PC4 Cypress Creek Town Center substantial modification
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The county’s agenda for Planning Commission, Jan 10, 2019
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The county’s minutes for Planning Commission, Jan 10, 2019
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What was said
Machine transcription of 19m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 43% of 74 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
So item PC four is Cypress Creek Town Center, P D nineteen seven three three nine. It's located on on the northwest and southwest quadrants of State Road fifty six and I seventy five. The applicant is requesting a substantial modification in order to include an increase in retail commercial square footage from 1,998,400 square feet to 2,399,500 square feet, which is an increase of 401,100 square feet. The
request also includes a decrease in hotel rooms from 350 hotel rooms to 135 hotel rooms and an increase in multifamily units from 230 to 600, which is an increase in 370 units. Here's a master plan which uh splits it into Cypress Creek Town Center North. which is predominantly where the hotels are and the multifamily is. And Cypress Creek Town Center South, which is where the retail most of the retail component is. This area does have a retail
component of as of it as well, but not a multifamily component or a hotel component. The subject site is developed and has received a number of site plan approvals. It's located in the South Market area. And there's a comprehensive plan amendment that's proposed concurrently with the MPUD modification. The applicant proposes to change the future land use from retail office residential to a plan development, and that is CPAL 18010. The applicant is proposing to
reset rescind the associated development of regional impact for the project concurrently with the Master Plan Unit Development District modification and request and the comprehensive plan amendment. And Planning and Development Department recommends approval actually to the Planning Commission with the conditions as stated in your agenda packet.
And I'm here for any questions and the applicant is also here, right behind me.
Well since I brought this up, uh I'll just cut to the chase and ask a couple questions.
Yes sir. Uh for the record, Clark Hobby, Hobby and Hobby, PA 109 North Brett Street, Tampa, Florida have been sworn. Yes sir, Mr. Hansel.
Thank you. Uh here are my concerns. Um You're going to reduce the hotels down to rooms, 135 approximately. My concern there is the county picks up a hotel tax, so that's going to be a reduction there. The other concern I had was the fact that the schools, you're going to increase the homes to close to 600. or increase it to 370 more units. That's going to be multifamily,
therefore they're going to be children, the students to the school district. I'm not sure what type of impact that would have on the school district itself. I can see that the school district is going to have to pick up transportation costs because none of those children To the best of my knowledge, would be able to walk to school. So therefore they'd have to be bused. So that's a concern I have, it's an additional uh burden on the uh the district
itself. If I might get a little bit of a long-winded answer here, because I think it may help some of you all on the Planning Commission. So Cypress Creek Town Center was uh originally developed by two developers. There were entities that were controlled by the Sierra family, and on the south side, some of the land was controlled by the Jacobs group and their affiliated entities. At this point, the Jacobs are totally out of the deal. Simon has developed its um uh
outlet mall, and the Sierras own and will continue to own for the foreseeable future the remaining developable land, as well as all of the property on the north partial that's already been developed. So all those restaurants everybody sees there Our the land is owned and will continue to be owned and ground leased by the Sierras. Okay? And in addition, when the original approval occurred here, the Sierras were the one who fronted the
money. That accounted for all of the offsite roadway construction on fifty four. And David probably knows the number off the top of his head, but it was something in the range of fifty or sixty million dollars that the developer paid in cash to construct the roadway improvements on fifty four, additional two lanes is my recollection. Something like that.
I don't think it was quite that high.
It was it was it was very it was a lot of money.
It was built when roads were a little cheaper. Right.
Right. Right. So but but so all this is leading me to this point. So this is how we got to this point. The Sierras believe that they need some additional commercial. That's the primary thing we're doing here over the long haul. And they and as I said, they intend to continue owning all of these parcels. And their family entities for many years. They wanted to extend the build-out date. There's no real easy way to do that. Actually, it's gotten
a little bit easier now with the DRI changes a couple of months ago, but it's better for them over the long haul to get rid of the DRI. And so we picked a series of entitlements that you see here, okay? Studied them for transportation purposes and included adding about 400,000 in retail. However, and this is a big thing that you all need to understand, we included a land use equivalency matrix, and we do believe we have a decent chance of
adding more hotel over time. So while we studied less and the initial approval is 135. There could be substantially more than that. The only real increase that you're going to see here is on the retail side and the potential for multifamily. Now, on the multifamily, the Sierras have one partial that is located towards the northern boundary of the north partial that's already, I think, has some approvals
for multi-family. fits within the 230 number of units that they already have. There's only one more partial up near the north boundary that they're thinking about adding multifamily on, but they have no plans immediately. They're trying to plan for the next 15, 20, 25 years. And they do believe because of the mixed use nature of the project with all the office and all the retail that's going to be built out there that it's a good site ultimately. For multi-family.
So that's just wanted to give everybody a little bit of background. We're trying to make a true mixed-use parcel here on the North Parcel. Now, as to the specifics, we did talk with the school board, and school board, you know, generally they there's two analyses they always do. One is they look at your site, they look at the area, and they ask themselves, Do we need another school on your site? And they told us they did not here. Okay. And then the other thing that they have to do pursuant to the comp plan and
pursuant to state law. They have to look at you know whether we're meeting the concurrency requirements and our concurrency zones essentially are county wide and we don't have failures there. And Chris can weigh in here, but that's so we are not proposing really to do anything revolutionary with regard to schools. So Chris, unless I'm missing something.
No, and I'll jump in here real briefly and thank you, Mr. Hansel, for bringing that up. But glad that other folks besides myself are looking at that. So thank you. Yeah, and I of course we always get a little squirrely when um housing units are increased. But in this case, um our student generation rates for multifamily are not as high as single family. So in And I pulled up my spreadsheet. And so with 230 multifamily,
we'd be getting 27 elementary, 12 middle, and 16 high school students projected with 600 units. I mean, yeah, an increase of 370 for 600 units. We'd have 69 elementary, 31 middle, and 41 high school. What what schools will they be going to? That's the yep, that's what I'm getting to next. So the in this area is particularly zoned for Denimokes Elementary currently. Denimuks Elementary currently is under capacity.
So we feel like we have sufficient room to house these particular students here. We also did acquire recently another school site in the Northwood development, which if things continue to grow, we can always open that school and we might do some rezoning and be able to spread that out. For middle and high school. These students would go to Cypress Creek Middle High School. That's currently that's one facility. We just broke ground and we'll be open opening a brand new middle
school right next to the high school. And that's going to open in 2020. And so we feel like we have sufficient capacity to house these students in um the middle and high school as well, once we get that new school open. So we're we're comfortable with this particular anchor.
And one one last just one and I maybe this is overkill, but one last thing that did color our view of this whole thing. The DRI entitlement schedule. n
if
you include both the existing phase one and phase two, which needed to be studied for transportation purposes, had six hundred and thirty units. So if we look at it simply with what was already in the DRI but needed additional transportation analysis, it's actually a net reduction.
And that's a good point, Mr. Hobby, because the other thing, just f for y'all's interest, if they you know, originally when they come in with a DRI, we were looking at those particular entitlements, and when they do come in with changes, we do compare what the change is compared to what additionally we said would be okay with. So yeah, that's a good point as well. Yeah.
I want
to make
it
very clear
that I'm not opposed to this right way. I would be remiss if I didn't do some type of research on this and ask some quite some sensible questions, at least in my opinion, the sensible question.
Totally agreed. And you know, this is one project that was big enough maybe I should have come and seen the Planning Commission members. I'm learning a lesson here today.
is relatively clear, but I have just two quick questions. Yes sir. Um on one of the pages is the schools may include don't use the word may, they just include private charter or traditional public schools. Right. Are they is the is the uh Uh developer contemplating putting a private or a charter school in here, perhaps?
N not that I'm aware of it this time. And then the other one I saw. Trying to build flexibility over a longer period of time.
Well it'd be nice if they if they in my opinion put some type of charter private school in there. Right. Uh The other question I have too, I noticed back in one of the pages that I read, it said that the in I believe 2016 or 17, they deleted the substation for this area. Now, I I I personally would would suggest or recommend that that that may want to be put back on the planning. That quadrant of the county, that area is very close to I-75, so if there was a substation there for for the Sheriff's
Department uh and the growth of that area would could provide additional uh police or protection for not only the residents of the area and the and certainly for the businesses in that area, but also to provide some type of uh quick response to to the interstate in there. I know between 52, at least in my opinion, 52 I'd say uh uh Bruce B. Downs or Fletcher, right in through the the c right in that Wesley Chapel there seems to be a a significant number of auto accidents. Not another county or the state will
say, you know, we're we're working on an issue. That's that's pretty much the party line. But I thought if there's some type of substation were to be considered, it might be prudent. So anyway, I I just throw that out to you.
Good point and and two things I would say about that. The reason why that came out in two thousand sixteen is because a facility was given as part of a very small facility like a booth as part of the outlet mall and the sheriff decided at that time they didn't want it. Okay? And my but the second thing I would say is in in my conversations with the sheriff very recently, I mean within the last two, three weeks, their bigger issue relates to funding for jails and how they're gonna deal with that capacity and we're trying to
solve that now. And on some of the larger projects we're discussing it with him, he's telling me he doesn't even want more substations. So, you know I'm just taking his word for it. Yeah. But I don't disagree with you that it would be a logical place to
I was gonna debate about the incarceration, but this is not the place for it.
Well thank you. I appreciate your comments. Happy to answer any other ones.
So just one last comment. Because I think the the increase in the school impact fee never came to the Planning Commission. I think it only went to the DRC. So Mr. Williams, you may want to remind the Planning Commission about the recent increase in the school impact fee and what it went up to. I'd if you want to comment on That
sure so um the last many years our school impact fee for a single family home was about forty eight hundred dollars uh per single family home. I don't remember what the multifamily is, I want to say around two thousand.
I think it's like thirty four hundred. I think it almost tripled Yes. In this last cycle from about a thousand to three thousand is my recollection.
So now we're in the seven thousand plus range for single-family home and yeah, probably in the six thousand range for multifamily. And so what that does is that obviously, obviously we're getting the money after the impact. However, that money does go to build additional capacity, whether it be new schools or the purchase of school sites, or if we want that needed to add a wing somewhere, that money goes, can can only be
used to increase capacity at schools that's attributed to new growth. And so the additional revenue we are getting from the um the raise in the impact fee certainly will help us in the long in the long term. I don't know if that asks you or give you the history that you were looking for.
No, I just I I'm just not sure if the Planning Commission knew that there
was
a recent increase in the school impact fee. And in fact, it's the only increase
in
impact fee that our board has approved probably in the last ten, fifteen years.
Yes. And it was a phased in approach, so last January it went up to a certain amount this past Last January 1st, I think it went up to the next amount, and then next year it's supposed to go up another additional time.
My my only remark my wife says sometimes I just stay quiet.
I understand that the impact fee from what I read is used to construct facilities. What I'm trying to get to is the fact that in this particular area that they're gonna develop these home The students will need to be bust, and that's an ongoing expense that's going to be borne by the district. That's all I'm trying to get across. Is that it's going to be a continuing fee. Whether you have impact fee, will it cover the bus transportation? The answer is no, it's going to take care of construction. Well, actually, one
thing one thing is a portion. If there's a portion of the impact fee that actually is robust. buses. Not for not for operation of the buses.
Pot potentially even more important I know that with there's been a lot of discussion from one commissioner about multifamily recently. But one thing that is important remember and David and I've talked about this recently is you know with now we have two homestead exemptions essentially on single family. That's one of the benefit of multifamily units when they're apartments. is that, you know, the the county is getting residual annual income from the general revenue portion of the tax bill and it's at
a significantly proportionate higher rate because there's no homestead. So anyway, kind of for different different discussion.
Yes, I I but I am happier than a Hoganslop to see this come to the county. It's uh it was needed. I know many, many years ago I used to go to some of the county meetings and advocate for the I think it was the uh Jacobs group that handled that
at that
time. And uh so I'm I'm very happy to see it there.
Well we appreciate we appreciate it and I appreciate your comments.
Well and uh and to tack onto that, Mr. Hansel, it it it's nice to see multifamily in these kind of projects because you want people to be able to uh to walk to these amenities that are.
Talk to all the restaurants that are down on the front edge.
That is I would like to make a comment just basing the in in that topic. I would love to see in Wesley Chapel or Pasco County walkable areas. We don't have that. We have some concerts in Watergrass Mall, but this specific location location invite to this type of multi-use development. And I totally in favor of this. this. So basically when you combine a multifamily, when you combine restaurants, hotels that invite to that, I
just anxious to see not just this uh master plan that is really basic. I just wanna see how they are con going to connect all these use In the to favor the pedestrians.
Well, we we've actually, I know the county doesn't have it on these slides. We've already built most of the infrastructure to do just that. There's a whole series of roads up there that interconnects everything. We're we're really lucky. I mean, this is this is a good client for me in the sense of Mr. Shear and his family have been at this a long time and they really know what they're doing. And so their vision. for this property for it's been for thirty years now is to do exactly what we're doing to maximize it, have a very strong mixed use community, especially on
that north partial. So that's what we're trying to do. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.
Okay. So anybody who's here to speak uh or have questions about it from the And the full or Anybody to object? See no one?
Anything Denise? No? All right, we have a motion.
I'll motion that we approve uh
PC four. I second the motion. Motion and a second. Further discussion. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries.