Development, trees, and clear cutting
What the county recorded
This item is not from the published agenda
It is a stretch of the recording that this archive identified as a separate matter — a call to order, a recess, or something taken up that the agenda does not list. There is no official title, no staff recommendation and no disposition, because the county never recorded one. Everything below is inferred.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Planning Commission, Feb 17, 2022
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
The county’s minutes for Planning Commission, Feb 17, 2022
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
What was said
Machine transcription of 5m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 100% of 24 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
Is there anyone here to speak on anything that is not on today's agenda?
Having seen no one.
Mr. Chair, we do have someone signed up to speak um for something that's not on the agenda. Um Margot Robeson.
Okay. Is she on li is she on the air on the phone right now?
She is here presently.
Oh she's here presently, okay. Very good.
State your name and address and we'll we'll uh we'll swear everybody at once as a matter of fact. Hold on one second.
My name's Mark.
Every anybody who plans to give testimony today or to come up and speak, please stand and raise your right hand. Be sworn, it's including you. you. Raise your right hand. Okay. Sarah, for you right hand.
Okay.
I'm I'm hard of hearing so That's okay. And I don't think the speakers are really loud, so
Okay, we'll try to speak up then.
Okay. My name is Margot Robison. I live at [address removed]. Uh I've been here twenty-five years.
And we used to drive out fifty four. You know what it looked like all the way to seventy five. It was beautiful, pristine, gorgeous land. Now I can't even drive out there. It just makes me sick to my stomach. It's completely bulldozed. All the trees are gone, all the cows are gone. It just development after development after development. Um it's not what us Pasco County residents signed up for. And I
don't want to move. I don't want to. Well I I'm like a hundreds of other people that live here. We're just driving around every day looking at all these new developments, just getting sick to our stomach. Uh you go down to Massachusetts, they bulldoze Old growth, beautiful two hundred foot pines to put in a dam storage. development. Uh It's just unending, okay? It's a as you drive around you obviously
know how how it looks and it's not looking good. So we have a few pieces in Pasco, a few parcels left that are pristine. We have a few trees left. I just beg you to leave them and don't bulldoze them. I know on a plan unit development, how the requirements are when they do the engineering and they sit down and these engineers sit in their computer and they click, click, click. Here comes a bulldozer. There's clear cuts the whole parcel. Boom, all the trees are gone. This
has to stop. If cal you know, there's other developments in in California and other places in the country that preserve the trees while they're building these houses. It can be done. It's just the engineering has to change. Um I'm just begging you to please think about the overall feel of the community when you're approving a development. that it has trees that it has
nature. Not the kind they bring in from out of state and plant, but the ones that are already here. It's very important that we preserve the Florida nature and we're not doing that.
And it's hurting the community, it's hurting the people that have lived here forever and ever. And I just beg you to please consider those things when you approve future developments. Okay.
Thank you very much.
Any uh questions or comments?
No, I just uh F just from my perspective, one of the things I do agree with you about is that we have to do more about not clear cutting uh our woodlands and so forth. Uh a lot of the property that you saw out on fifty four never had any trees. It was all cattle cattle land and and cypress trees. So they were just pastures. So th you know, I don't think we can d blame the developers for that. Um So um You
know, I sympathize with with what you're saying, but we You know, we have to be mindful of the fact that Yeah, we can't just stop progress. We can manage progress, that's all. And uh so that's what we'll try to do and And I'll I will always be mindful of the of of the clear cutting and the cutting down of the trees and so forth. I think for me And I'm sure for the other people on this board, I'm sure that's very important. Um any of anything anybody have any comments? Yeah.
Okay. So uh I can we can move into the regular part of the meeting, I think.