PASCO 2050 comp plan update and community engagement
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The county’s agenda for Planning Commission, Sep 21, 2023
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What was said
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Reconvene.
Awesome. Commissioners, my name is Hayat Mazilli, or Planning Commission members. My name is Hayat Mazilli. I am a planner with long-range planning, planning and development. And we will be talking today about PASCO 2050. So I hope that you all know that we are, Pasco County is in the process of updating its adopted comprehensive plan or existing comprehensive plan, which has not been updated since 2006. So we're way overdue for an update. The planning process began
in 2020 and it is slated for completion in 2025 with a new with the adoption of a new comprehensive plan or an updated comprehensive plan, PASCO 2050. So the plan will establish a shared vision for growth, community development, economic development. as well as um conservation of natural resources through twenty fifty with uh supporting uh policies, objectives and strategies. So the purpose of this presentation
today is to brief you guys about the public input that we have gathered and received through multiple engagement opportunities that we have done in the past six months. About six months. Also, we would like to um get your feedback and we would love to know your share your vision for Pasco 2050 and of course ask us any questions. So let's get this presentation started. So what's in store for you today? We're going to be talking about
the project scope, the schedule, and we're going to get to the meat of this presentation, which is the engagement summary and the public input. Then we can have a discussion. That's why I have this board over here. So class will be in session. Just to, you know, get your like I said, get your feedback and um what your vision is for Pasco 2050, and then we'll talk about the next steps. For Pasco twenty fifty. All right, so where are we now? We are in year
three, which we call the visioning year. Um so this is year three of the five year planning process. This is the most important year. Also, it is my favorite year because this is when we do the most public participation and the most interactions with the community. That's when we know about their aspirations, their concerns, and their perspectives of Pasco County. So, this input is what helps us establish a vision for the future.
And this vision sets the Stage and um pretty much um help us in drafting the plan in year four and in year five five as we go through um data analysis, we crunch the numbers and we craft new policies as well as update um the existing policies that's gonna help us achieve this community vision and make it a reality.
As far as where we are in year three of the visioning process, so these are the milestones as you see on the on the schedule. We are right now talking to you, the Planning Commission. We are briefing you on the on the community input, and we will be having one-on-one briefings with the commissioners in the next two weeks. Then we're also working on a draft vision statement, which will be available in October. I want to bring
to your attention that the vision and process did not take us a whole year. We actually did it in eight months. And the reason why we did it in eight months is because year three started late because of fiscal constraints that was or that were out of our control. So we pat ourselves in the back for doing this in only eight months when we had twelve months to do it. Okay, so um the vision document that we will be presenting in October
is actually um compiled of the community input and of course the community vision. So We got this input because we have done all this awareness efforts. So the numbers on the screen show the advertisement and the the efforts that we outreach efforts that we have done to bring attention to the comprehensive plan update. So we've done six presentations to different groups with different interests in the county and in different geographic areas of the
county, including a USF presentation to grad students. We did four community pop-up events. four newsletters and media blasts, three press releases advertising the public workshops, And we had fourteen media mentions, including an NPR interview, um, during their segment of Florida Matters. and we had seventy four social media posts including Facebook
and Instagram. Another number that's not on this slide is the number of the flyers that we had disseminated all throughout the county, including a grocery store, which I went and I actually started giving out the flyers for the public workshop. And that number is about 500 flyers.
We believe that the public outreach was successful because the engagement, these are the numbers that show the public engagement that we have gathered and got so far. So the numbers on the screen or on this slide speak for themselves. We had over 275 participants at our public workshops. We held 36 workshop activities. Videes. 1,186 community survey were taken on our websites. There
were 10,354 website visits. 1,024 reports were downloaded. And 444 people registered on our website so they can get updates and um check out the reports that are on the site. And fun fact, the number four four four in numerology signifies evolution, revolution and change. So I'd like to think that it's a good omen that, you know, we are doing something good
and we are on the right path to change Pasco County for the better.
Alright, I won't register then after that. Yeah,
let's keep that four four four. That's a good number.
Okay, so um this slide shows the different engagement opportunities that we provided for our community members. We um talked to our community through our project's website, interview sessions, focus group meetings, as well as the countywide workshop series that we held throughout the county. And I will go through each and every one of these in subsequent slides. So um input of all of these um engagement opportunities um or the summary of input of all these engagement um
opportunities is on our website Pasco2050.com. You can scan the the QR code and it will take you directly to our site.
Our project's website is actually a fantastic source for reports, project-related reports, county reports. It also has population projections, which Mr. Goldstein was asking about earlier. We also have the community survey on our website, and there's a forum where residents can interact with each other and talk about what they like and dislike and also their vision for BASCO twenty fifty.
Interview sessions. So we had multiple interview sessions with different individuals that run the gamut from business owners, nurses, teachers, to community activists, and a young college student who is aspiring to be a county commissioner. We discussed a wide range of topics. And these are the topics that were discussed. And let me tell you, these individuals
had a lot to say about each and every topic.
Focus groups, we held um focus groups with um the Pasco Economic Development Council. Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, the Land Use Roundtable, which comprises of local lawyers, land use your lawyers, and land use planners, and we also talked to the MPO, which included TAC, Technical Advisory Committee, Bike Pad Committee, as well as the Citizen Advisory Committee.
Mm mm.
Now, the public workshops. We hosted three-part countywide public workshop series, and each part had a specific theme. The first part was about answering the question: where are we now? The first two public workshops of the first part were actually at St. Leo and in holiday. We had great attendance at both of these workshops. We did not actually expect to get this many people. And attendees
were given a brief presentation about the comprehensive plan, the importance of updating the comprehensive plan, and the importance of their input in actually shaping the vision for PASCO 2050. We then did a series of activities with them where they were able to identify and talk to us about the current conditions in the county, what they like and dislike about the county. as well as um any other concerns they have. So that was done by answering that question, where are we now?
And I'm gonna go briefly over some of these comments that we got from the community. And this is when we asked them to share the likes and dislikes and the changes that they'd like to see in the county. So they want to preserve the rural character of the county, they want maintenance of existing infrastructure, they want to protect the natural resources of the county, and they want housing opportunities for all income levels. And as well as housing opportunities employment opportunities,
I'm sorry, for everybody in the county. They also want to have dynamic, walkable places, and they want a safe and robust transportation system. They also want us to improve or want the county to improve resiliency against natural hazards. And also they want expansion. of the parks and recreation and the open spaces. And they also talked about the aesthetics of the new development. They want to see nice
architectural design. for new developments and structures in the county.
The second workshop series also included two public workshops that took place at Shady Hills and Inland Oak Lakes. Also, we had great participation at both of these public workshops. And this public workshop actually built off the first two public workshops. So each part of the of the workshop series built off each other. It wasn't just, you know, by itself. So participants in uh this workshop they engage in activities to answer the question, where do
we want to go? So we also did a presentation with them and a recap of the public input that we got from the last two public workshops, and they were able to um look at that input and develop a community um or A priority list for the community.
One of the activity that was very popular among the participants at both public workshops was this base map activity. We gave them a blank map of the county and asked them to identify to identify areas where they'd like to see future residential and non-residential development. And they literally took the markers and were trigger-happy with. with um doodling everywhere where they'd like to see um future development and where they'd like
to keep um certain areas um protected and conserved. Also, it was interesting to see how they interacted with each other at the table and how they kind of set aside their indifferences and worked collaboratively to complete this map.
We also asked them to rank the community priorities that we got from the last two public workshops. And in the top five, number one, and these are the top five. Number one was preserve natural resources, number two, increase transportation efficiency, three, protect rural lands and character, four, grow the park system. And at number five, we got a top. between strengthening resiliency against natural hazards and creating walkable and vibrant
places. And these are the other community priorities that came 7, 8, 9, and 10.
I won't do ask them.
Okay. So the last series of the public workshops was part three, and that part three was focused on answering the question, how do we get there? So now that we know where we are. Where do we want to go now? We engage with the public in activities to answer this question. And I will hand it to Nick. to actually continue on this presentation. Thank you.
All right.
Good afternoon, Planning Commission. Uh my name is Nicholas Hill. Planner for Inspire Placemaking Collective and also the Assistant Project Manager for Pasco twenty fifty. And yes. Proud alumnus of Cypress Elementary and River Ridge Middle and High School. So it's a real pleasure to be back here, truly. As Hyatt mentioned, this year is about the visioning process. Part one, ask the public. Where are we now? And ask them to identify the issues and opportunities affecting the community. Part two asks them, where
do we want to go? and allowed them to identify the top ten priorities for Pasco County moving forward. In part three. was how do we get there? where they work collaboratively crab collaboratively as a group. to try and develop and rank strategies for how they can achieve those ten priorities. What you're about to see is just a sample of some of the most popular strategies as written and ranked by members of this community.
So, as I mentioned, the public was very concerned with preserving natural resources, and the most popular community driven strategies, as written and ranked by members of the communities, involve stronger tree preservation regulations, cultivating wildlife corridors, the protection of productive aquifer recharge areas, and increasing efforts to monitor, protect, and increase the county's water supply system. They also desired increased transportation efficiency. by improving crossings over US Highway nineteen. Identifying opportunities to increase the interconnectedness
of our roadway systems. and fostering greater transit, sidewalk, and trail connections.
Whether or not they were in the rural area or the urban area, we also heard tons of folks say protect rural lands in character. And some of the most popular ideas for achieving that was limiting increases in maximum permitted densities within the rural areas, maintaining that rural overlay, the northeast rural overlay, working with agricultural property owners to develop incentives for placing portions of their property in conservation. and evaluating and refining standards for solar farming. They also wanted a robust park system. by the year twenty fifty,
by identifying land acquisition opportunities for new parks, Requiring the provision of on-site parks and recreation facilities for new large-scale developments, increasing the connectivity of multi-use trails, and expanding programming catered to our most vulnerable populations.
Okay.
They also want to work with property owners to explore eliminating regulatory barriers for redevelopment, strategically reducing minimum living areas, as well as permitting additional housing types within select residential zoning categories. and identifying and working with developers to make sure our most vulnerable populations have housing to accommodate them. They also want vibrant and walkable places, as Hyatt said. They want to work with developers to establish town centers, permit limited commercial developments within close proximity
to neighborhoods so that they can walk or bike to meet their daily needs for goods and services. And they also want to refine landscaping character or landscaping standards to match the character of the surrounding community. And they also want us to work with residents to identify opportunities for transitioning existing single-family neighborhoods into more mixed-use communities.
They also wanted improved public and private spaces by establishing design and architectural requirements for new commercial and office buildings. Protecting native trees, mitigating light pollution wherever possible, and addressing non ADA compliant structures and infrastructure. They also wanted m well-maintained public facilities. We heard repair our roads a lot. So they want us to increase funding for identifying and repairing dilapidated roadways, improving the amenities available at GoPass Go bus stops, increasing funding and service capabilities for our emergency management
system, and preserving historical historical and indigenous sites wherever possible.
They also wanted resiliency against natural hazards by limiting the proliferation of intense development in low-lying, particularly coastal areas of the county, expanding the stormwater management system here in the county, and increasing education and outreach efforts for hazard preparedness. And of course, they also wanted Pasco County's economy to be Competitive. by 2050 and remain competitive, so they wanted expansive employment and training opportunities. by expanding upon the skilled trade opportunities available within
the county, Supporting programs for mentorship as well as training for high schoolers. Expanding fiber optic internet services to employment centers. and evaluating and potentially expanding existing incentive programs. for recruit business recruitment and retention. So, but as we close out the summary of just this section, I just want to say we understand that some of these strategies are already being in place within the community. As such, we really just see this as an opportunity to evaluate their effectiveness and make the plan potentially
improved by addressing those items. We also understand that the comprehensive plan may not be appropriate place for some of those strategies. Strategies, but we can certainly lay the groundwork within the comprehensive plan so that they can be implemented in a more appropriate manner later down the road.
So we have a visioning session for you in just a minute, but first I just want to walk you through the next steps in this process. First we're going to finalize that vision plan document as Hyatt mentioned. We're going to present that to the Board of County Commissioners. And then we're going to publish it on the project website and share it community-wide. And once that's completed, we'll have everything we need to start the comprehensive plan update process later this year, beginning with the data analysis.
So that being said, we do have the visioning session. Oh yep.
Uh I just wanna say something really quick before we start our visioning session is that the visioning year does not stop or the vision in process does not just stop in year three. This is an ongoing conversation with the public. We are gonna go back to them in year four and we're gonna also gonna go back to them in year five because The comprehensive plan is for the community and by the community. So we want them to be involved every step of the way, and we don't want them to be just as surprised by whatever we draft in the plan. Okay,
and now a class is in session. Let's start some of these questions.
Do you know the answer to my Bieber question earlier about what I'm I'm still curious as to whether we're beaver low, medium, or high or
So just a little background for that process. When we do comprehensive plan updates, that's a conversation between us and staff first before we take it to the public, exactly what projection models we'll be using. It can be based off Bieber medium. That's usually the minimum as required by the state. Sometimes it's Bieber High and sometimes it's based on housing permit. data. So we will be doing that process as part of that. That being said, we did do some existing conditions within the community and we didn't look at high specifically, but we did see that we vastly overgrew past the Bieber medium. We didn't look to see if that was also the
case for Bieber High.
So it is possible that we may be exceeding B R. That is correct.
Thank you for that answer.
So question for y'all too, or some surprise me I guess is I it could be buried in there, I just didn't see it. So it workforce housing. I I saw there was mention of affordable affordability housing. So was there I I didn't necessarily see much discussion of of that, but was was there?
Yes, there was. Um like I mentioned, these are just the most popular strategies. So I should mention that there's probably a total of twenty to thirty strategies written and ranked by members of the community and we only showed the most popular ones. But yes, workforce housing did show up in those strategies and was a topic of discussion.
One area I didn't see was law enforcement and fire protection services. Did did I miss that or not?
They believe that the fire department and the sheriff departments are doing a great job and I heard that at the community events that I went to, so they had absolutely no concerns about the Sheriff's Department and the Fire Department. Which gives us comfort that we are doing something great.
There's no crime going on in Pasco County, I assume.
No.
Well Idequately addressed that one. Yeah.
That's that
actually.
I don't even think the sheriff can tell you that he can prevent all crime.
I know that.
But part of his job is to investigate crime and
I came from that field, so I but I do have one question here. It it uh Let me put my glasses on, see my read my handwriting for a moment. Uh You had internet services down. And that's important. Well I think that's a good thing. Of a number of us on this board concur with that. But each time we have a cell tower come before us, unless it's on school property There tends to be a number of people who tend to oppose that because they don't want it in their backyard. And
I can understand that. You know, I maybe after I had one in my backyard I maybe I'd become used to it and therefore I wouldn't mind it. But I I think that's important. I think the internet service you had down there. For sure. And another one down is water. You know, reclaim water needs to be I think increased significantly. I've heard that there's not sufficient quantities to go around to the whole county county. But uh again I I I think uh Water is going to be a a resource that will become uh
significantly important to the growth of the county. Uh Yeah.
I ha I'll let the others speak. I I have up more but share the wealth.
To tag on to the internet thing, is there um been discussion about um public Wi Fi areas within either s you know, uh urban centers or
When we were at the holiday workshop, they did talk about how there isn't that many um Wi Fi free Wi Fi in um certain libraries as well as um the Rec Center, the J. Ben Hill Rec Center. So um yeah, that was a topic of concern. 'Cause
I know, you know, in New Port Richey, um in the city they had discussed, you know, city wide Wi Fi. and being able to distribute that out there was a public thing free to access by any anybody high speed access. So Um I know that's come up as discussion in Other urban areas, you know, where the population is a little bit more densely uh clustered in the county.
Also the demographics, millennials.
Yeah, just uh to let you guys know, we do have a few uh places here in the county that uh are offering Wi-Fi services to areas uh covering their MPDs, their their parks and different things, their trails uh within Connected City, also I believe Union Park. Park uh down to the south also has it. Uh there may be a couple others. But there there are a few examples where they're they're working on that concept. And I think it's it's a good idea to to look at, you know, Starkey Park and some of the other larger areas and other things to see if that's gonna be something that's viable.
Yep, yeah. Or for example like Newport Corners. I'm thinking, you know, those those that corner section, right, where the commercial spots are gonna be and where it's gonna be walkable too. You know, some of those more publicly accessible where there's uh density of population that would be a good thing.
So there there would be some possibilities for something like this to to really have an impact if it can be done.
That's great. So as you saw the public input, was there anything that resonated with you? Anything that surprised you? Since you hear this every almost every single day.
That doesn't really surprise me. Okay. What was surprising is that what it appears the public wants is not what we're here doing every day and I'm not suggesting we Shouldn't. Or couldn't. But I
Well oftentimes the what the public wants doesn't merge with what the public is willing to pay for. A hundred percent agree.
Mm-hmm.
I I
I agree.
But I found that to be a little surprising. I I find it hard that they can say we want to preserve the rural character of the county, but they can't buy forty foot wide lots fast enough and we can't build them fast enough to supply their need for them. I personally don't like the forty foot wide lots and I'd love for Pasco County to be the county I grew up in, but it It's not anymore.
So I I just find that there's some inconsistency between what the market does but yet what a session like this reveals. But I think that's probably because you only get a limited A limited number of the population that actually participates.
What'd you say Jack Mariano?
And on the other hand people want, hey, I want a new house. Yeah. So how do you make those two merge?
Yeah, there's there's a lot of competing interests. I mean like someone will say they want affordable housing but they want big lots.
Right.
Um so uh yeah, I mean there's uh Yeah.
Yeah,
a lot of people that want to pr preserve the character of the people that live here alre already, whereas the forty foot lot buyers are people that are moving in from out of the area.
Oh good. Yeah. We did hear a lot of contradictions throughout all these public workshops and engagements and um it's like you said, everybody has a different interest and we're not necessarily covering the entire population of Pasco County, so
So was was the engagement pretty consistent? It looked like based on the pictures you took, is you well represented in all areas of the county for the most part? Yeah.
Total people did you meet with at these workshops?
Two hundred and seventy five. And sometimes and these are just the people that actually registered at the front before we started the presentation. More people came after the press uh the registration has ended and they participated in just the activities or they missed the presentation. So I'll confidently say that we had about three hundred people show up to all eight workshops. And
the population of the county is
Can you flip back to the ten uh the slide of the the ten top ten things just
so we can be looking
at it while we're
The ones that they ranked by importance to them? Okay.
I guess I guess to John's point, I mean it you know, Derek and I are both heavily involved in Rotary. He's gonna be our next district governor for this area. I mean is there? a way or an opportunity for us to help y you know, we've tried to do that. Obviously you came and spoke at our a Rotary Club and and the like. So we we've tried to do that, but, you know, to to John's point I mean it's Is it i fairly confident that it's reaching the people but getting them to engage more is I was kinda
holding this till after this discussion, but maybe now's the time. Okay. In the last Two months. There's a group of eighteen thousand plus people. Who have formed a group on Facebook called Pasco Development and Growth.
Yep.
Mm-hmm. Last week their membership increased by eight hundred and fifty some odd New members.
So there is a group of people that are following what we do And if there any of 'em are watching right now, I will tell you that Making wild accusations about the county commissioners or the planning commissioners is not going to solve your problems. Come out here to these meetings. that the way a democracy works is with your participation come out. We listen, we hear, as I told the pastor from the Shady Hills Methodist Church, she is being heard
and there are things that are happening as a result of her participation. So I would tell them the same thing to come out. That's eighteen thousand people. Maybe if you try out reaching out to them, although I would tell you be careful 'cause some of 'em can get reading the comments they're a little hostile. Some of 'em are
That makes a lot of sense. Social media engagement. Yeah, this is this is twenty twenty three, right? So
it's been very important. And I actually want to thank them for actually advertising the public workshops. And Pasco twenty fifteen dot com. Somebody just posted three days ago about our public workshops and also about our um uh the survey, the community survey that they can take. So somebody urged everybody to take that community survey. So thank you to whoever
I did want to ask you one question about that. And that is
Do we have a potential sunshine law? problem if people on the planning commission or the county commission are participating in that group.
only if there's dialogue between two In other words, if you're just if individual planning commission members are Posting their thoughts in a survey If it's an anonymous survey, there would be never an issue. But if it's a survey where you're identifying yourself in providing your comments, the only way you get into a sunshine law problem is if that other planning commission members are commenting on your I'm talking about this Facebook group. This is not a survey. This is the same thing
with Facebook. Okay, so Facebook if you are Posting your thoughts on Facebook And then another Planning Commission member is responding to your thoughts, yes, that is a Sunshine Law problem. If you're not going to be able to do individual Planning Commission members are posting their thoughts and there's no responses or dialogue between them
Probably not a sunshine law problem, but I still wouldn't recommend it. In other words, because The problem is is you don't have to do that. you may post something and then somebody else posts something, then there's a whole stread thread below your posts talking about X, Y, and Z. Somebody else responds to one of them, but it ends up really being a response to you. Because if you don't follow those. Threads of dialogue carefully you may not realize you're effectively engaging
in a dialogue with another planning commission member. So my general advice would be T would be the extent you want to participate in something like that, an anonymous survey would be fine. Because you're just anonymously prove just like any other citizen. But as soon as you're engaging in a dialogue We know for certain the complain will be coming to this body.
Okay.
That's undisputed. So it is foreseeable that this amendment to the Comp Plan this results from this effort will come before you so you can't be engaging in dialogue about Something that could result in an amendment to the comprehensive plan. So anyways,
all I'm s I'm suggesting that I don't know whether you participate in such a group and I don't know if I'd recommend participating in such a group, but I gleam a lot. Right. Kind of scrolling.
And I don't know how representative That group is of the five hundred and fifty thousand plus that are in the county, but there's eighteen thousand of them that have sprung over two months and gaining almost a thousand a week, at least that's what last week is that's A lot of feedback in a very short time.
John, do you know the location of the eighteen thousand or is it kind of like I mean is it like
No it just if you go on the group site it tells you the basic stats that there's the group's two months old, it has eighteen thousand members and then it showed how many were in the lab.
It could
be from
people all over. I mean, it could be or I right. I have no idea whether those are eighteen thousand Pasco. I believe they're Pasco County residents because they all seem to have a lot of familiarity with the area in the comments that they post.
You know, you have the holiday area or you have the Dade City area. You have two groups of people with different interests.
Well actually I think there's a lot of commonality amongst the most of most of the comments that I see, there's
Right.
There's a lot of common themes. I don't want to say there's unit hundred percent unanimity out there, but there's uh A lot of commonality.
For sure. And these are actually the commonalities between all the different areas in the county. This is what we got from all of them.
To the Chairman's point though, is there a reason you didn't ask the question Which of these would they be willing to spend taxpayer money? On I mean because Well I think there's a disconnect because we just had a budget meeting on Tuesday and we had hundreds of people in the audience saying they didn't want their taxes Increasing for any of these things.
Yeah,
yeah.
It seems like you got a group of people over here saying we want all these things and to the Chairman Mariano. Mm-hmm. But unless you know which of these things they're willing to Put their money where their mouth is. I'm not sure how helpful it is. In other words, Are they willing to pay additional taxes to grow the park system? Are they willing to pay additional taxes for transportation efficiency? I mean without knowing that anybody can create a Santa's wish list can be two twenty pages long, but there's only so many things that Santa can afford.
Right.
So You know How do we know that from this? this survey? Well and to add on
to
that
too, this
is a few.
I'm looking at this list. And really items one through seven can be to a large extent this group and the county commission. can do a lot to impact those r those uh desires. The way we approve developments, you know, I've I believe and I've said for a long time that What I hate to see, for example, is for development
to be approved and they just go in and knock down all the trees. You know? Right up there it says preserve natural resources. It says protect rural lands and character, grow park systems. Yeah, when we approve parks for schools and I me th it's a lot of these things. If you th out of ten out of the ten most important seven of 'em We have a lot to say about So
you certainly had a lot to say on number four when the Park Impact view came to you. Right. Exactly.
And the uh
But we're also approving amendments all the t or um exceptions all the time for parks
you know and that's why uh you know
I I don't disagree that there are things that you on all of these that when items come to you that affect these things. I'm only asking How do we know Which of these even protecting rural lands. I mean you could you could buy conservation easement from all the old agricultural landowners To make sure that we're preserving the rural lands of Pasco County. But that requires money.
Right.
So I can't tell whether they're not going to be able to do that. Willing to spend taxpayer dollars to do that.
You know why, David? Because Most people for some reason they can't get it through their head that those taxpayer dollars aren't coming from the government, they're coming from people. It's not govern the government has no money.
Mm-hmm.
You know, the the people provide the money for the government. So if they want the the government to do all these things Where are they gonna get the money? They're gonna have to get it from us.
But that that's my point is I think a helpful survey question would have been
Yeah, what
are you willing to pay for? Which which of these are you willing to pay additional Rank them
on that
level? Yeah.
Well we actually asked not directly asked that question in the public workshops, but when we were talking to folks just one-on-one, we did ask them and they said that penny for Pasco. can pay for all of this that we want.
And inaccurate statement.
But they believe that Penny for Pasco can cover most of the So
that was gonna be my follow or my add ons. That's the painless answer, you know, because they think again once again
My add on to that, is there any reason why you couldn't have a rough projection for cost for these things? So we'll say, you know, because one thing might be Completely cost prohibitive, another thing might be pretty easy.
Well I understand you could but you could have you could have Well
I mean okay. There probably are three or four items on this list that I do agree Penny for Pasco. Number one, number eight. So limited extent number two.
Probably not the rest of these, okay. So if somebody told them the penny for Pasco is gonna pay for all ten of these things, that's just flat out wrong. Okay, so
For some of these Somebody's gotta make a financial decision about whether to so And we and our board is a debates about whether to increase taxes for th any of these things. or to reduce taxes for some of these things, it'd be helpful to know How how do I know which of these they're willing to put their money where their mouth is?
So if I could just speak on that for a second. So we didn't do that as part of this year. However, in other jurisdictions, and certainly this is something that we can do for year four, even in fact we can put it on the website tomorrow even, is that we do have a list of priorities similar to this. And we have activities, online survey if you will, where they're allowed given a limited number of tokens, funds, whatever you want to use, and they have to prioritize what they want to spend the money on. You can also ask them a survey question of rather would you be willing to increase taxes to achieve
each of these things. Those questions are good questions and we can certainly ask them. It's just we didn't ask them in part of year three.
This is just the Santa's wish list.
Yeah.
That anybody can create a Santa's wish list and say, I want these twenty things. Until you we know you're willing to put your money over our mouth is it's meaningless to me.
And keep in mind, this is not a document that's just about the next five years and about the financial status of the county for the next five years. This is for twenty fifty. So financial status could change over time, and you know you could have a lot more money in the coffers. This is a long-term vision document, right? This is a long-term
vision with the county. Even our MPO plan, we start with a needs plan, okay, which is all the stuff that in theory that we might need in the future for roads and transportation, but then we boil down to what we can actually afford. Sure. And that becomes our adopted long-range transportation plan. So even when you're looking in the future Just twenty fifty, twenty sixty five, whatever it is. You should be able to identify what you can afford. And so I think our comp plan needs to be Somebody needs to put a
a reality check, a monetary reality check on our comp plan. And say we can't just have a complaint that says these are all of the Thousand things we want. We need to do something similar to what we do with our MPO plan and said this is what we can really afford to do. based on what our taxpayers believe they're willing to Pay money for.
Yeah,
absolutely. We can yes I do think you need to ask the financial questions because Otherwise we have a huge disconnect between the hundred people that showed up saying they don't want their taxes increased and the two hundred and seventy five people that showed up and said we want the moon, sun and the stars. Sure. There's definitely a disconnect there. Yeah, absolutely.
Could you address that in the capital improvements element?
We can. The capital improvements element does have to be
a little bit more than a little bit.
Визаболл. But There's the problem is th there's nothing that's stopping us from putting in a Complan policy that may Ask for the sun, the moon, and the stars, and we can't afford it. Yeah, it's a pie in the sky thing. So what's the point in putting it in if we can't afford it?
Well and that that's why I thought it would be a good idea to try to come up with a you know, I know these are nebulous open ended questions, but you know, it's gonna be cheaper to grow the park system than it will be to increase transportation efficiency. So you can maybe do like uh they do for restaurants. That one has three dollar signs and this one has one. You're describing the activity to a T. So that's that I would suggest that, you know, because that's gonna help them with their tokens and absolutely. We can certainly do that.
I would say that any all ten of these, if you have enough money, you can achieve them. them.
Yeah.
But uh I I still advocate for reclaimed water for the county. It should be a number one priority. So should water. Yeah, w we can we can survive three days. But beyond three days with no water You're either going to one place or the other. That's the bottom line. If anybody's been in the military or Anyone who goes out hiking or anything like that. Without water, you're not going any place. And there is and desalination
plants are very expensive to build. And there is shortage water in this area currently. You know, it ha so anyway.
It's a great one.
I think um in many cases We s we aren't as hard as we should be on developers. If they wanna come to Pasco County and they wanna develop in Pasco County. They need to help us. Totally.
It's a fine line because you can can only do so much even with developers because then the their product will be too expensive for people to buy. But I think in the past we have not been a little bit more than a little bit of Required enough. From You know the Big I'm talking about the big developers, you know.
Yeah, I don't disagree with you, however, I will tell you that when the legislature has a habit of when we Demand too much of developers. We get preempted. And so For example, Legislature told us we're not ever allowed to regulate design on single family homes anymore. So as much even if the citizens said we want single family homes to look better, legislature said Sorry, you can't do it. Um parks, you know, if we exact too much Parkland from developers
And we don't give them credits against our park impact fee, then that might violate some state law. Same thing with roads. I mean all of these things that that the The residents say they want to do that. Have we forced the developers to do too much of it?
Mm-hmm. So it's a fine line.
The legislature steps in and says, You took it too far, Pasco County, you're preempted. And they've already done that. So
There's a limit. And there's also other legal limits in terms of Tinking the law and Harris Act and things like that.
The bigger limit right now on us is the state legislature that D. Tell us we can't do some of these things.
And I don't even know if the public knows that.
I'm sure they I'm sure they don't. R I in many cases rightly so, I think they I think you know they they have to put limits on what government can do. But You know, we we just need to bear in mind that We have to do what we can do and Don't just let people go in and wipe out the every tree on the property. property just to make it easier for the easy.
Yeah. There's a big loophole and th that we can't really stop is the clear cut Property while it's under an ag exemption. And that's very difficult for the county to step in and stop.
Right. And I know a lot of the property that we have is agricultural and and the the timber's already been cut. When he it's a pastor. Yeah, so and I know in the earlier days in the sixties when we had the big freeze and all the orange trees were killed. Yeah, there's that's true th th there's no vegetation there because there were no trees there in the first place. Yeah so you know, 'cause you always had that thing all that bit of a
take into consideration, I sometimes I get a kick out of About We take pasture land. that didn't have trees. It we may have some small may may have cypress heads here and there through it, but it's generally pasture land. Yeah but doesn't have the trees are few and far between And then when we develop under the land development code, they're actually forced to put more trees than actually existed there prior to the development.
And we have other problems in our code where We require a certain minimum number of species. Of trees in a development, even though the land in its existing condition may not even have supported that number of, and then I end, and then I see crazy things like we put cypress trees on top of sand hills because we've got this code requirement. So you must have eight native species if you need this many trees. And of course, now I'm out of native species, and now I'm putting a tree that isn't
possibly ever.
Yeah.
I don't know what the answer to all that is. Is the problem with codes is they try to be one size fits all and unfortunately that's not the way of the world.
Probably a land development code issue, not a comp land issue. Um
And the comprehensive plan can lay the groundwork for changes to the land development code. So those are still important comments as part of the comp plan update.
Does anybody have any other questions on this slide particularly? If not, we'll go back to the visioning session. Okay. Right?
All right. So we kind of touched upon this a little bit already. I know with the Reclaim Water Comments and the Water Supply Comments, thank you so much for those. Are there any other strategies that you feel that should be addressed within the comprehensive plan update? Like I said, there's a lot of strategies that's just not in this presentation, but it is available online to download and review to see what your public came up with. Um but I wanted to know from the Planning Commission. Do you have any other ideas
on
the Pasco?
Um especially for those people that don't necessarily have access to it easily.
I think the answer to Number two would be helpful. If you show me in the current comprehensive plan, what are the strategies? What I when I read the comprehensive plan, I don't see a strategy for anything. What I see is a list of policies, some of which were forced upon us by the state legislature to David's Point. Um I don't know. I always get a kick out of it because we call it a comprehensive plan. And
I'm not sure I see a plan for Much. We've got a couple m maps of vision roads and things like that here and there and we've got a land use map which I in my personal opinion, was drawn without much thought. thought without without any real planning what we And unfortunately what happened here is the way this is supposed to work is we're supposed to have a comprehensive plan and then have zoning on top of
that, but the county had zoning in nineteen seventy five and then a comprehensive plan in nineteen eighty nine, so it happened exactly the opposite. And unfortunately sometimes the comprehensive plan didn't line up with what the zoning was. And so we find us in here trying to adjudicate all of these issues where entitlements don't match up. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. What I I I guess what I'm asking about number two is I
don't see in the current comprehensive plan What's the vision? All right. You're asking us now a a vision and and strategies to get there. I'm not sure I understand what the vision and strategies are in there. I just see a list of policies
Sure, and I just want to mention that part of our purview for updating the comprehensive plan is cleaning up the document itself. There are a number of policy references and policies that were required by the state that are no longer required by the state, references to 9J5, things that are no longer required by the State. So we'll be addressing all of that, looking at reorganization and making sure that message of what the vision is for the county is clear. That is part of the purview of what we're trying to do here.
I mean, John, I there are some when they created the market areas I think in two thousand
Eight or ten, I don't remember when that was Yeah, there's some vision there. There's some visioning that occurred there and Northeast Pasco has a certain vision that has certain policies associated with it. Pasina Hills has certain visions and Paul I mean there is There is some visioning in the existing comp plan, I mm I get your point, but I'm not sure if you're Um The entire county is not equal. I mean that not all The the county did create an urban service area for a reason. Um And a northeast rural
protection area for a reason. So there is there is a general vision of the areas we want urban development, suburban and rural development. That occurred in the two thousand and eight, two thousand ten timeframe. Um What's probably lacking though is some of the details of what is urban What is urban form? What is suburban form, what is rural form? Um the implementation strategies is probably what's missing. I uh I think there is a
defined areas of the county that where we want urban, suburban and rural development. And every staff report kind of that comes to you tells you, hey, this is in the urban service area, this is in the think that would
be helpful in your outreach to the public. in that we have these defined areas. I mean if you're living in the urban service area and you're screaming, I need to preserve the rural character of the county, you're barking up the wrong tree.
Um I would like to make a comment. Just we did activities that spoke almost precisely to this. In the very first workshop series we actually had an activity which asked them to show them a series of photos and asked them to define whether or not it's urban, rural or suburban. And I don't think you'd be surprised to find out that there wasn't a lot of consensus as to what each of those terms meant within the context of those photos. So that was very enlightening to us. It helps during the visioning process, but it will really help during the data analysis when we start digging in what is truly urban, suburban,
and rural. Um We also had an activity which we didn't show up on the screen that talked about growth and where new growth should be concentrated. We gave them a base map of the county, different from what you saw earlier in the presentation, where that new population growth they felt should be directed. And so we do also have that information. And so what we use.
Yes.
No, you can go ahead.
Yeah, some of them do want the um development to be concentrated where there's already a lot of um urbanized areas such as the West Market area. Um and some of them want them to stay um around the US forty one, fifty two, fifty four along those corridors. They also wanted us to direct um population to the southern part of or the Tunnellas County not necessarily stayed in um in our county.
Oh, they want us to put growth in another county. Yeah. That's interesting. That solves our problem.
Not in my backyard. But the but the issue becomes property rights. If I own a piece of property I want to do with it what I want and if I can make a zillion dollars off of it, why not? I mean, wasn't that our conversation almost a couple of weeks ago when we talked about a cell tower going up and a gentleman said, Hey, there's people that live up in Saint Leo, Missouri All this property? And that property will be developed at some point in time. Mm-hmm. We know that. It's a large acreage. And then there's also
the far uh the ranches off of fifty two and forty one in that area there. Got a couple up there. Got a air uh Airfield and air. You know, so what do you do about property rights? You know
Property rents doesn't mean you can just do whatever you want with your property. You have to do it within the constraints of the zoning code, the comprehensive plan, the land development code. So That's
what you all are in charge of doing. I mean So well here's one of the things we'll be faced with and I know this would this this happened In the first comprehensive plan. update. So We had a future land use map that was drawn in nineteen eighty nine. And that gave every piece of property in this county Some entitlement or lack thereof for development. And
then when the comp plan was updated again where we found ourselves politically was We already gave his piece of land an entitlement. Got a real hard time coming in and telling why I'm taking fifty percent of that away. And I think that's where we're gonna find ourselves again. We're gonna have areas where there are certain entitlements and we can't just walk in and st These people bought this land, these properties
with this expectation that these are the things I can do. And then you just gonna come in and you we can't just go in and a wholesale say, Well, we're changing all your entitlements now. Well I well I guess we can, but the commissioners won't last long in their seats if they do that. So I And I think they know that.
I think that's a good thing. More accurate for zoning than complete. I mean there's a general principle that you're not entitled to the maximum If the calm plan allows, I mean So just because you're You have res six Complant doesn't mean you're gonna get a rezoning that gives you res six density. No, they come
in and they get a ask for M P U D and then we give 'em the world. But there's no
obligation that you give them the world, is my point. I mean it can't exceed what the Complant allows, but there's no obligation I mean if there's and you all have a pr denied some rezoning where there's inadequate infrastructure to support what they want and you say, No, we're not giving you res six because You don't have central water in sewer or your roads are Not sufficient. There's a You have to remember that complaint is a very good thing. The year twenty right now is twenty twenty five, but it'll be year twenty fifty. doesn't mean that
the infrastructure that is needed by twenty fifty is in place to support that level of growth today. Yeah,
I I understand that and saying that's a problem that we're going to have to wrestle with as well
for us to if somebody has res six today
Now
we're gonna make it res one. That's difficult to do. Because there's a there's a contingent of the populace that wants the area to remain in rural character. So I think we'll find ourselves in a difficult position to do that.
So And I would tell them I you know, hey. I grew up here when this was a very
rural area and What you tell 'em is you get your eighteen thousand people together and go buy the property. And you can do whatever you
want.
And I would tell you that in my business we have a saying that everyone is an environmentalist until they want a building permit. Ha ha. Yeah.
So I do have one strategy that I think it needs to be addressed on the Commpland. There's already existing Comm Plan policies that talk about preservation of land for economic development. And We've got a whole series of policies that discuss that about 'cause we're trying to become More than a bedroom community. And I Support that B. My question is at what point are we Balanced. In other words, At what point? Have we preserved enough land for
Office, light industrial, commercial growth. The Maybe we don't need to preserve every square inch of the county for I know we're not, but I mean At what point is it okay to cause there's a presumption that we don't allow changes of industrial land to residential land. That makes sense today. My question is Well I'm asking you as the expert. When is it okay that we start giving up some commercial
or industrial land for Residential land or residential uses.
Population growth would
Because it it goes into the affordable housing issue and the Live Local Act and I mean there's It You know, our county currently is fighting the Live Local Act because it's converting industrial commercial land to residential. But And today we probably have we already jobs deficit. in the county, relative to other counties. That's right. But I I my question that I think needs to be addressed is when are we balanced? When are we gonna get to the point where it's okay for somebody comes in and says, I want to convert an industrial piece to residential. We
don't all start screaming and saying what the hell are you doing? I mean I think we need guidance on when That becomes okay.
Yeah. There's gotta be an ideal mix, Well
at some point you you must achieve that.
That was gonna be
Who is he to tell me when when we've achieved that balance? Okay.
When You know, we say we we say we want industrial development. And we may find that that becomes a case of we better watch what we wish for. That said though, you still have to try to plan for it. I understand. We So you know industry covers a lot of things. Okay. And it's all good, you know. I I know we'd like to have the biotech industries and electronics and all of that. But
We're not s we're seeing some of it, but we're not seeing all of it and that has to do a lot with national politics and You know? Whether those jobs are in China or whether they're in the United States, but we also have to have a population that has the expertise to work in those Fields
too. I don't disagree with you. I'm only pointing out that we have no measuring stick currently that says Hey, when the county gets to achieve this many acres of industrial land That's probably sufficient. You know, uh I I don't want us to preserve industrial land just for the sake of preserving industrial land.
I think everybody ha I guess what I'm trying to say is I think everybody has an opinion and ultimately that's why we have a representative form of government. That opinion will get expressed at the ballot box. theirs. I've heard this over the years and living here my entire life. Pasco's nothing but a bedroom community. My response to that is Yeah, so what? I I I know what I I live here, I choose to
live here. If I didn't like living here, if I wanted it to be someplace else, then I'd move someplace else. So but other people have this envision that maybe Pasco County should be a malopolis like New York to Philadelphia. But ultimately it's the people at the ballot box that will decide that.
Yeah, but our comm plan is supposed to set our vision for the future. And so I realize that Complan can change. Okay. Right. But my point is that without a measuring stick that says we've achieved balance. I mean I understand you're arguing we may not need balance, okay, but Let's assume that we want to be generally balanced so we don't have people tons of people commuting out of Pasco County. Okay, because that floods our roads, it's probably better for people to be able to work close to where they live. So
But I think there's probably some point at which we've preserved enough commercial and industrial land that there's no need to do it any more then it's okay for some of it to become residential I'm asking him as the expert What is that point? So I have some measuring stick to to point to in the component when a developer comes up and says, It's okay to convert all my industrial land to residential. I like some measuring stick that says, Well, have we achieved balance yet?
Our comp plan currently doesn't say what the balance what our goal is. Shouldn't our compliance say what our goal is for employment?
Well That'll be I I we could spend endless hours debating that.
I I I'm not suggesting yes, I understand we're going to debate it. All I'm all I'm asking is our expert to come up with a rec staff and our expert to come up with a recommendation T B R P C did this study saying we need X amount of industrial land. Okay. Is that the magic number? I don't know what it the ma there's no nothing in our component says what the magic number is. If y I agree that you can disagree with the board may not agree with that magic number. But without a magic number I don't have any measuring stick to to to guide when these proposals
come in?
a f hard number, it's just a guide.
At least the goal like for parkland, we have something in our complaints that says how much parkland we want to achieve. We have roads that say these are all the roads we want to build for future growth. Why don't we have something similar for employment? It says This is our goal for employment land in Basco County. This is what we want to achieve.
You may? What what are your thoughts on that?
So I just wanted to make quick no a few quick notes on that. I mean I This is the easy answer, but I agree with both of you for the record. Um there is different ways we can look at that, and we can certainly propose that in the data analysis of what that correct balance is, what we believe it to be, as well as what the literature says it should be. Um but to your point at the end of the day, we have to bring that balance back to the public. And say this is the balance that we're going to shoot for in this comprehensive plan. And they can either tell us this is a bad idea, that's too much, too little. or
something in between. And we have to bring that to the Board of County Commissioners and You folks as well who have to approve it. So just want to let you know it is, you know, we can do the data on our side. We can certainly look that up for you and we'd be happy to do that as part of the data analysis and
one of the things we have to recognize too is the natural the natural growth. Um Communities.
And I I found it interesting a survey landed in uh landed in my email box this morning asking what were the the the obstacles to TND development. What? I would tell you that the responses That the boxes that you can check in the responses to the survey? have nothing to do with that. The problem with TND development is you're trying to create
a town You're putting the cart before the horse. Towns spring up. around generally if they're geographic. It's around major Routes of transportation. New York City is not where New York City is by accident. It's around a harbor. Tampa water the same thing. It's around the bay. Okay. Chicago, it's on the Great Lakes. You
The whole goal of these TNDs is we're all going to work and live in the same community. And there are very few of them that have actually achieved. That goal. And the problem is, is you can't just say, I'm going to build a new town here. There has to be some impetus. for that. And that's why I don't believe that theory has worked and so, David, back to the question you were asking, When I There were no engineering jobs in Pasco County other than Mr. Casson's
firm. here when I first came out of college. So my engineering opportunities were in Pinellas and Hillsborough County. Do you know I live in Pasco County? Because it was cheaper. And as the jobs come to Pasco County, there'll be a whole bunch of people that run to Hernando County and to Citrus County and you know why? 'Cause it'll be cheaper. Because that's how it happens naturally.
And we have to have planning that recognizes what the natural growth, what the natural progression of these things are.
Planning doesn't happen just because we say, Well, we think it should this should be here because we said so. That's not how it happens in the real world. Unless you're the villages. Uh correct. But then you're in in their case, they they brought the their industry's retirement. Right. We think of industry as making things and but their industry's retirement. And so they're able to do it. And celebration is a great example of a T N D that works. Why? Because it's the house of mouse, right? But That's not everywhere.
I I d I agree with you somewhat, but You also have to take into account that What may occur naturally may not be the best thing. So I'll give you an example. Um Tampa Bay Gulf and Country Club, you know, right next to the A residential development right next to the interstate. Um That might have been a good place for light industrial Distribution but at the time the market said we're gonna put our
houses there. Okay, so I agree with you you need to allow nature to take its course, but there's you still have to make sure that you're per preserving some land for when employment's ready to come to Pasco. The ideal locations for that employment are still available for employment. They're not taking up with a bunch of houses. Well
That's where the planning part comes in. For instance. If one wants to have industry, and I said this when we had the Seven Diamonds case a couple few a month or so ago. Last time we were here in Newport, Ritchie, I was very pleased to see that that proposed industrial park was along a rail line. They're gonna propose to make concrete products. They get the sand, they get the they're gonna get their aggregate out of their mind. But that Portland
cement, which is the other key ingredient that they need, is gonna come along that rail. And so if Pasco County wants to have industry, you have to set the table for industry to happen. Industry requires major routes of transportation to get raw materials in and finished goods out. And then we have to say, well wait a second, well That happens in Tampa because they have a port. We don't have a port in Pasco County.
What we have is highway and we have the potential for rail or we have the potential for air. Look at the industrial development that's going on in Hernando County and and around the the airport up there, right? Because they've used that major transportation. We have to set the table for those things. We're going to be able to do it Unfortunately the old and I'm not suggesting that the old West Pasco airport was the right Place, but That was an air park. It's now neighborhoods and Trinity
Maybe we need to be investing in the Zephyrhills airport. Look at Polk County is doing with its airport and the industrial growth that's going on around it. Are we working with CX CSX to attempt to find an area where we can bring in a rail spur? So that we can have industry that relies on those things. Unfortunately US nineteen is not a good route to get raw materials in and finished goods
out. And the Sun Coast Parkway.
Where does it go?
Well we do have I uh seventy five.
Right, I seventy five i is a is a plus to us. That's
we have rails here. You mentioned railway.
We've only got so many interchanges that they can go at. And and and and I'm pleased. I'm seeing uh you know a lot of these things are happening at these interchanges. That's natural. But we've got to provide some other places for these things to happen.
Yeah, I think the one thing you touched on the right-of-way. you know, the the county should be thinking about is It is a Citizen Airport where you can people can businesses can come and go, executives fly into their corporate offices and so forth. That that hurt us I think when we lost West Basco Industrial, even though it was a small airport.
Yes.
You
did mention Zephyrhills and that airport is a very good airport to utilize for good. But it doesn't service let's this sad. It's hard to
service, I think, with Juggs.
Yeah, Central County would be a little bit more than a little bit. If it w if you could expand pilot country, you know, for example, that would be a better location. It's a good spot, but of course it's private.
So I think to sum up, I think a better plan for employment and the infrastructure that needed to support employment. Like rail, like airports. Highways I don't think that's well thought out in our comp plan currently. No. Right. I think that's what I'm trying to say. Exactly.
You know, I think part of that part of the problem has been that Florida's always been a state that people retire to to die. I know when I retired some twenty wait, give me a minute. Give me a minute. When I retired out of the agency that I worked for before, my friends knew I was going to go to one of two places, Arizona or Florida. And they said, Oh, you go to Florida, you're gonna go to die. And you know, the community I live in, you know, you talked about uh Tampa Palms up just a few miles from where I live
at. The community I live in is a basically a retirement community too. They have Pulti Homes built two proc two products. Homes for families in large or large homes which were about twenty five hundred square feet and then the other one, which is the majority of the retirees live in, is your thousand square foot, your town home type. But
We do have an airport there. We have a large mall that just came online. This is because of I-75. And I believe that the Interstate Highways are an avenue to in Just as railroads can uh in the Increase the productivity of of manufacturing and our industrial areas. We you know, ho housing is and I agree with you,
Peter, and And so that to that end. There's only so many interchanges on I seventy five. Maybe it is high superhighway transportation that the that spurs that kind of growth but then in then we need to be planning uh other roads w I-75 unfortunately can't handle all traffic in the world. Stay with you. And we can't continue to widen it forever. We know that doesn't work either, but maybe we need some other parallel
and we and the I know east west routes in the county have always been an issue. Yeah. It's been an issue for decades and decades and decades.
I think over time Florida's become more more than God's waiting room as you say. I'm glad
it is because I'm still I'm still here, aren't I? I haven't taken up my friend's uh advice yet from up north. But
So how many more of these do we have to get through? Because we're stuck on number two.
One
more after this.
'Cause he's run out of
beef sticks.
So we commented a lot tonight about the strategies and different elements of the strategies and about the public input w that we heard. But we'd really just honestly love to hear your perspectives as you know. The local planning board, what should be done, what is your vision for the future of the community? Because we want that we want to know. I mean we're gonna come back to you and we wanna know if that what we provide to you is consistent with that.
I think you heard a lot about it just in just the last half an hour, half an hour or however long was this. Well
but I think the the discussion we just had on employment and supporting infrastructure for employment I think is important in number three too. I mean because if we're I think we should be more than a bedroom community and a God's waiting room. So um so you need to have a balance of employment to housing and so having that vision for where our employment's gonna be located, what the supporting transportation infrastructure will be for I think is important. because it sort of sets the bones of
this is where we want employment Stay away from it housing. This is this is off limit to housing. Mm.
then you can kinda grow out from there. That kind of becomes your employment centers And then you can orient your housing around to to John's point. And yes,
and So what I find in a weakness In our current compli comprehensive plan is just because one does draws a future land use map does not make it so. There are if you take the map we've got, somebody said this should be E C Employment Center, but there was no thought about how I'm getting the raw materials in and the finished goods out. or where's the transportation network to get my commuters into these offices or whatever that
employment center may be, just because you drew a big yellow area on a map doesn't make it happen that way. And so That's where the strategies need to happen. Okay, we want employment centers. How are we going to set the t set the table to make those successful employment centers? Yeah, growth
happens
organically, but you have to have an environment.
You also don't know where your priority should be for road improvements and Airport improvements. You're correct.
They have to go hand in hand. When I'm and that's all I'm saying is just because one that's where I think our comprehensive plan is lacking. We've drawn in on a map employment center, but without providing a plan for a roadway network to get in and out of said employment center. the various commercial areas that are needed to support the employment the people who work in employment centers and then the housing around them. I
in some ways if you look at our Land use map. I mean It is a crazy gerrymandered map. That was and and I'm not faulting anybody who did this in the past. I know there are a lot of political considerations when I'm when you're drawing such a map. But
That's how you that's that's how you have to strategize is If I want industrial development and I or I want High level office employment, what am I going to do to support those things? And what are all of the things I need to support those things? And those have to be a part of the plan too. And hopefully that's what you'll do.
Absolutely. And I think that needs to morph into the MPO Long Range Transportation Plan because it should set the priority for where we fund roads, where we fund rail, airports, et cetera. We we currently do our transportation planning just based on General traffic analysis of what roads are going to fail. in the future. We don't necessarily do it based based on where it should support the right-of-way. That's what I'm
planning. That's
a reaction. It's a reaction, it's not proactive.
I'm gonna make one more pitch for the airport out in Zephyrhills. If you stop and think about it, Zephyrhills very close to one of the county. Polk County, right?
You know and ninety eight. Ninety eight. You got I four over there too. So I think at some point in time you're gonna see Zephyrhills. And the population for Pasco County is growing that way too. I drove from last time we were in Dade City. I just made a mistake by taking Chansey Road to go south. And I meandered through that whole area out there. You know we all you all know how many homes are going out there. The population's moving that way. It's going from The east side of the county. to the west side of county. And I know we all It's five o'clock and
I usually quit at five o'clock, but That's my last pitch for now on Zephyrhills Airport. Thank you.
Well I think you're right, Zephyrh. An airport is very important to I think it's a resource we have, yeah. Commuter airport and I think if you look around and you see s m the most successful communities have commuter airports.
Well and I think surround getting a roadway network that supports that airport, ninety eight, getting it right widened, getting fifty six extended into Zephyrhills so that it can help support the airport. I mean The airport sort of Just sitting there in a vacuum it's it needs some supporting roadway infrastructure as well.
I think there has to be If you in my mind, if you want this to be successful and I don't believe this happened or didn't happen. enough in the past. is you have to make an assessment of what Resources. Does the county have And then how are we going to make the most of those resources and I apologize to anybody from the
city of Newport Ritchie that could be listening now. But I find that Newport Ritchie has the most underutilized waterfront I have ever seen in my and I I grew up here. I love the quaint little homes along the river and I love to drive Grand Boulevard. But We have Medic we have pediatric offices along the Pithla Chiscote River, even where your office is, Mr. Gray. That could be Hooter
South. Okay. I like your idea.
But you know what? Obviously you haven't been there lately. And so here's what I'm saying. So why can't I have Hooter South where Mr. Gray's office is? Mm-hmm. That's because I have an infrastructure problem. There are two bridges along the Pithlachiscote River. that are in the way of any substantive boat traffic getting to those areas because those bridges are not high enough. So what what I'm getting at is we need to for mainstream. This is where we Make an assessment
of the resources, how could we better use the resources, and then what infrastructures actually needed to support? those resources in those cases, if if that became the and I'm not suggesting New Port Richey should do anything, but if that's the case, then they would need to make a decision that, hey, we need to make these bridges higher or we need to make them draw bridges or whatever the case may be. But I think that's how you start. The reason to want a golf, I think. And then we have to accept
the resources that we have and we have to work with the resources that we have, not the ones we wish we had. Mm-hmm.
Well that's a good point. I mean that's that's something I've said for a long time is that you know you should focus on your assets as a county and most people are drawn to uh you know it's the ecotourism that draws encourages growth. So, you know, that's why you have everybody that live along the water, a l you look at the United States and everybody's c clustered to the coast. That's where that that growth starts from and like you said, the harbors and so forth. So We should try to leverage what we can the natural
resources, the natural features that we have as a county. and use those as catalysts to For growth outside of that. And I think that's well underutilized on the west side of this county. And we have to have political
strategies to achieve, for instance I think there's a vision For Harbor Town. In the Arapica area. But the key to making Harbor Town work is getting the boat channel through Film's Bayou, Filmman's Creek there. Okay, then the county has to put its resources to get that done. We we know from Ridge Road what a slog that can be. Right? But if that if that's something we truly
want, then we've got to dedicate the resources to
that that could that could catalyze the entire n northwest Pasco area.
So That's I think that's your that's one of your keys to
improving property values, growth, everything. So Well did that give you
enough to think about?
We We certainly do. And I'm gonna let Hyatt have the final word here, but I just wanna say my dad would be really, really proud that the fact that Hooters came up at this particular big
deal for him. I just wanna
let you know.
Hey, it's a local company, right? That's right. Clearwater. That's right.
Thank you. Apparently that if there is a Hooter South, it'll apparently be on the consent agenda. Yeah. We all love Chairman. I knew that.
Yeah, my my dad wouldn't because um he's very conservative and he's a vegan, so
we have beef O'Brainis on the river with not one of the act of
the river. Yeah, and that was all permitting issue. Yeah, that drove me crazy too.
Well thank you so much for all this feedback and all this input. And yes, we do have our homework and uh We will be um going through all of your suggestions and we'll watch this um Planning Commission meeting uh two, three times I guess, to ensure that we had covered everything that you guys had talked about. So thank you so much for your attention and uh we'll be coming back to you guys. Thank you.
Thanks very much.
All right. Mr. Chairman Mariano.