of the ponds is to slow down the

    rate of discharge of any stormwater so that the flooding already occurs down the river. By the time they the water comes out of our ponds, the water's already started to recede. That's how good engineering is done, and that's what Toxie said they would do. There were discussions about wildlife. Where would the wildlife go? Well, Let me tell you, there was a lot more open space when Dad opened his office over here in 1981 than there is now. But this site is in close proximity to the Starkey

    Preserve and to the adjacent Sera Nova. And between those two projects and other conservation lands at a bottom, there's 18,000 acres of conservation area that's contiguous. So we feel like there's more than adequate area for wildlife to go. Our studies that we submitted with the MPUD did not indicate a large uh there basically were only gophers and some wading birds observed that needed special protection and we will follow all the rules about that. I

    won't keep going. I know I'm I'm running out of time. I will point out that the project build out date is 2035. It's not going to be built overnight. It will be phased in. Again, we've done everything that I think we can do to to put together a a quality plan project, a heck of a lot of time and energy on the county staff's part and ours has gone into it. And I am here today to tell you that I am very proud of it and I think it will be a credit to our community. So I'd appreciate your support and I am happy to answer any

    final questions. One last thing for Mr. Williams, in looking at some of our plans, I think we probably can fairly easy make a a closer connection to the school from our PAT system earlier in the project. So thank you.

    Charles GreyChair

    Uh Mr. Hobby. So I have two questions, but I'm not sure if you're

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Yeah.

    Charles GreyChair

    Uh You might want to touch on impact fee, because I think one of the questions is why do you develop and then the county has to pay for streets and roads and

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    I think the c the question is do you plan for the future and why do you do this stuff and you don't The very effort we've gone through for the last two years is a planning effort in conjunction with the county about how to build the right form of development. that will work with the community and be credit to it. However, there are many, many impact fees and mobility fees that the county requires now that they didn't require 40 years ago, one of which is mobility fees, and it is estimated that the project will result in

    the county receiving over $18 million in mobility fees. And the County has told us that they want to determine the timing and which project is a very important thing. projects among three major ones where they will use the project. So this is what the lockbox concept that's in the MPUD conditions is about. The improvements would either occur to Little Road to cubelus or Starkey or intersections or other parallel relievers of those roads. The point being they're all the

    systems all interconnected We anticipate a lot of uh trips will be diverted to Ridge Road now that it's in place and will ultimately be four lane, but we are paying into the county system a lot of money and other impact fee that help offset the cost of development. And I can say for one thing for Mr. Williams, uh I can tell you that the school board uh does not set the school impact fees any bit lower than the impact of each

    unit that comes online. unless they just can't politically get away with it. But they have gone up substantially in the last five or ten years and are intended to offset the impact of the residential units.

    Charles GreyChair

    So what are the impact fee right now?

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Uh I mean there's I think we have seven or eight, I think, total. There's fire, there's school impact. Chris, you want to address the school impact? I

    Chris Williams

    was just going to say for for single family detach for school, it's around eight thousand per unit.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Um

    I

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    think it's around if you're asking the total number of imp I think it's around twenty thousand per unit. Something else.

    Unidentified speakerVoice B

    I checked it was a little more than that. I think it was between twenty-five and thirty. It's higher

    Charles GreyChair

    though.

    Unidentified speakerVoice B

    Right. No

    Charles GreyChair

    significant number for the the infrastructure. Right. That's what that's for. Okay. Well I think a lot of people are under the questions you may have to do.

    They Yeah, these things get built and The public ends up paying for it. I'd like I wanna make sure that we all know Who's really paying for it? And uh Because I I think it's fair that that's the fair only fair way to do it.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Well m Mr. Chairman, if I might too, the this project is so big and has so many facets. There are things that I'm you know I'm forgetting to say. One thing I think I mentioned this earlier As soon as we make a connection to the existing Osteen segment, which is a fairly long road We're going to resurface resurface it out of our pocket. Okay? And the street network that's all on the east side, all of that's not being paid with one bit of county funds. It's either going to be paid by our clients or their C D D owned

    and operated by the C D D. So there's zero burden on the taxpayers.

    Charles GreyChair

    Okay. And I think he had some questions, David.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Yeah, and I'm not sure Clark if you're the best person to address this or not, but there was an allegation made Effectively the the county and or the developer are ignoring the sinkhole risk and I looked at section eight oh seven of our code. I I I know the county doesn't ignore it because we require a geotechnical report. Um could somebody please address What we do to address the sinkhole issue uh or to explain how eight zero seven of our code works Anybody on your team? Mr.

    Gerardy? Well, I mean

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    I Toxie D you just want to I mean the ordinance requires that we do a geotechnical analysis now with each lot, but Toxie Hall from Clearview Land Design can explain it.

    Charles GreyChair

    I think one of the questions was what studies do you have to do?

    Unidentified speakerVoice I

    People are saying about having them and what might have caused them. But none of the borings, and I'm going to tell you there were 50 of them across the site indicated any sinkhole activity. When we go to the final design, we'll do more borings in both the streets and then deep borings in the ponds to make sure that when we dig the ponds, we don't breach the aquifer. And that will all be submitted to Pasco County in the water management district along with the final design plans. And then lastly When we go into partly site plan and partly building permits, we'll meet the PASCO codes where

    on a lot-by-lot basis we address uh geotech will address uh the possibility of uh sinkholes on any individual lot. Does that answer your question?

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Yeah. Thank you.

    Who else? So c so I have one more question. So Clark, um I appreciate what you said to Mr. Williams, but I think if we are gonna plan for a connection to the school From your trail system. I think a couple of things need to happen. One is that The connectivity plan would have to be amended to Show that connection. And then two We would need some kind of condition that that addresses when that connection

    to the school will be made.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Absolutely.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    The width of the path, Whether we're giving you credit against the bike pad part or the mobility fee, all those things need to be addressed in a condition and which isn't in there now. Right. So

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Well uh what I was gonna do, David, after the meeting is I need to get with Hannah McAlear, who you know, drafted the connectivity plan, sit down with Chris. I don't think it'll take us really long. Well if we create a new uh point of connection or an extension of one of the trails, we will amend the connectivity plan. We'll address it in a condition with you prior to the break

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    board. Terry and I and Amy looked at the map. It seems like the most logical connection is on Plath Road. It doesn't seem like you're gonna be able to get a connection to that. Northern Point. Um and I believe Brad confirmed we have a plenty of right away on the north side of Plath. Does that sound right, B Brad?

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Uh uh David, let me let me say this.

    It's a combination of the right location and the right timing. So I won't be part of the conversation because there may be a different place that we can make a location that would be earlier in the project. And so but I'll I will work with with Chris and with you to create the condition that implements any changes to the plan on it.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    Okay.

    Writing of a condition. It's not just we'll work with Chris. I there needs to be something

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    conditioned.

    Okay. And then we'll be able to figure out the timing. Again, I I don't I can't remember which phase we're in when we get to our very southwestern corner. And I suspect that Chris is hoping that it would be earlier in our project. So I just want to talk to him, you know, and we'll figure that out. But I I will work on that.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    How golf courts would get

    What is the long term plan? As far as golf carts

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    connecting outside of your development, is there I don't think anybody on our team brought that up. I think Amy was mentioning it, and I'm not sure that we had in mind golf carts going all the way down Massachusetts. What we were trying to talk about is on-site golf carts on the paths that we have. You know, if the county and working with the city creates a better uh multi-use path or cart path system over time, I'm sure people would avail themselves of it. But that wasn't part of our

    Well it there's as two of the residents who spoke live back in that area, and it's not entirely clear will it where it will come out to ultimately go to Rowan. So right now we're providing for its construction and right-of-way to our western boundary. So we've got to figure that out. Schools down there, there's a big lake in the area. So we where we have it located. Now, I think it's fitting between the school and the lake. But again, that's somewhat speculative because there's neighbors back there, and

    that's When we started the project, I I thought it was extremely speculative once you got to the west of the site, but staff, transportation staff asked that we show it on the plan going there so that if you all do work it out, it could work out down the road.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    But at a minimum if you build this additional connection to the school, you could at least get to and from the school On golf courts. I think so, yeah.

    Charles GreyChair

    Any other questions?

    Roberto Saez

    I'm not sure it's important.

    Uh Brad took a planning and development. Uh David, you asked about right-of-way there along Plath. There is a what appears to be a gap of right-of-way on their portion of property on the southern piece along Plath Road. It's assumed that we probably own it by maintenance because the road exists. However, we would need to clarify that and put any corrections that it would be happening in a condition too.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Okay.

    Chris Williams

    Um Let me ask a quick question. One individual brought up water. Are you gonna I assume. I hate to say assume. Will reclaim water go into this Development?

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Yes. And I'd also just say we had uh discussions. It's funny that the City of Newport Ritchie service area covers part of the site near the northwest corner. So we've already worked out with Pasco County Utilities a little flip-flop of service areas so that it's probably going to be the active adult area will probably be served primarily by the City of Newport. Port Richey.

    Charles GreyChair

    All right. Thank you, Clark. Yeah uh just a note for me. I I was One of my big concerns was You know, I think that's a good idea. something that Ms. Lassiter mentioned was the wildlife and parks and open space and so forth. And I so I just asked If uh the staff could uh tell me what we have in the way of park parkland and nature trails and stuff like that and Um I was a little surprised that we had so much. We got uh twenty

    two active parks, thirteen Passive Parks, three recreational complexes, five community centers, two swimming pools, one hundred and seventeen athletic fields, two public boat ramps, forty eight hundred acres of environmentally sensitive land. and eighteen thousand acres of parkland. And trails. That's a lot of places for dear to go. And uh You know, uh uh believe me, I share your concerns, believe

    it or not. I'm Lived here all my life. I'm My family too has been here like Charlene's for five generations. And this whole thing concerns me a lot and I wanna make sure it's done right. Yeah. I've been looking over their shoulders and talking to them and you know, being making myself comfortable that they're doing what they're supposed to do and that they will do because I've seen some things that have been done in the past. And I can give examples of and I told I've

    already told them that One they did at Copper Springs, in my opinion, was a disaster. And uh But We we talked that through And that's never gonna happen again, so Um We know that the property Four you know, fortunately we're fortunate f because for many, many years now We've been able to, as we grew up here enjoy a a lot of this land. It's just been there for us to use or see or walk through or Or whatever. It

    hadn't cost us a dime. And but now it's reached a point where The owner has to do something. You know, we're not paying the taxes on it, we're not maintaining it. Uh, but we've we've got to recognize that every person that owns property has the right to do something with it that falls within the guidelines of whatever the law is. Our job is to try to make sure that they tow the line. and follow those guidelines. So that

    it doesn't create a problem for her community. And uh You know, w we can all think back Charlene, me. Yeah, her husband Bobby. Um, can I think back to the times when th it was all orange groves and woods. and uh I used to love to smell the orange blossoms. Uh you don't see it smell that much anymore, but

    as time went on, everybody in this room moved here from somewhere else. You know, and and I could have taken a position back then. You know, hey, I don't want you here. I like it like it is. Don't buy that house, don't build there, don't move in, don't mow that lawn, don't We we can't live like that. I mean, unfortunately. We what we have to do is try to control it and end up with the the best thing we can get. And W I felt really comfortable with the fact

    that the person leading in the charge in this particular instance was Mr. Hobby, because he comes from the same

    i the w many of us that have lived here all our lives have come from. And uh I don't know if that gentleman's still here that was upset with me, but I'm sure I am a lot older than him. But I wasn't talking about age, I was talking about how long I've been here. Yeah. So We all share the community. We all want it to be to be beneficial to all of us. There's no reason why any of us up here would want to have something less than we can have. So You

    know, it's not always an easy job up here, believe it or not. And uh But we have to conform to what the law avails property owners of. And they do have rights. You have rights with your property. So Um No matter how we vote. Everybody's gonna vote their conscience. And uh But I I just wanted you to know my perspective. And uh

    Applications are slam dunk deals. to this board. We're very considerative of what's g what's g ha what impact it's gonna have. And my my Approach to it as always. What would I think if I lived near there? If I lived near there, would I be happy with it or would I be upset with it? And uh So And that's how I'm gonna vote. That's how I always vote. So uh that's

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    my comment. The only thing I'm the thing I want to say is that I'm not sure that most of the Citizens understand that the county took a regional approach to conservation of lands. Um and so We have penny for Pasco money that is allocated to buy lands for conservation. But that's a good idea. the county's priority was to preserve the large tracts of land such as Saranova and crossbar and the Connerton preserve and to and preserve ecological corridors that connect those major tracts

    of land. And so We do have penny money that's that's allocated to purchase land for that conservation purpose and for the movement of wildlife. Um but this was not one of those areas. Um So we don't really have funds to go buy large tracts of land like this for conservation they don't have the same ecological value as those ones that I previously identified. So our priority has been to preserve those large tracts of land, preserve the ecological connections

    between them. I mean Clark knows how much did we spend buying the connection for in in Bexley? Was it Twenty three million dollars we spent to to connect Saranova, Conerton, Crossbar. So The county does care about wildlife and cares about preserving land for conservation. It's just not here. And so This wasn't considered a high priority for preservation. So we don't really have the funds to be buying this type of land just to preserve

    it because Some people want it preserved. But I don't want anybody to think that the county doesn't care about conservation or preservation because We spend a heck of a lot of money buying land for conservation and preservation and for the movement of wildlife. Sometimes to the point the developers hate us for doing it. Um But It it is it is an important goal of the county. The voters approved it and that's our that's where our efforts lie. To preserve land. Thank

    you, David.

    Jaimie GirardiVice Chair

    Yeah, I guess to can I add please. Just to add quickly, I and I know we've been here a long time talking about this, but I mean, trust me, everybody that got up to speak today, everybody up here heard everything you say. Unplanned growth, unregulated growth is a terrible thing. Fortunately for everybody in this room for two reasons y I'm gonna tell you for two reasons you were lucky.

    thirty, forty years ago that property owner that's there now didn't wanna sell or else that property would have been developed thirty or forty years ago. and would have been developed something more to the kin of what's n further north on Little Road. The second thing is is is Pasco County spends a a lot of time, a lot of effort. They have the comprehensive plan, it's a mandated document. They have the harbors infill plan. They have land use. They have zoning regulations. There's all kinds of environmental regulations from the state, from the local water management district. I

    mean, I heard somebody get up here earlier today and they they started talking about a rubber stamp and this all I could do was just laugh to myself because Any development that goes on today is anything but a rubber stamp. Um I mean i if if the public had any idea how long it takes to get through the permitting process to get a project approved. they they really would probably be in disbelief, I guarantee it. Um So I I guess the on on this project You know, I know the developer

    has a has a great team. They put together a great plan. It's great pictures. I I love the pictures and I think everybody else here likes the pictures too. Um my only hope is that the pictures aren't wasted. The pictures are what everybody gets. You know we're not going to be able to do We need to make sure we're going to do that. And and I think the conditions of approval do a really good job of outlining and requiring a lot of what the pictures show to ensure that it's gonna be there. There's architectural standards in the conditions. Um It's just U a lot of work's gone into this and I'm

    thankful that a lot of work's gone into this because I think at the end of the day everybody's gonna be proud of this project. proud of what they get. I know it's not what's there today. But what's there today was never planned to be there forever. I mean it's been planned to be a development of some sort for a long time. So

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    thank you. Could I just add one more follow-up comment? There was a comment made earlier that that we're becoming Los Angeles, which I took a little bit of offense to because

    I think it's an insult to the planners that work for Pasco County. I mean they they've done a good job of Trying to make sure that the trips are internally captured, that there's more bicycle pedestrian movement, not c car auto dependent. As as Amy said, the we're they're trying to make sure that even the retail is not solely an auto dependent use. They're Encouraging golf cart use, uh bike pad use, parks. Access to schools, employment. None of that was done in Los Angeles when it created what

    happened out there. So I took a little offense when somebody said that our planners are letting this become Los Angeles because I just don't think that's accurate. I think it's a slap in the face to our planners who do a lot of good work. And I would appreciate if people didn't make comments like that, because I don't think it's accurate.

    Chris Williams

    I like to springboard on what David said there. The gentleman I I don't know if you said LA, but I I grew up in Orange County, California. And the gentleman talked about the time that he spent. I assumed he was in the Marine Corps. Uh, 'cause he had a Marine Corps hat on. There used to be an air. A Marine Corps air base there is called El Toro. It's gone. It's homes. I had friends that were in the Marine Corps that actually had a duty s at that facility. I had a

    relative that was a pilot in the Marine Corps that flew out of El Toro. It's gone. It is home. You want to talk about homes back to back? I mean it's a congested area. Home after home after home. If it was looking like the development that's been presented here today I'd probably remain mute on the subject 'cause I doesn't really matter. It doesn't. But the fact is, as David said, It's congested and this

    is not a congested area. It's gonna be in a very attractive area. They've got parks. They got trails. Um

    I hope that's a good idea. I have the opportunity to live long enough to see it completed. to be honest with you, I know folks out there are concerned about development. You know, I've had the opportunity to move to almost Six, seven times in my career. And I was fortunate enough to land up here. in Pasco County. I can thank my wife for that 'cause I wanted to go to Arizona. And that area has grown considerably itself. So I know what you folks feel like when you say, gee,

    I know some of you gonna be shaking your heads and whatever. Growth happens. I've like I said, I lived in six, seven different places and I've seen growth. When I lived in Texacana, Texas. We had a large lot, we had pine trees behind us, went back a few years ago. It's all homes now. That's life. Um Fortunately, as David said, Pasco County does have some very good planners. So

    Please, please understand that growth does happen. People gotta have they have the opportunity to live someplace. And like I said, Orange County where I grew up at, it is home after home after home. I used to have orange girls? That I used to go play in. You used to go rabbit hunting. All kinds of things like that. It's gone. But there are planners in this county that do a great job. Uh and I've looked at the f these photos. We all saw the photos. It's gonna be a beautiful, I think a very beautiful facility. Thank

    you.

    Chris Williams

    Yeah. If if uh Well, like Chuck and like Charlene. You know, I'm a fifth generation Pasco County.

    Born and raised as well. You know, I gr uh Like Mr. Hobby shared. I grew up my dad owned an orange grove in Land O' Lakes. I grew up in an orange growth. That's how I learned to work hard. Work worked in the Orange Grove every summer. And you know, I miss those too. You know, and what's there now? It's pine trees. And someday it's not gonna be profitable to keep that going. Some day. My dad or after my dad's

    gone that's gonna get sold and something else is gonna be there. You know, and I I don't like it any more than a lot of you, but at some point That becomes where it's not profitable. And and I don't like it any again, m any more than you do, but at some point, you know, the property owner has an option to sell it. Because they have property rights. And that kinda leaves two options. Either the county's gonna buy it. And turn it into a park, but as

    David Uh So well said, the county can't buy every piece of property. The other option is for citizens to go buy it themselves. And then pay the taxes, keep it green for everybody else. That would be great. But you know, that's not typically financially feasible either. And so again, as already been said, we we try to do the best to try to manage that growth. I'm surprised. Has already been said too. I think Jamie

    said it, that that property hasn't been Developed already. Yeah, to be frankly. And uh you talked about phasing it. Well, I think it has been phased 'cause it's been vacant. for so long. But hopefully the fact that we've waited this long Hopefully it's gonna be done in as best away as possible. But again, you know, it's not an easy job up here. It's not easy to see for people like us who have been here for so long. You know, we we understand that. But

    um we have to do you know, follow the law and People have property rights to develop the property that they have.

    Mr. Mr. Chairman

    Donald E. Anderson

    I I will add simply that Many things could have gone into this and uh I think we've very fortunate that we have individuals in our community that have a concern, not just our staff but those that come here before the commission and represent themselves and their clients and uh I think they've done an admirable job. Trying to maintain what we want to see in this community and and what it'll be so Applaud

    them for the effort.

    Charles GreyChair

    Yes, and uh I guess everybody's had a chance to say something, but uh the last thing I will say is that I know it's not easy. for the ordinary citizens to show up at meetings like this and get up and speak. Yeah they say to speak in front of a group, especially people that you d that you know, is one of the most frightening things you can can never do. and so I know it's not easy for you and I try to to uh make

    sure that you don't feel too discomf well, I I did make a mistake there with the one guy. You know, he he did get under my skin a bit, but I hope maybe we're friends now. I don't know. Yeah. But that's okay if we're not. Yeah. Anyway, um Yeah, I appreciate you coming. and saying what you had to say. It's important that you have essay. There's a lot of countries. Well you have no say. And that's One thing we need to all be grateful for.

    So

    Chris Williams

    I'd like to uh make the motion to approve uh PDD twenty two seven five nine, also known as four, Newport, Corners, and PUD, Master Plan, Unit Development District.

    Unidentified speakerVoice A

    No, is that with the added condition to r have the uh multipurpose path connection to Cody Elementary? Yes.

    Does that cover it, David? We can work out the details. I just wanted to make sure the motion included that requirement to have the connection to Cody.

    Unidentified speakerVoice B

    Okay.

    Charles GreyChair

    We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion on the motion? If not, uh all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye aye. If opposed, like sign. Okay, motion carries.

  2. 2
    Board of County CommissionersP61Public hearingApproved
    Approved minutes

    Approved Staff’s recommendation.

    Open this item →
    59m
    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    And I will present pre sixty one.

    Amy Heiler

    All right. Hello again, Amy Heiler with Long Range Planning. Today you'll be hearing item RZ 7598, which is the Newport Corners Master Plan Unit Development Rezoning. So as previously shown, this is this site is located in the s uh central and spring districts of the West Market area as well as Commissioner District 4. This is your visual showing the aerial where it's north of Place, south of Decubulus

    along the Little Road Corridor. So the proposal for the rezoning petition is to rezone the existing AC Agricultural District and AR Resident Agricultural Residential District to MPUD master plan unit development on approximately 956.3 acres of real property to allow for a mixed-use development of residential office retail and other commercially or community-scaled non-residential. residential uses. The intent of this area is to

    be developed as a companion downtown to the city of Newport Ritchie through a series of well-connected street networks, trails, and land uses designed to complement and serve the surrounding community. So I'll go through a little history of Newport Corners. You heard this previously at the BC at the Transmodal hearing and rezoning action. So as stated, as Clark had mentioned, on August 10th, 2010, the Board of County Commissioners heard and approved the reclassification

    of the existing residential future land use classifications at that point in time. To the Newport Corners flu amendment through the adoption of ordinance number 10-26. The improved entitlements at that time for Newport Corners considered existing densities set to set by the established residential land uses, as well as increase the intensity to allow for a maximum development potential of 3,397 dwelling units and four. 4.8 million square feet of

    non-residential uses. So that was approved in 2010. Here is the visual for the existing land use that was approved at that point in time. And so in on December 9th, 2021, the local planning agency held the public hearing on the Comp Plan Amendment and approved the proposal of increasing the density from 3,347 units to 3,400 units and reducing the 4.8 square feet of non-residential to 1.4

    million square feet of non-residential uses, as previously noted. Or at least, or as previously approved. On January 25th, you had the authorization, and today we went ahead and heard the adoption for the comp plan amendment. So on March 17th, we did hold the rezoning petition at the Planning Commission, and there was a recommended modification at that point in time to allow for the connection. connection or allow for connectivity or

    inclusion of multi-use path to connect to the Cody River Elementary School along Plath Road. That change has been incorporated into the master plan, connectivity planning conditions for the MPUD, conditions of approval. There's also minor modifications that occurred to the following conditions as approved by PDD and the applicant.

    There were a couple variations from the code as stated. Um some variations included uh LDC section eight oh five point six for the restrictions of post-development wetlands along to ensure some so these were buffering components of the wetlands that were approved. Um neighborhood park requirement was reduced. This was as a result of the location. of the urban rec center that's going to be proposed alongside the village village, northeast village area,

    as well as 402.5 for the distance of the alcohol waiver for consumption because there are no schools or churches within the vicinity of that regulation. So the proposed entitlements are set forth in the conditions of approval for the MPUD. As previously stated, there's approximately a total of 3,400 residential units and a maximum of 1.4 million non-residential units. Those are defined as follows: 1,825

    single-family units, or entitled as follows: 1,825.

    And 1,050,000 square feet of office and target industry. So as previously stated, this is the sub-area map that identifies the village areas for Newport Corners. And I'll go into some detail on what that means. So this is going to be your connectivity plan. This is also adopted within the conditions of the MPUD. They will be bound to this and will be bound to the location of the roadways, the park requirements, wetlands,

    uplands, and sidewalks and connectivities.

    So the Northeast Village, um so the intent of the Northeast Village is to act as a primary location for employment generation with a mixture of residential dens densities and the establishment of an urban recreational or possible establishment of an urban recreational center in this location. This is going to be north of Decubulis and east of Little Road. In this area, we have had extensive negotiations with the Office of Economic Development as well as Parks, Recs, and Natural Resources. So with Office and

    Economic Development, the applicant and planning and development came to an agreement for this area to prioritize office and target industry uses. To include, but not limited, to professional office, medical office, as well as a 25-acre flex space, which is defined in the conditions of approval for the MPUD. And then with Parks and Rec. We have been in negotiations with Parks, Rec and Natural Resources, and the applicant has agreed to preserve 10 upland acres for a period of

    two years to allow for an urban rec for the potential for an urban recreational center. The intent of this urban recreational center is to act as a companion to the Magnolia Valley as well as Mitchell Park. Park to fulfill the level of service for the regional park in this area?

    And the neighborhood general is going to primarily be your residential uses. So the neighborhood general is going to include your residential, single family detached, single family attached, alley loaded, and age restricted developments or uses within this area. And then the village center is actually going to be more of your downtown core. So previously, this was of an open space that we converted or changed to speak more to the village center. So this

    is going to be your downtown component for Newport Newport Corners. So the village center is going to provide for a mixture of retail office and residential unit uses. And these uses are actually Only going to be primarily commercial uses, neighborhood serving restaurants, those downtown uh uh components. We're also priorities prioritizing ver vertically integrated uses in this area. Um and we've spoken with the applicant and prohibited various uses that um

    may be considered dirty or not a companion to the character of the area, i.e. um M uh uh clerical or not clerical. Um Uh Sorry. Uh RV, electrical, mechanic, RV uh warehousing, and car washes are gonna be prohibited in this area. And then we also have a companion within the connectivity plan that shows the parks and trails and sidewalks and open spaces that are going to be in this area. And

    then the accompanying master plan delineating the wetlands and the general range of uses, location locations, and access points. And with that, we recommend that the BCC approve the rezoning request subject to the attached conditions of approval. And I can answer any questions that you may have.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    Thank you. Any questions for staff? Yeah. Okay. Time for the applicant.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Yeah, okay. Okay. Sorry about that, Mr. Chairman Clark Hobby again. Had to remember how to advance the clicker. This is the difficult thing in my day. Okay. Uh here today, very happy to be with you on behalf of a large planning engineering team and our client Lenar Holmes and Joel too is working with me and represents the uh the seller who's going to retain some of this project. But the big things I want you to know today is that Our

    team has known and has been working on this project for almost two and a half years now. We're very much cognizant of the importance of this site to West Pasco County and to our neighbors and to the development of West Pasco in general. So when I think about this site I always think about the history of our county And if you go back and you look at the aerials of this area in West Pasco County, a lot of people don't realize we did not even have a bridge over

    Little Road until the early eighties. So if you lived up in this area where the county government center is and you had to go see somebody down by 54, you had to drive all the way into downtown New Port Richey to do so. And so if you look at the larger area that we find ourselves in, a lot of the build-out lots that you see there, there was virtually nothing in 1974 in this area. And most of West Pasco, the development occurred in close proximity to 19. Well,

    why am I saying that? Well, it's because if you go back and you look at your history, the landowner of this property gave the property for Little Road and for the bridge over Little Road to be constructed. And if you read this article from this, I think it's from the St. Pete Times, no, I'm sorry, it's from the Tribune, uh, they basically, the chairman uh says that we could not have built Little Road and the bridge but for the dedication of the right-of-way for this area. And what happened

    is once Once the bridge was built and little road was built through this area, it's responsible almost single-handedly for the majority of the growth that we now know on the east side of Newport Ritchie and all of this area. So because of that And what the board could see happening even at the adoption of the original comp plan, this area has been planned for res 3 and res six density since at least 2000. And all of the plan amendments

    coming forward to the adoption of Newport Corner continue to show Res 3, Res 6, and Res 9 in this area, which indicates that the county knew this was going to be urbanized over time. And moreover, the number of residential units that are in Newport Corners have already existed going back at least since 2000. So after the board adopted Newport Corners in 2010, which you all heard heard about. The board then created

    our market areas and created the harbors plan for for the West Market area. And as you all are undoubtedly aware, conducted all kinds of community workshops and there were all kinds of working teams that worked on this for like a year and a half. And the goals for this site were set out in the harbors plan. And they really Boil down to a few things. We wanted to preserve open spaces. We wanted to open up some access to the river and have good trail

    systems. And we really more than anything want to create a sense of place that is something that we can be proud of in this area and not have more of the same stuff we've seen on 54 for the last 25 years. This is a strategically important system. Site, our client is aware of that and because of that, gave the planners at Clearview Land Design. a real free hand in designing the community. So you've seen the MPUD and you've heard some discussion about

    the uh I'm gonna come back to that. You've heard some discussion about the overall plan, but let me just walk you through just a few things and I won't belabor it. The central focus of this project is the four corners at Newport Corners. As I said The previous comp plan already allowed all this residential. And what we need to do is have a really nice downtown area around which we can plan. So what we've done here is these corners which were already appropriately

    sized when Newport Corners was adopted, they're only 12 and a half acres in size. So they're really only appropriate for neighborhood scale uses. The planners at at Clearview Land Design and working with Lenar and with the sellers representatives created this beautiful green space area through the the downtown area, running through here and a big greenway down to the river in a park system and amenity area. They also, and this is again, some of this stuff is unprecedented

    for Lenard, never done this, all of these cross-hatched areas you see are all alley loaded product. The point being we're trying to create a downtown community feel here, uh maybe, you know, similar to Bexley but even more powerful than that area based on the scale we're talking about. And all of these units will be looking over the green space in the downtown area. Moreover, and again the sellers never agreed to do anything like this before, the seller agreed

    to move all of the buildings up on the green space so that the parking's gonna be in the rear. and agree to create with the county as the site plans come in. standards for building orientation, the facades of the building, architectural, signage, landscaping, and parking. Now do you all have you ever heard of another time that that's been done in the county? You haven't, because it's never been done before. And the reason why we're doing all this is to show you

    all we're committed to the plan you see today and that connectivity plan and creating this sense of place. We're going to continue to work with your planners on the commercial standards, but we have to do this right. We have to do this together to make sure we fulfill the mission that the Board adopted in. Yeah. You've seen the Greenway uh plan, and I won't belabor these slides, but what we're showing you here is these this is what our Multi-use paths are gonna look like some of the larger

    ones are along the river system. Uh and we we've given great thought to the crossings of Little Road and on Little Road we're going to have uh a brick paver uh system there with pedestrian relief in the middle so that our pedestrians can safely cross little road. Then when we get down to the green space area, we're gonna have a series of amphitheater type feel or open spaces, some of which are gonna be more passive in nature. Then there'll be some

    more active areas and and I'll flip to a slide in a minute which shows you where we may have some kind of a bike park or skate park. uh and and so forth. But the planners at Clearview have been working with a top notch firm out of Utah on the trail system. I'm sorry I need to go back. um about the plan that we're going to have down by the river and really where our focal area is there. A lot of thought has gone into it, something we can be really proud of. Um you heard from

    staff and you're gonna hear from some of our neighbors that they are concerned about open spaces and what we're doing in that. And I can assure you the Clearview team put a lot of effort and a lot of thought into this so that the green spaces throughout the community complement the areas where the wetlands are already located and the ponds are then located around them as well. So again, Just in the area south of Decubelis where creating or

    preserving over four hundred acres of open space. And to me that's really remarkable. Um I think you've seen the majority of the connectivity plan and we've gone through most of the stuff before. So I I I'm not gonna belabor this, but I do want to point out uh just a few other things because I know you're likely to hear some concerns from our neighbors on these things. Again, when we started this project before we did the plan amendment. the traffic would have been significantly worse than where we are today.

    and through a combination of reducing the huge and I mean mall regional mall scale retail on the site And reducing some of the other non-residential, but still keeping enough to have really good job creation here, we reduce the total number of trips that could have been allowed by over 70 percent. Okay? That's very significant. Moreover, we agreed as to transportation to a series of conditions that will

    require us to build two roads on the east side that will ultimately uh be parallel relievers to Little Road. So the people who live on the east side of the road, if they're going north to the cubelus, won't have to go on little road. They'll be able to cut through the community and go out over there. Then we created a lockbox system for all the mobility fees that will be created from the site. And I anticipate that number is going to be somewhere between 20 and 25 million. And

    the way the conditions work is rather than that money going to some other area of the county, some other area in West Pasco, the funds can only be used by the county for improvements to Little Road, Starkey. Or decubelus. And staff feels very strongly, and they've told me that they want to see how Ridge Road works once the third and fourth lanes are open and do some further traffic studies to decide where to best spend those funds. So that's the plan on

    traffic. You heard about the parks. Again, there's a in addition to what we're doing on our part, there's another 10 acres being reserved. uh for a park that uh natural resources wants north of Decubelis. Uh you heard about the employment numbers. We're reserving plenty of entitlements and there's a 25-acre employment site which is being reserved. Those are both specifically what staff asked us to reserve. And to the sellers' credit, they did

    everything that staff asked of them. Um again preserving huge open spaces and preserving a lot of wetlands. The only wetland impacts that we propose on site are to some isolated category threes. None of the cat ones are proposed to be impacted. I'm very proud of the work that went into the connectivity plan and the overall design of the development. It's been a two and a half year process that we've gone through with your staff. Uh

    and I specifically want to thank Amy Heiler, Terry Pitos, David Goldstein, the transportation staff, and and I just want to point out for on the transportation side. When we took this project on. there were two big collector roads that were gonna go right through the middle of the eastern portion of the project and we could not have built the downtown that we're going to build with that roadway system and we had to work for six months with your staff to reach an accommodation so

    that the land use principles and the transportation principles could meet together and still create a grid system that will distribute the trips. But then we'll also allow for a downtown field that's walkable, bikeable, and so forth. Um And again, we knew this day was coming two and a half years ago, and my my question to our client. and to our planning team two and a half years ago was Can we and

    have we done everything that we can do? to make sure that the end of this project and the planning that leads up to today that we've created a special sense of place and a community destination. And to my clients' credit and to the sellers' credit, I believe we fulfilled that mission today with a lot of work with your staff. So I appreciate your consideration of it and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    Any questions for the applicant?

    Mike Moore

    That's good.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    Thank you. Thank you. We're going to go to public comment and it's important as a clerk calls your name, that you give your name, your address, and that you have been sworn. Madam Clerk?

    Ron Oakley

    Thank you. All right. Um the first individual signed up is Laura Jesky.

    Laura Jeske

    Thanks for the opportunity to share my concerns. My name is Laura Jeske. I live at [address removed], and I've been sworn. Um the Newport Corners development has been in the works for years, and I'm sure the property owners, developers, and county planning folks. Work very hard to reach this point. But as a resident who will very likely be here for the next few decades, paying for the full impact of their development, I'm terrified of what these folks are leaving in their wake. They will be

    long gone when the next drought hits. They'll be long gone when their high density living space turns into a slum. Of course they're paying impact fees, but those fees don't cover anywhere near the full cost of their high density developments. I know others speaking today are covering the runoff and flooding concerns and the awful displacement of wildlife. No, there is no safe route for those poor creatures to migrate to Starkey Wilderness. But those impact fees don't come anywhere near the budgets of all of our first responders who

    are now understaffed and under-equipped for the population of Pasco as it stands today. Obviously they're in a pretty bad state for a projected spike in population. In the whole planning exercise, no one thought of paying for this need. before recommending a project for approval. The commission saying they will discuss the matter at a May twenty-two budget meeting seems like a little too little too late. Um I only have three minutes to share my concerns, but I'd like to enter the public record an article

    from a local newspaper citing a 2020 report from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to you, the Pasco County Commission. It describes the extremely distressful ranking of our Pasco County Sheriff's Department at number 64 out of 67 counties in the state of Florida for the ratio of deputies to residents. That's near the bottom. While I don't have news articles about other first responders' capacities concerns from first hand conversations, I know that they are all suffering from the same lack of funding and

    trained personnel. You, the Pasco County Board of Commissioners, are in a powerful position. You can throttle back the explosive development track we are on so that the support systems for your current residents catch up. Or you can accept the responsibility when people die waiting for basic services to arrive.

    Can I submit my newspaper article for the public record?

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    Yes.

    Christina Fitzpatrick

    Motion to receive and file. Second.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    All in favor say aye. Good.

    Laura Jeske

    Uh thank you. Thank you.

    Ron Oakley

    Uh next uh person signed up is Mark Jeske.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    And folks, please know clapping as we go forward. Thank you. I'm sorry, what? I was saying. For the folks in the audience, please no clapping.

    Mark Jeske

    Thank you, members of the commission. My name is Mark Jeske and I live at [address removed]. I wish to make reference to a few important articles that I

    Yes.

    Ron Oakley

    Thank you. You may proceed.

    Mark Jeske

    Uh and I would like to please request permission to submit into the public record the first identifying page of each article.

    Lord Delvin

    Move receiving file. Second.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed?

    Mark Jeske

    Thank you.

    I have an article where County Administrator Dan Biles said that in 2021 the County issued permits totaling nearly $4 billion in approved property value, 56% above 2020 and double 2019. I have an article where assistant county administrator Sally Sherman advised that the County had to hire 10 new staff in planning and 14 in building construction administration because of all the

    development. I have an article where County property appraiser Mike Wells states that Pasco County's population could reach almost a million by 2040. That's almost double the current census number of five hundred and sixty-two thousand. I have several articles in which experts have studied the effects of uncontrolled development sprawl. They all conclude that uncontrolled development ends up costing the

    communities a lot more than it generates in economic growth and tax gain. I reference Florida Statute Section 145.031, which increases the salaries of county commissioners as the population of their county increases. That statute explicitly permits commissioners to voluntarily freeze their salaries so that they are not influenced by the drive to maximize

    development. If you have not done so already, I request that each of you consider Voluntarily freezing your salaries at the current Pasco County population level. So that increased pay runs no risk of influencing your development decisions. I note that some of you accepted political donations from developers and their consultants. I request that any of you who have received donations from

    a developer or consultant who will can benefit from the new Port Corners project. Consider recusing yourself from today's decision making process. Considering the millions of dollars at stake with this project and the long planning period, it is probably unrealistic to think we can stop this speeding train. Бой кантви слова? Слот дан алот. A project of this size should be phased in over a

    long period of time, especially given the current construction madness in our county. A phase development over fifteen years or longer. Would give the current residents and the wildlife an opportunity to acclimate to the change. Please step back and truly think about what you are doing to this county. It's time to emphasize planning for the quality of life of the current citizens. It's time to put the brakes on development.

    Thank you.

    Ron Oakley

    Okay. Um Miss Julia um Barterneck.

    Julia Bartunik

    Hi again, I was sworn in and I'm still sworn in. Um thank you for the opportunity to speak. I speak on behalf of the Sierra Club, Pasco Conservation Committee, and myself. The Sierra Club has developed principles attempting to guide entities in matters such as this. Sierra strongly discourages suburban sprawl as represented by this proposed zoning change. Sprawl fails to maximize in-placed infrastructure. This change will require Pasco County to expand its infrastructure in multiple arenas,

    including schools, roads, sewers, water, resiliency, fire protection, and even government. Two, suburban sprawl fails to recover the costs associated with expansion. Citizens who derive little benefit from this change in zoning will at some level wind up paying for the expansion. Three, moving into what will become urban sprawl. Creates a scenario where the underfunded costs of project A are attempted to be recovered by project B. Of course, project B itself is underfunded

    and this process continues in a losing battle of new projects. For Sierra Club's principle of walkable communities, walkable communities are designed in such a way that any resident is within walking or biking distance of services and amenities needed on a day-to-day basis. Street plans provide for curved cul-de-sacs, no-through streets, and broad sidewalks. All of the focus, all of this focused on residents who live there. Rechargeable EV stations, dark sky lighting, and

    solar roofing is optimal. Pasco is a beautiful county. Sierra Club supports neighborhood renewal, an approach that allows Pasco County to maximize current infrastructure. By the same token, Sierra Club supports the principle of infilling, again, maximizing utilization of in-place facilities. Both of these approaches allow Pasco County to be able to use the easy to to maintain green spaces and vibrant places which support health both mental and physical. As myself, I'd like to request another

    park adjacent to the river on Plath Road, similarly along Plath Road, um, on the east. On the south side of Plath Road, similar to James E. Gray Preserve. This has added deep concerns for flooding issues of New Portie residents post-development of the zoning change for the Newport Corners development. I'm also concerned with the runoff pollutants into the Pithclucchi River impacting its estuaries, river beauty,

    and potential increased tourism. May I please submit this to public record?

    Christina Fitzpatrick

    Motion to a receive and file. Second.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay.

    Ron Oakley

    Okay.

    All right. Um The next individual signed up is David Robison.

    Unidentified speakerVoice F

    My name is David Robison. I live at [address removed], and I have been sworn.

    Ron Oakley

    Thank you.

    Unidentified speakerVoice F

    I really salute your uh power to control and your duty to control the growth of Pasco County. I lived in Orange County, California and I witnessed it go from a private road to build the new communities. to ten lanes on I five. in both directions. One to go San Diego, ten more lanes to go to Los Angeles. So you have an awesome power and duty to keep Pasco County and control its growth. And that I really salute you for that. It's a tough job.

    to keep beautiful Florida for its residents and its tourists. If we could pass a law that says Build only where there are already existing sewer, water, and electric meters.

    that way No more land. or lives. Livelihood. And the habitat of the people and the animals on that land would be destroyed. In other words, if you build on sites that have already been developed, you can do it. You can build up and you can build a little bit bigger on that site and you don't destroy any more land or lives.

    You still developed.

    You can't stop the people from moving to Pasco County. But you can control where they live and how much land is developed. And How much land is not developed? For the residents that are already here. And the tourists. I I think in that way everybody wins. Thank you.

    Ron Oakley

    Okay, next person signed up, Barbara Costa.

    Or Costa. Costa.

    Barbara Costa

    Thank you, Commissioners. My name is Barbara Costa. My address is [address removed] and I have been sworn. I'm here to speak in opposition to Newport Corners. The woods that would be gone are adjacent to my house. The woods are the reason that me and my neighbors live there. Osteen Road is where everybody walks. All the neighbors walk on Osteen at night. We all know each other. Um many of my neighbors

    asked me to say that they're not here 'cause they're at work. They can't get off the middle of the day to come down. But my concern is for the animals that would be displaced. I live there. I see the gopher tortoises on Osteen Road. I've seen gopher tortoises no bigger than the size of my hand out on that road. There are Rossiate spoon bills in those ponds. Bald eagles fly over. There are so many animals that will be impacted. Animals don't know to walk somewhere

    else. They don't know to watch for traffic lights. Every time there's development in Pasco County, you see them dead on Little Road. I mean, I know I live there. Um my concern as well. When Debbie stalled over here ten years ago or so, my backyard floated. The stormwater goes through my yard. I'm fine with that. We all have to take a little bit of it. But adding all of these new residences, I think, is going to be a disaster. I'm also concerned I never received a

    definitive answer on what was going to happen with Osteen Road. At the present time it dead ends at night, which is where I live. If that is extended down to Plath That means our neighborhood won't be a neighborhood anymore. It's gonna be a thoroughfare. People gonna use it to cut through from Massachusetts down to Plath. The developers have stated they want to keep traffic off of Little Road. I I don't see how they're going to do that unless

    they're doing just that, using Osteen Road, which would destroy our neighborhood. I also don't think making Little Road four lanes is a good idea. I I'm Had I known this was coming, I would not have bought my house here because this definitely affects our quality of life. Thank you very much for your time.

    Margot Robison

    Thank you.

    Ron Oakley

    The next person signed up, uh Dixie Sparks.

    Unidentified speakerVoice J

    My name is Dixie Sparks. My address is [address removed]. I'm an advocate for the And have you been sworn? Yes. Okay. I'm an advocate for the Sand Hill Cranes. And I personally have witnessed what's happened in this area. Um Lenar built in Trinity, and I have um videotaped what has happened over there. The well wetlands have been filled in. Beautiful wetlands.

    I mean beautiful lakes with s hundred year old cypress trees. Sand hill cranes walking around, just a beautiful area, all kinds of wildlife, from Anna Incas, great great blue herons. Um

    Cormorants, we have deer. We've uh all kinds of wildlife.

    These wetlands were just filled in with animals and them. Huge piles of dirt with baby alligators. Just displaced. Probably their families covered up with dirt. I literally broke down and cried. I've never witnessed anything so painful. as to what we are doing to wildlife. I see you have a picture of the Sand Hill Crane here. What are we doing for them? They are protected. They're

    supposed to be protected. You say, Okay, we're gonna we're gonna build around the wetland and the development. What happens there? People come by with their dogs, they have their dogs off leash, the dogs run, chase the cranes, cranes can't live there. Cranes are territorial. When you build over in Trinity, that's where they live for hundreds of years. They still go back there. So when you fill in those wetlands, what happens to all these animals? They either get buried as they're filling them in or they get chased

    out on the highway where they have run over by a cars. I picked up, I don't know how m I've lost count, how many cranes have been run over. They're foraging on the highway 'cause there's there's no place to forage. There's no land. Okay. We as a human race, we have a responsibility to the earth. They can come in and develop all this land today. Make all this money? And who suffers? We're all gonna suffer eventually because

    wetlands are important for an ecological system. Wetlands purify water. Wetlands provide protection. From storms. Trees, we get oxygen. We need when they put in these huge developments, they put up an a tree. And they destroy everything that's been there for years. What's happening to our earth? What's happening? I I beg you You have you're in a position. to

    help the earth, to help the environment. I beg you to look beyond Beyond Money. And these considerations and use what we already have. Use use areas that are not being developed, that that's already here that we could utilize. I have one last thing to say. Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish has

    been caught. Will we realize we cannot eat money? Thank you very much.

    Ron Oakley

    All right. Um last person I have signed up is Margot Robison.

    Margot Robison

    Hi, I'm Marco Robison. I live at [address removed]. And I'm

    Ron Oakley

    ma'am, have you been sworn?

    Margot Robison

    Pardon?

    Ron Oakley

    Have you been sworn?

    Margot Robison

    Yes. Okay, you may proceed. I stood up.

    The uh I was very happy to hear that four hundred acres is gonna be preserved. My concern is that it is it the original trees or is it the Landscaping they bring in from the nursery trees. Because that's that's a huge difference in the wetlands mitigation, et cetera, et cetera. Because if they can preserve the ex four hundred acres of existing trees and nature there, that would be phenomenal. Uh

    What I'm seeing happening out at Mitchell doesn't show that at all. They've just bulldozed everything. Just boom, everything's gone. filling everything. It just looks like a hellish landscape out there. And we certainly don't want that to happen here. So I understand that these Uh designers and engineers did a lot of work for a long time to get this to be a better d development and uh I'm sure it's going to be but

    better if they could preserve Yeah. Set aside uh areas that the animals are not killed off. And I know the biggest problem is gopher tortoises, 'cause I know it's what, five grand to relocate a s gopher tortoise, so they'd rather bulldoze them and and pay the fine. It's cheaper. Uh When I don't see that we can afford to lose any more gopher tortoises because they are the mainstay of the uh uh environment

    for the rest of the animals. They dig the burrows for the rest of the animals. So I think it would be very important to preserve those gopher tortoises. Uh I uh understand there's a spring in there. Uh that would be a biggie to keep that area as is, not bring a bunch of bulldozers in there. Uh so I just think that it's very important that this development does a completely different plan of action than the other developments in

    out on 54. 'Cause the ones out on fifty four just rape, rape, rape everything. I think these guys have probably done a lot of work to try and preserve some goodness here. And I would really like to see that happen. Thank you.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    That's all we have signed up.

    Ron Oakley

    So you have signed up and there's no one on WebEx for the

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak? Please come forward and just line up one by one.

    Is there anyone else other than these two that want to speak? And have you two been sworn?

    Unidentified speakerVoice K

    I did stand up for your swearing, but the clipboard wasn't there at all.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    That's okay. you mm you have Mits One in? Okay. All right, we'll swear you went afterward. Go ahead, sir. Name and address on your Sure. Uh

    Unidentified speakerVoice K

    name is Lance Levy over here at [address removed], exactly bordering the uh Northeast Village. Okay, it's a little dirt road. I did stand up for your swearing.

    Ron Oakley

    Thank you. I have to have it on the record. Thank you.

    Unidentified speakerVoice K

    Okay. Um so it's not so much of a statement. I've been trying to find out for a while now. It's more of a of a question. I'll state it if anybody can answer. Uh I know there's people here that sh definitely should know the answers.

    village. I mean it runs between Little Road and it ends at um Old Homestead which is a dirt road. Okay, it comes up like yay. That's a big wetland area up there, Hales property, and there's about five of us here. Um I've got an autistic child. Um I specifically move there because there's like zero traffic. I mean there's a few vehicles every day. And that road I've been told and I've been told contradictory that that's gonna be all paved, uh we're gonna have to have a paved road in there now. They're gonna put

    sewers in, we're gonna have to pay for all that stuff. Um I'm concerned about traffic on on that road. I mean if they're gonna make that a thro a thoroughfare, which I don't really know how they could, but they could bring it in and use that as a backside to your industrial complex or whatever you're gonna put in there, that's really what I like to know is is that road gonna be touched at all or are they just gonna leave that as a buffer on that uh bordering property? Okay. We'll we'll find the answer in. Okay. So tha that's really what I'm looking for guys. Uh I mean I'm not naive, I don't expect to

    change all this. It looks like people are putting a lot of work in. Hopefully they'll do a good job for us. So you

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    know. Thank you.

    Uh this will be the last speaker and we're gonna swear you in.

    Ron Oakley

    Uh could you raise your right hand please? Yes. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give is the truth, so help you God.

    Unidentified speakerVoice L

    Yes.

    Ron Oakley

    Okay, if you could state your name and address for the record and then you can begin.

    Unidentified speakerVoice L

    I live in the uh neighborhood right next to the main wood line. Um My fear is if you open up to Osteen, even if they are promising to pave it under their own funds, that it's going to cause a lot of traffic, especially with the multi-use trails. We're going to have a lot of people with golf carts cutting through to get down to the actual downtown of Newport Ritchie. Um and it's not gonna be safe. It's not gonna be safe for my kids. I have two toddlers. I take them for bike rides in the tow behind and

    I can't do that anymore once they open that up. I will not feel comfortable with the amount of traffic that will fly through, especially down Osteen. People already fly down Osteen and now we're gonna add thirty four more thirty four more hundred uh homes in that vicinity. Um Little road already gets backed up with traffic. Even expanding more lanes, are you gonna expand the bridge or is it gonna funnel? We're gonna add more lights, it's gonna cause more backup. Um There's plenty of areas in Pasco that are available

    for lease. I brought them if I can uh submit them. Um in just in West Pasco there's two hundred and ninety-four as of the fourth of this month available for lease. There's plenty of areas to rebuild or lease out for more. Businesses. Um I know last time I couldn't be here because my son had surgery, and they notated that Copper Springs was a failure of a project in the end result, and Lenar Holmes built that. But we're gonna entrust them to do

    this project with all this planning, but how are we gonna know that it's not gonna end up being another failure of this area with nothing t to really show for it. I just would hope that in the end, I'm sure it's gonna be approved either way, that we just don't open up Osteen for the safety of the families that already live there. It's a very quiet neighborhood, a lot of nature. I'm lucky enough to have a large backyard and get to experience some nature with my kids and I just know that a lot of it might migrate away. And my kids will never know without

    going paying to go to a park, go to the zoo or the aquarium, or have to drive to a state park in another area just for them to know what nature is. That's it. If I can note Forgetting to submit these.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    Come motion to receive and five. Motion to receive and file.

    Unidentified speakerVoice L

    Second.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    All in favor say aye.

    Unidentified speakerVoice L

    Aye.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Thank you. And with no one else in the public here, is there anyone on WebEx?

    Ron Oakley

    No one's on WebEx.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    So we're going to officially close public comment. Uh back to the applicant.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Mr. Chairman Clark Hobby again. Uh we had a few questions about Osteen Road and I'll try to answer those. Uh actually could we go back to a slide? Yeah, there we go. All right. Let me explain what's going on with Osteen Road. If I can get this come on. Come on. There we go. So some of the residents were asking about this section right here. This is unlikely to ever be built. This is unlikely to be ever be built. The section

    north of Vision Road U, which winds through here, we are only going to have a can we we will resurface this when we make a connection to it, but it's unlikely to occur real soon because of the phasing plan number one. Number two, this is the only area that's intended to be gated because this is intended to be an active adult area. So we don't anticipate our residents really using Osteen very much, and there'll be gates over

    here and we'll be, you know, they'll be accessing their primary roadway network down through here and into Newport Corners, into the corners themselves. So just wanted to clarify that as to Osteen. Now, as the the one gentleman spoke who lives over in this area, we do not propose any access Over to this area at all. Our roadway system doesn't rely on that anyway. The access to the Northeast Village is primarily

    through here. There may be one other connection over in this area that's a right in, right out, but this is where the access points will be. And for that very reason, we actually got a letter of no objection, and the man spoke at the Planning Commission hearing from the Lexi. Washington Oak's townhomes HOA here. So again, we are not proposing any access on this side at all. Um a lot of the testimony that you heard was people simply worried about wildlife. And there are things

    to be appreciated for sure. That's gonna happen when you have a project that's the last hole in the donut. But as I think everyone here is aware, this site was an orange grove site for many, many years. And it would still be an Orange Grove right now. It was in a heavily disturbed Orange Grove state, and it still would be, but for the freezes in the in the eighties. And so the landowner planted pines there for two reasons. One to maintain the green belt, and

    then the second thing is because they they want to make money selling the pines. So whether or not this project ever occurs or not, those pines are going to be a good thing. to be harvested and people simply cannot rely on your neighbor having planted pines, which again are planted to be harvested for a production crop for cash, uh, as creating some kind of urban panacea. That's not reality and that's not what this site ever has been. Again,

    it was a working growth site For many, many years. As you all know, we have to follow the Comp Plan. And the Comp Plan that we're dealing with today, the majority of the policies were put into a place Over 12 years ago. What we're doing today is fulfilling the promise, the promise that you made. as a board to West Pasco County, that instead of just having 3,400 homes, we'd create together a real sense of

    place and we do it with a quality, mixed use development that promotes walkability. open access to parks and trails in the area which are so desperately needed in West Pasco County. And together we are fulfilling the promise that was made to the public and all the workshops. And so uh I'm happy to answer any questions that you have, but the other questions that I hear are all either concerning issues like sprawl that simply

    don't apply or are concerns about where animals will go and I simply would say This has been a heavily disturbed site for many years, but there are 18,000 acres of nearby preserved areas in the Saranova Preserve and Starkey. This site has never been on the natural resources list for preservation. It's always been planned for development, and since 2010, it's been planned specifically for this form of

    development. Yeah. So the board is in a position where it should be proud of where where we are today and we're fulfilling the mission. So with that I'd ask for your support and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    Mr. R I've got a question. One of the ladies mentioned the wetland preservation. Right. It looks like on the southern part and on the borders of all around the lower part of the property, you have preserved that without disturbing it. That's right. So you'd just you're not going to disturb the plow over and then replant it.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    That's right. None of those class one wetlands are being proposed to be disturbed at all. Okay. Thank you.

    Christina Fitzpatrick

    Okay. So I do have a few qu um

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Commissioner Fitzpatrick.

    Christina Fitzpatrick

    Thank you. Just to confirm you have four hundred acres that will be untouched for preser open spaces. The ten acres on the northeast corner, that's gonna go for parks and rec? And natural resources?

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    That's correct. We will have 400 acres of open space, is the correct way of saying it. And there's 10 acres for a park and rec site on the north side, and there is a 25-acre employment site as well being reserved.

    Christina Fitzpatrick

    Okay. I

    think

    Mr. Jetsky had quite asked about a time frame. And during the Planning Commission, you said this project would take until 2035.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Well, it was interesting. One of the neighbors, I think it might have been Mr. Jetsky. He said that this ought to be phased in. We couldn't agree more. Our build out date is thirteen years, which is almost the fifteen years he said it should be built out over.

    Christina Fitzpatrick

    So it's not going to happen overnight. And then any of the flooding concerns they would you would have to go through Swift MUD to make sure there's no runoff on the property?

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    We have to go through the county and Swift MUD and to the extent it's applicable for a federally regulated wetland, we'd have to go through DEP.

    Christina Fitzpatrick

    And then as for the concern of traffic, someone had mentioned, I know we're not you're not planning on connecting Osteen, and you were talking about having having interconnectivity for the east of Little Road, but not for the west side of Little Road for Osteen.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    Right. Again, I'll just go over this one more time. Again, we are building this east-west vision road and we will have a connection ultimately. Through this, you know, street section that goes through our neighborhood that will eventually go down to Plath. But Osteen is not proposed to come down as a collector road straight through here. We're going to preserve the right-of-way and that's it. And again, the only connections we're foreseeing up from this area are from a gated active adult, i.e. senior

    community. So we do

    Christina Fitzpatrick

    On the bottom left of that circle where O Sing goes down to where the black dotted line is, that is not gonna connect, correct?

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    D down d from Plath up it will not we we are not building the section from Vision Road U, which is this road here, down to Plath.

    Christina Fitzpatrick

    Okay, so right

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    This section already exists up here.

    Christina Fitzpatrick

    But it's not gonna connect to the blue dotted line.

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    It will ultimately connect to that. We have to, pursuant to the county's rules, because it's a vision road. it will have a connection. It's unlikely if you think about the traffic pattern, if people are going north, they're unlikely to peel off to go up Osteen as the commissioner, the resident commissioner is aware, this has now this has what they call it a a port chop. and you can only turn right out of here, so there'd be no reason for anyone to go being going northbound to cut through here to come back to only

    be able to go east.

    Christina Fitzpatrick

    Okay. And then the last one was you said there's going to be twenty to twenty-five million dollars for mobility fees that are going to be put aside strictly for this area. So traffic should not be a concern in the future in this area?

    Unidentified speakerVoice C

    That's right. We we believe that the county is in the best position once the lanes three and four of Ridge Road open up to determine whether little road should be improved. Whether to cubeless and and for the board's benefit, you already have Fund it's supposed to be starting this year, the four laning of Decubelus from this center section to Starkey. The questions will be and and the board needs to determine in the in the days to come once lanes three and four open

    on Ridge. How much traffic is being diverted and where's the best use of the money being spent? Is it at the intersection of Starkey and Decubelus? Is it on Starkey by four-laning it? Or should we add lanes five and six to little? And the board we believe is in the best position to do that, and your staff believes that as well.

    Christina Fitzpatrick

    And my last comment question would be pertaining to the sp special needs child is you'll be working with them to make sure there's a good buffer for that area?

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    Absolutely.

    Christina Fitzpatrick

    Okay. Hmm.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? Okay.

    Christina Fitzpatrick

    Motion to approve.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    We have a motion. We have a motion.

    Unidentified speakerVoice F

    Oh,

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    she's gonna motion second.

    Unidentified speakerVoice F

    She made it

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    okay. Okay.

    Unidentified speakerVoice F

    I didn't hear a move.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes.

    Ron Oakley

    Well, we need to make a motion.

    Unidentified speakerVoice M

    Yeah.

    Jack MarianoVice Chair

    And that is it last of the public hearing. We are we are adjourned. Thank you. Oh, no. Hold on, we're not again.