Presentation - Planning and Development - Pasco 2050 Comprehensive Plan Update - No Funding Required

1:40:59Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. We move on to R fifty nine. Mr. Pitos?

1:41:09Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Niktarios Pitos with the Planning and Development Department. I'm happy to be here today before the Board of County Commissioners to give you all an update on the work we've been doing with the comprehensive plan itself.

1:41:25So before I get into uh some this update uh for the folks at home, just to give them a heads up on what the comprehensive plan is, it's the long range plan to manage growth, improve quality of life, and ensure long term sustainability for the county. Both economically, fiscally, et cetera, et cetera. And it's a state mandated plan. Um Florida State statutes uh requires in Chapter 163 that we have a comprehensive plan that considers all of the elements that you see on the overhead, future land use,

1:41:55transportation, housing and conservation, coastal management, recreation and open space, public facilities, capital improvements, intergovernmental coordination, and economic development. And these are what's required.

1:42:09And so you get the idea that the comprehensive plan, being comprehensive, encompasses quite a bit of information that will help r uh guide the future growth of the county.

1:42:21So we've been working on the comprehensive plan update uh this past year for a number of reasons. The current comprehensive plan became effective in nineteen ninety one. And it was last updated in 2006 with an established horizon year of 2025. And in December of uh 2019, we entered into an agreement with HDR Engineering, who are our consultants, to help us do this project. On December eighth of twenty twenty, the Board of County Commissioners

1:42:51approved the first task order to proceed with the comprehensive plan update that established it for as a five-year project. And so today actually uh task order for year two was on the agenda, on the consent agenda, and that was that was approved. So why are we doing an update of the comprehensive plan? Um, we want to understand the current conditions and address the changing needs and reassess the vision um that the current comprehensive plan has. It's been 16 years

1:43:21since the last update, 31 years since the establishment of the plan, and a lot has changed since 1991 and 2006, and a lot is changing right now. And because the nineteen ninety-one plan took us to twenty twenty-five, we're looking at the next plan to take us to twenty fifty. Hence the new name of the U.S. future comprehensive plan being the Pasco twenty fifty plan. And you can see the logo of that up in the in the corner of the slide and we'll have more on that in in just a second. So

1:43:52the purpose of the Pasco 2050 plan is to guide future growth in Pasco County, which is a similar purpose to the current 1991 plan. Um to do that we've done a number of uh projects this year, um particularly one known as the Outreach and Engagement Plan, which was provided in your packet, and that one was to support the creation of the new strategic and thoughtful plan that we're that we're going to be proposing in a few years. That'll be inclusive of our county's collective vision. Public involvement is

1:44:23critical at every stage of the planning process, which is why we put together the outreach and engagement plan. And so we want to be able to solicit the feedback, involvement, and the public input that'll serve as the foundation for the content that's going to be created for the Pasco 2050 plan. The outreach and engagement plan is a first of its kind for this sort of effort here in Pasco County and this will be something we carry on carry out throughout the entire comprehensive plan updating

1:44:53process over the coming years. And so um we're going to work to ensure tomorrow's Pasco represents the community's or the public's vision. Um and we're committed to working with our community members to plan for our future as we work to become Florida's premier county. So we're bringing a lot of what the strategic plan is calling for. to make Pasco, Florida's premier county, we want to bring that into the update of the comprehensive plan as well. And so we're going to be re-revisioning the county's long-term plan, and we're going

1:45:23to be looking at uh a number of data, asking lots of questions, uh, and studying the county, where we've been and where we're going.

1:45:36That is going to require a particular multi-year process that I've outlined on the overhead above. And it starts with year one, which we just completed, and we're going to present uh some of those updates to you today. Year one was all about diagnostics. Planning for the plan itself, understanding the opportunities that are ahead of us here. And we'll uh present in just a few minutes the outreach and engagement plan itself. We completed a diagnostic report for the comprehensive plan.

1:46:06We've done market anal analysis. as well as establish a best practices report and we'll go into all of those uh just a minute. In years two and three, which begins today after the board approved the t the task order for year two, we're gonna be doing visioning and framing for the comprehensive plan. So this is where we're gonna develop the visions and values for the different areas of focus and actually plan the framework. of the comp of the Pasco 2050 plan. So year two, the

1:46:37task order that was approved this morning includes deliverables that we can present um in the future. W uh regarding issues and I in issues and ideas report. a planning and growth challenges report, as well as your preliminary plan framework, map and report. And see so these will be foundational documents taking us into Year Three. And years three and four will be actually doing the plan drafting itself. So we're still not at that phase where we're going to be um

1:47:07creating new goals, objectives, and policies in the comprehensive plan. We're still learning and and updating and getting the information so that we can make those updates. Years three and four will have the future land use map updated. Uh we will draft plan elements and themes. Uh a couple of ideas we've been bouncing around include Um either keeping to the way the current comprehensive plan is organized in terms of elements, like those I showed previous on the previous slide. or grouping those elements together thematically so that there's a comprehensive

1:47:37picture on each uh um Portion of the uh it's each topic of the comprehensive plan. And then in year five, uh which we anticipate to be uh about twenty twenty-five-2026, uh, will be the plan finalization where we will be looking at the plan, seeing what we've come up with, is it feasible, asking those types of questions, refining the plan. And then bringing it forward in 2025-2026 for final review and adoption. And so I'll stop here

1:48:07and hand the mic over to Valerie Brookens, who's a planner too at the Planning and Development Department. She's been working on this project. and helping us uh move it forward and she'll give you an overview of the year one activities. Mr. Chairman Mariano. Yeah.

1:48:24I remember when we first brought this up. Was it fourteen or fifteen?

1:48:33Yeah, you weren't here. I don't know if you commissioners remember.

1:48:38And I thought initially we were gonna get that thing rolling within about two. So we could be done by twenty three or so. Now we're gonna roll into

1:48:50Twenty what's the right-of-way.

1:48:51Twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six.

1:48:58A lot of changes we requested. This is before your time. A lot of things we requested. So now we're gonna wait until twenty twenty five for a lot of these things. Not putting the heat on you because I don't even know if you were here. I wasn't. There you go. Uh so it's unfortunate That a lot of things that I know at that time there was three of us here. um asked for to get done and now we're gonna wait until twenty twenty five.

1:49:29The big project? I mean if you see the Land Development Code. It's a good one. We're pretty thick. Books. But this is a long time to

1:49:42wait. It is, but I think it's important to be able to go through the public outreach and development process w With the community. Oh I don't disagree, but

1:49:55it just takes a long time.

1:49:56We're going on you know four four four years or so. from when it was first brought up and first asked to initiate changes.

1:50:07So in that in reality, you know, you're looking at about nine years time frame from when it was when we first uh put this up.

1:50:13So to your point, and it takes a long time, like you say.

1:50:16Mm-hmm.

1:50:17I started working on just getting a road paved. When I first got elected in sixteen. It's paved now.

1:50:29Let me talk to to you about a bathroom in Starkey Wilderness Park. Um but um I I we brought this up before and if you if you remember I I think I said it here at the meeting. I wondered if there were ways to speed up the process by hiring more people High. Do we have an outside from helping us? Um What what is there a way to put more resources toward towards this so that it can be sped up? Because I can tell you. Um as

1:50:59you're seeing I'm I'm putting some stuff in at develop at a p when we have approvals here for I think it's David Goldstein has to help me here, but there's certain kind of um approvals that we give where I'm putting in you gotta have a tree in front of your house and now I'm gonna talk to you all about having architectural elements on your buildings and having to do it Um from here because it's not in the LDC.

1:51:25Right. Yes, but that's land development code. That's not what Terry's presenting to you today, which is comprehensive plan. Well Yeah, but it is our You've got you've got a workload on both halves. Land, but this is the comprehensive plan which is a much broader tool. Yeah, I know this is huge.

1:51:43And we definitely need, I mean, n most people don't amend their comprehensive plan every board meeting like we do. uh that that I'm aware of. It's it's a couple of times a year or once a year. It's a very special event. Um I was on the ear I was part of the ear when we redid that part of the comprehensive plan. environmental what was that what's the ear?

1:52:03Evaluation and appraisal report. Yeah, evaluation and appraisal

1:52:06report. Yeah, I I don't uh that took forever. We had so many community meetings and that was just one little piece, I think. Uh do you have any is there any way we can speed it up?

1:52:23I

1:52:23mean

1:52:23we all said that. Because they

1:52:25both need to be

1:52:25fixed. Yeah, all that works up. We're gathered around the table. Remember that? I think it was up in Well it was in Dade City or something, I think, when we had that discussion. I not Dade City. Yeah Dade Cityo. Saint Leo, thank you. Yeah.

1:52:37But every one of the steps that he's saying here is very important.

1:52:40Of course.

1:52:40Yes.

1:52:41And we want you to go through all of

1:52:42them.

1:52:42We're just is there any way to speed it up?

1:52:46Right.

1:52:47Yeah. He was looking at me for money.

1:52:49Well

1:52:50we did take today we we approved a task order. We approved the task order

1:52:54this

1:52:54morning on consent. Right. To add another year. We have fun you funded it last year for phase one, this year or year two. And then you know, it'll be in the budget for the next two or three years until we get this done. But it it's not a short term process.

1:53:08Right. So Commissioner Starkey's point, sorry I'm jumping in again, is uh if I'm not correct, that task order was for two fifty two two twenty eight. Two twenty-eight this morning? Okay. So how many how many um consultants do we get for two twenty-eight? So we Because I'm sure they're not only working on our project.

1:53:25Yeah. So we have HDR engineering on tap for this project. They have uh at least three or four other con subconsultants under them helping them with the project. HDR is a very large, uh reputable firm that has done a lot of Florida comprehensive plan. Um By way of comparison, the long range transportation plan that's conducted every five years by the MPO is typically about a million to a million two hundred thousand dollars. And we've estimated that updating the

1:53:56Pasco County comprehensive plan itself is going to be something on that magnitude, on that order of magnitude. a million to a million two hundred thousand. Now we've also gotten a

1:54:10From the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. Uh to do resiliency planning. And so there's a lot of money coming in from the state to help us upgrade our resiliency plan. Which is going to feed right into the uh comprehensive plan. We also got another eighty thousand dollars. from the state as well to do parallel flood mapping and planning. Um that will also be built into the comprehensive plan. We're doing the housing market study on on the other, the multifamily issue,

1:54:41but we're gonna be leveraging those resources that we're spending in that direction to inform the comprehensive plan as it relates to the the housing uh situation here in the county. Um so we're we're looking at multiple areas wherever we're doing work and seeing where we can leverage that information and bring it into the comprehensive plan.

1:54:58But some of those things are gonna by the time we get done in five years and we we do portions of this and map four in year four and five It's gonna change again.

1:55:07The

1:55:08housing market's gonna be different

1:55:10in four or

1:55:10five years years from now.

1:55:17We all agree it takes a long time.

1:55:19But should should it take that much time? Is there a way to speed it up? I mean with with the research we have done between ULI looking at all the market areas, all the market things we had. I mean me I remember meeting down at Homewood Suites talking about the West Market area. Here's what we want, here's what we want to see get done. Take that information and go speed this process up. As far as like doing all these meetings, we've had these meetings. Go take the information from those meetings and start structuring stuff. One of the things I brought up many, many times is the way we're uh dealing with the growth on our coast. I mean I've got a guy who wants to put

1:55:49a seawall up three feet. And I get engineers saying, no, you can only go a foot and a half. And logically, no simple reason for that. FEMA would want you to go higher. So Let's go look at what we've got out there. We right now have a coastal high h high hazard area done in our comprehensive plan. That hasn't been updated. to match the definition that the state's got. We're imp we're putting more restrictions on ourselves instead of working what's already with the State. We shouldn't be more restrictive than what the State is. And

1:56:19it should be simple. As a matter of fact, I'll share that with you later on when we get done. to go push it forward. Um so I I think we should really take What information do you have that you can look at that's we've already done these outreach meetings up and down the coast? Let's go use that data to bring something forward rather than going through this longer step. And then when we get to the end of it, we can go through the public hearing process to get more information from it. But th we're gonna study in five more years. Now that information's gonna be antiquated? We

1:56:49can't use that now. We've got to get new stuff again. We get enough stuff on the shelf. I think to work at right now with what we've got.

1:56:58We've got to continue this meeting so we can finish by noon.

1:57:01Well I I know I do too. But we also did say and I uh I mentioned at that time is that no consultants, let's hire enough FTEs so they're here full time to do the job. But we didn't do that either. That were dedicated to these projects, L Development Code and Comprehensive Plan.

1:57:16Where are we on this five-year?

1:57:19Well we're beginning year two today. So we're in In the visioning and framing um portion of the of the sequence that's on the overhead.

1:57:31So is it possible to do visioning in uh six months instead of a year?

1:57:38Mm.

1:57:39So that's the right-of-way. The year two i is going to include uh visioning and we anticipate the issues and ideas report to come out sooner than next September, the end of the fiscal year. Um Valerie could probably speak to some of the task scheduling associated with the task order two that was uh approved today. Um But are we anticipate that these products are gonna be coming out throughout the year and we'll be able to provide updates as they're being established.

1:58:11What um so when when do you meet with us to Will you be meeting with us at the beginning individually? For our own. Yeah, w

1:58:20that's part of the the project management aspect of the project to sit down and you know, once we've got these reports available, we'll be reaching out to the commissioners and providing updates along the way.

1:58:31You know, if we can cut each year in half. That could be a good thing. There's a prize at the end.

1:58:41I've got an

1:58:41idea of how we can go quicker than that if you just turn it over to me and I'll make the decision.

1:58:48So

1:58:49moved.

1:58:49Y'all need to go to some

1:58:50ULI meetings first.

1:58:55But uh but it's all a process and I understand, I think we all do. It just takes time and and we need to hear from the public as we're moving forward.

1:59:02And and you know guys, um because when you change the comprehensive plan, you change people's land use underneath it. And There has to be a dialogue, right? That's why there needs to be the public But you gotta

1:59:15know both sides.

1:59:16Yeah. So you know,

1:59:18Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of errors and emissions.

1:59:20Yeah.

1:59:21In the if you d if you did not notice those.

1:59:23There's things that this board done in the right-of-way.

1:59:25No

1:59:25airs

1:59:26emissions in the

1:59:29Ten or twelve years ago and in some areas that that they didn't think it would look like it does today and some of those things gonna have to change, so It looks different after you go through a ten year period. So what you're planning for the future. So Mr. Chairman

1:59:44Mariano We have a twelve o'clock meeting, we have to go with other constitutionals, but again, there needs to be corrections and then at I know Andy sent you those guys cause those corrections. I mean they had a They had the population of of a county, I think it like Five hundred and thirty? Oh was it right? Let me let me see the number. I mean it wasn't even correct. Five twenty eight. So it sounds like a In their in their in the backup item it says the county's twenty

2:00:14twenty estimated population was five hundred and twenty eight thousand. Well It's not even it's not it's not even right. It's not even close to being right. Now we're using a census of five fifty three, which we don't I don't even think that's correct.

2:00:26I think you gotta add another hundred to that.

2:00:30So we've already started off With this comprehensive plan of Lily having heirs. Mr. Chairman Mariano.

2:00:37Commissioner Yeah. Mr. Chairman Mariano. We table this for now, we'll go back and we'll come back and brief each individually with where we are, where we're going, what the plan is, get feedback from you directly, and then bring you back something at a later date to kind of wrap up all those discussions.

2:00:53Mr. Chairman, one quick comment?

2:00:56No, it is fixed. But I've I've got a list of things that aren't right. Right.

2:00:59Yeah. Mr. Chairman Mariano. And just one Mr. Chairman Mariano. Something that Terry and I talked about yesterday. When you look at the map on page forty-four of the uh regional congestion, The intersection of fifty two and forty one. Now, if you go to the east in the morning, it's backed up from Sun Coast Parkway all the way to forty one. Yes. If you come from the east coming over, especially in the afternoon, I don't know about the morning, it's jam packed for three or four sets of lights.

2:01:25Morning is not as bad.

2:01:27Right. In and then and on this map though, it's not even listed as a congested area. So if that is not in is not good, which

2:01:35one

2:01:35we got an issue.

2:01:36Which one's that?

2:01:44But but on the map it says no problem.

2:01:46Because Because it's the assumption was the the contracts that are underway right now that have been executed are going to fix that because they bring four lanes on forty one to fifty two and six lanes on fifty two to forty one. And so that will resolve that interchange. And then we have the one gap left to fix. So that's probably why that's not there.

2:02:07Okay.

2:02:08That's why it's not because then it's planned in the very near future to be complete. So that'll straighten all that up.

2:02:17That's gonna help all those intersections.

2:02:23We can continue this

2:02:23afternoon if you want.

2:02:25Commissioner, I would just say let's take this back. And we'll come back and brief each one of you individually. Gather the information from you, the feedback from you. Revise that and move forward with year two, which that may include some schedule adjustments to accelerate.

2:02:40Right. Okay.

2:02:41We don't need to come back this afternoon. Excellent.