construction truck routes, school zones, and road repair
What the county recorded
This item is not from the published agenda
This archive found it in the recording: a call to order, a recess, or business the board never listed. The county recorded nothing about it, so everything below is our reading.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Sep 22, 2026
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
What was said
Machine transcription of 27m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 87% of 151 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
And I'm going to public hearing. Item P fifty. Do we have proof?
One moment. We do have proof.
Item P fifty was published in the Tampe Times on July twenty-second, twenty twenty-six. The item is continued from the September 9, 2026 BCC meeting to today.
Good afternoon, Mr Chairman Mariano Speedos Planning Development Economic Growth Department. Item P fifty is P D twenty six zero nine four nine. This is an ordinance by the Pasco County Board of County Commissioners amending the Pasco County Land Development Code, amending section Uh four oh three point five construction plans, section four hundred three point seven, mass grading and other sections as necessary for internal consistency, providing for applicability repealer, providing for severability, inclusion of the land development code and an effective date. This is the first hearing, and so therefore there is the request to accept public
comment and Patrick Dutter, Director of Development Review Services, is is able to make a presentation of so desired.
Alright. Good afternoon. Patrick Dutter, Planning, Development, Economic Growth. Long time coming. This probably won't be as exciting as talking about the budget, but I'll uh try and make it exciting. Um so there have been concerns raised by almost all of you about a lot of the construction traffic we've been seeing here in Pasco County, uh specifically on some of our local roads. Um Jack Mariano, specifically in your district. seen a lot of redevelopment or infill development where a lot of these trucks are using local roads to get to their project where they could
be using collector and artery road waste. We had nothing in our land development code that would prevent that. So what we're here today is to talk about adding some language to prevent that. So first up use this not this. So if you have direct access to a collector or arterial road as a new project, you must use that road as access. You can't use the local road because it's a little bit more convenient for you. You need to use the collector or ulterior road first. Only if there's no other option can you use a local
road. Then assuming you have to use a local road to get to your project, assuming there is more than one route, you have to avoid the route that has a school zone on it. Right? We often see construction truck construction traffic and school traffic, they kind of mix because they start and they start at the same time. So again, if they have to use a local road and there's more than one option, they have to use the one that does not open. As a school zone. Uh and assuming there isn't an option and it does have to go through a
school zone, we are requiring the developer to work with the school principal or the school board to stage uh either e either or to make sure that there are no issues in terms of getting trucks to the site. We're also adding language to prevent any staging or s uh stacking in the right-of-way. We've seen projects where they stack up uh early in the morning trying to get on onto the site and they'll stack up back in the right-of-way and they'll prevent cars from from driving through the area. So the we have language to prevent them from stacking up before a project starts
in the morning. Also keeping the local roads debris free. So whether that's a uh asphalt road or uh asphalt road, we'll ask them to uh sweep daily. And if it happens to be like a lime rock road, we're gonna ask them to water daily. Just to make sure those roads are in good condition. If they have to use that local road, the existing residents aren't seeing you know gravel and rocks uh fly up if they're driving along it. Uh and then last repair when done. Um, so there's really nothing strong in our code right now where
developers will might use our local roads where they have to come back and fix them. Uh, we do have a substandard road review, but that's looking at the condition of the project before construction starts. During that construction period, we don't really capture all the truck traffic. So um asking them to bring the road back up to repair from before they started is what we're gonna ask them to do. So they're gonna be uh videotaping the roadway before they start construction so we can see, you know, what the road looks like. And then uh public works also has a method
of doing a review of the road. It's called a uh uh Pavement condition index, thank you. Where they can do an assessment of a stretch of road to see what its condition is. So we're gonna ask that a developer does that up front before they start construction and then after construction. And if there's uh a difference between the two, we're of course gonna ask them to repair what um what issues we found.
Quick question on that. Yes. And that's a great condition to put in. It's much better than just taking a video so great. Mm-hmm. I want to make sure that we are doing the testing, not the developer doing the testing.
We are doing the testing. Uh public works will be going out and doing the review. Perfect. Thank you.
Uh and then if noncompliance is observed, right? Uh we're gonna ask for signage to be put up at uh locations that uh they're not the trucks aren't supposed to be using. Um we have the option to if they still continue to not um pay attention to that, stop work orders and then um and ask them to employ off duty police officers, right? If these trucks keep on using these routes that they're not supposed to, we can ask the developer to employ off duty police officers to make sure those trucks are using the right.
Yes. Right
require or ask? Is it definitely?
Require. Require.
Yes. It's
Yeah. I don't know if
any anything on our code should be mandatory, guys.
Yes. So again it it's i it's if we see non compliance and it's a a continual thing and they're not addressing it, we will make them hire off duty police officers.
So, this is an example of what a plan may look like. Uh, and it's not lost on me when I was reviewing this today that uh Kitten Trail is in the example, and I don't know if that's the best one season as an example. Um, but this is not a real project, so just let me put that to bed. This is just an example that I created. Again, this project does not exist. This is just showing you what a plan could look like. So you see Hudson down there on the south, and you see Kitten Trail on the north. The only way to get to this imaginary development is through one of two local roads. The
local road going down to the south to Hudson and the local road going up north to Kitten Trail. You'll notice that the one to the south, there is a school zone, that location. So that means even though they might want to use Hudson Avenue, we're going to make them use Kitten Trail. So that's why you have the green arrow going north. Uh and then of course once development is done we're gonna ask them to repair the road that they use to the north. So that's just an example of what these one of these plants might look like. And then I'm here for any questions. If anyone has any questions.
Any questions? Thank you, Chair. No, I'm very grateful you all taking our good
neighbor policies seriously. It's particularly with these MPU projects. Another example. Uh we've had complaints particularly related to the infill projects.
If say the n say the infill projects in a denser, m more dense neighborhood than like what you showed here. And as they're clearing the site, like this past year it was hot and it was dry, we've had calls from adjoining properties, neighbors, all the dirt from the site is Wendy blowing into these folks' swimming pools and increasing, you know, those folks are there first and the project is its neighbor and And you
know, large amounts of of of dirt being blown in the wind off the sites landing in folks' pools, clogging up their pool pumps, blew a pool pump on another person, they're having to pay to have I mean it's impacting them. In the code, should situations like that happen, do we have any ability to have the neighboring site become a good neighbor to offset the cost of the of the impacts on the neighboring properties that were there first.
Pools, for example, the dust on the screens and everything else, but there's actual damage due to dust flying off the site or what what have you. to be able to make that site that's under construction be good neighbor to the existing neighbors that were there first.
Yeah, the kind of related thing we have to it.
Instead of it becoming a civil matter. Because it's not those folks' fault. Like for example, these folks have lived lived next to this site I'm referencing for thirty years. Mm and it was vacant until you know, something came along and the project came and it just caused these folks a whole big old headache.
Um David, is that something that we're
just an example of another addition to the good neighbor policies that we're working on here?
Understood. Do you have anyone to comment on that?
I I missed the question, I'm sorry I was reach reading the ordinance. What was the question?
So a real life scenario that happened. Neighbors to a project site. Site was vacant. Neighbors lived next to it for 30 years. Project came in, project cleared, dirt's being brought in, stormwater's being dug, the dirt on the site, the wind. It was moving it, blowing all over the place. The dirt was landing in the all three neighbors had swimming pools. And the dirt was clogging the pools, one of the pool pump blow up,
they're having to have the pool service come in more frequently, costing them more money at no fault of their own. Should situations like that arise and these folks went to the contractor and said, Hey, your project's impacting us, you helped, you know, with my pool pump. I have to get a new pool pump now because it was it kept getting clogged so frequently or what have you. instead of it becoming necessarily a civil matter or becoming people just gruntled with the situation Within the code. Can
that project be responsible? for helping those neighboring homeowners should those homeowners incur damage because of what's going on on their other side of the fence.
'Cause it's gonna it's gonna this you're gonna see these situations happen, especially as in Phil projects.
I mean I'm a little bit reluctant for to have our code sort of arbitrating a private dispute, but I guess I guess It's not a private dispute,
it's just
I guess my my underlying question for Patrick though is how does our code even allow the dirt to escape the site to begin with? I mean 'cause I clearly our code could regulate How they so they will hold how they hold the dirt on the site and so the dirt shouldn't be leaving the site and and and going to those pools.
Well there so there's silt fence and there's s seeding. We require seeding or sodding the property after a certain amount of time, but there's still that period of time where there is a lot of dirt on the site and we have windy days, uh and i you know, y you can't cat catch everything with with those types of things. So I think inevitably there's going to be dirt that does drift off.
And these
and I don't know how you prevent that.
And these particular literally the fence separate it was literally a fence separating the site.
So I mean I think our code could say that they're responsible for any damage that occurs from the off site discharge. The problem is is that I don't know that we can And be the ones that shouldn't keep the dollar amount of those damages. In other words,
not looking for that, but because of a whether it's a city or a county that rezones a property And it goes under construction, right? And that that those that contractor has to follow our rules. And folks who've lived neighb neighbors to the project site that are immediately impacted at no fault of their own and it's costing them money, that's another piece of this good neighbor policy. If a if a project comes in And it not just disrupts inconveniently
but causes physical damage to immediate adjacent neighbor. I think
our code can say that they're responsible for any damages that occur from the discharge of or the the dirt flying off the site.
And and I
use
the specific examples of pools and pool pumps and the filters because that's what happened. It's windy days, we've had many windy days. The dirt was just blowing off and landing in the three immediate neighbors pools and it was
I mean I guess I would I would even add to that even any type of fugitive addition, whether it's particulates such as dust or or even fires, which, you know, burning that's that's another that's another topic. But I think the the question really is is what enforcement mechanism do we have? Because if your rules don't have teeth and I can't enforce that
encourage the developer to put the necessary controls in place to keep the pool filters and those things coming in in into play in the first place.
The reason I'm a little hesitant to get too involved in the private part of it is If that pool owner submits a million dollar claim to the developer for their pool, because it was a gold-plated pool or whatever. I mean I don't know that we want to be involved in arbitrating the dollar amount of these claims. I mean we can say the developers responsible, but I don't know that we can be the ones that adjudicate how much they need to pay.
I'm not saying to do that. I'm just I'm my my thought process is to
figure out a way to make his new projects come online that they are good neighbors and because of the government's decision in the government's policies, but then somebody's negatively impacted and it's not their fault. And then all of a sudden they have however much you know, the bill they have to fix when it was fined before. I mean
there's no question in my mind that from a private standpoint that developer is liable to them for damaging.
Yeah, but that's you know how that's gonna go. It'll be litigated and it's gonna neighbors are gonna get frustrated and they're gonna be mad. It's not their fault. Yeah. Let me hear
from
Commissioner Starkey.
Good wait.
I don't want to go down that rabbit. Um I I we got lots of complaints when they were clearing um Newport Corners about the smoke. the fire. Um apparently we can't regulate that.
Well I'm not sure that we can't regulate it. We currently do not. We defer to the Division of Forestry who issues the
Well I'd rather not burn if we don't have to, personally. But I think you're opening up a real can of worms if you go into that more. I think there there probably is civil uh remedies. But um frankly, um you move into a piece of property, a neighborhood, and there's Vacant land next to you. You can unless it's ELAMP or PARC, it's gonna get developed. So I think that's part of
the risk you take when you pick where you live. Um
But I don't think we should step into a civil s civil issues between I think we need to make sure we require seating. And water.
And Patrick, do we have a clear standard in our code that says the dirt is not supposed to leave the site?
Uh maybe I I can't think of it off the top of my head right now though.
Commissioner Oakley the more important thing because if we set a standard on our code that the dirt is not supposed to leave the site, it actually makes it easier for them to litigate their private claim.
Yeah, whatever the po that's kind of that's what I'm saying. What whatever stringent rules we have, should a situation like that arise, our rules are in place in favor of the neighbor. To be able to do that,
I think that was good. If if that's your goal, I think the better thing would be to s have a clear standard in our code that says the dirt is not supposed to leave the site. Because then when the neighbor brings their private claim, they can say, You violated the county standard. Right.
But I think that's is that not there now? That's
why I asked, is there a standard now that has that?
I don't know off the top of my head I'd I'd have to double check. If it's not we could easily add language.
That that's where I'm trying to get it.
So so the whole clear development would have to be seeded, even if they're building a house on it.
If it's if it's if uh activity hasn't um continued after a certain amount of time, they're required to seed it in their land development code.
I mean I don't think you're you're saying the how, you're just you're specifying the outcome. No nothing leaves your sight. And then you you you promulgare around that. I
mean that doesn't even work with hurricanes and my neighbour's ports blowing off and hitting my neighbor's roof and That's an act of God and my neighbor the the one whose ports blew off isn't responsible for my neighbor's
roof painting. The development side is not an act of God. That's a man-made issue. That's that's the government approving something and it it moving forward.
Commissioner Yeager.
So are they required to put you know any of that black mesh around the site? The silicone. Yes, yeah.
Yeah, and it it's primarily to control stormwater, but it it will contain other particulate but once a good wind goes, it's really not gonna stop too much dirt.
So was that in place, Commissioner Weightman? When it was and it's still the same?
Yeah, that's not gonna help win though. Yeah,
that one
helps
me hot.
Right. I mean I like c trying to control the income. I think it's important if we can put something in there. I mean
One of the developers we're talking about was over at the Lynx and the back of the yard they knew something was going to come, but one of the things that came up this they were supposed to use an alternative access, they used the regular axis. So what they did was they built the road coming in first, where if they had the access road built, it would actually minimize some of that effect. And I'll touch on that later on, but I think somehow we've got to put that language in there because I've got I th we had these people, they took one of their big container trucks. And parked it right in front of the backyard,
right in front of the view shed, in a spot where it was like so disgusting why they would do that. So they took away their view, any type of view, even if they saw construction, better than a big truck parked right in their view shed. And there's nothing we could do about it. They had all sorts of dust going on. They dug up to the edge of like five feet of the surface. Bam. Right down into a pond. Big issue. And all the dust would blow. These people couldn't use their pool. Not only is it in the pool, they got on the house, the screen, destroyed
quality of life. So I think if we do find a way, let's go look at that. Because they could have watered the site better. They didn't. They just kept on going and figured they had all the control.
Well that's why I make the point of of additional enforcement and and penalties that that you can actually determine
to deal with the civil part is if you uh find found not to control this in a minute we're not happy with, so why would we put that in in the language? But your permit's gonna be put on hold until it's taken care of. That would get somebody's attention. That would get some better protection. Then again, those those silt fences that are out there, that is a stormwater thing. It's not a thing for any wind whatsoever. Commissioner Oakley.
Yeah. I think if you d take care of that in your code, like if you've got dust and a lot of sand, you know there's gonna be dust and sand. If that's already in our code to protect that from leaving the site, then they water down the the new ground that they're gonna be working on so it don't have that dust and all, it protects that neighbor the best you can. So other than that, I wouldn't I wouldn't do anything that caused us to get in litigation with a neighbor or private property
around those sites. And sometimes techniques matter as well, like literally this this one hustle was coming through. They put this giant dirt pile that was probably thirty feet high that No film's gonna block that. Any type of wind's gonna go. That would deter that type of behavior from going forward. They're gonna think about how they do it differently. So that's what I'm looking for. If we can get that type of thing in there, I think it'd be great. Any more for this? I don't want to have a
question on unrelated issue.
Chair, if I if I may, David Allen, um Assistant County Administrator Development Services. So um I'm hearing a couple of things. One is um we'll verify with code whether or not we have the ability to to regulate fugitive dust leaving the site.
It's in state statute.
And and then kind of layered on top of that, um, then also as as Mr. Karbala mentioned, um also looking at kind of burn processes too as well, because I know that we've had similar types of complaints from neighboring project sites when they institute um the burns. And so how do we uh minimize you know fugitive the ash I guess from leaving the site too as well. And so we're looking into that as well.
Okay. Um I'll just let me just t touch on what you just mentioned might be interesting. So if you're gonna have let's say the construction go through and maybe we're limited to what we can go do, can we put in the code if let's say a buffer is gonna be in place before the heavy construction goes, etc., they put that buffer in place. If there's a fence that's supposed to be on the board of the property, we make go put that fence in too. At least we can minimize some of the effects. Can that be put in the code?
I I I don't see any reason why not. Um it's something we can absolutely explore. I d I don't see any issue with it. Just
that might uh that might help a lot.
Sure.
Okay. Uh on this I wanna bring up one thing to you. Um and again I I wanna say I'm thrilled you guys are bringing this forward. It's well thought out, well set up and much needed for especially these in build projects that are coming in uh that are coming forward. Um I want to make sure That like in at the uh the estates one we had a decision that was made by a board that said you were gonna build a construction route, it was gonna go a certain way on a certain road And internally staff changed that. I
want to make sure that staff cannot change any of those things that are done in a public hearing where the people already spoke, decision was made that staff cannot go back in and change it as the code was modified a few years ago, unbeknownst to me and a few others.
Sure. Yeah, that scenario cannot will not occur like it did back then.
Is it in this code the way it's set up right now?
So there there was a lot that changed procedurally but in those years that essentially now the way the process works, it it wouldn't have it wouldn't occur the same way. So what happened at Beacon Park. Yeah. Okay.
Alright. Again, I I greatly appreciate the attention to this, David.
Um Patrick, the school zone protections. Um I think it's a good idea, but I guess my question for you is why do you not have it applying on the collectors and arterials? Because some of our school zones This cool zone is actually on the collector.
Um we were honestly focused on the local roads in terms of protecting those over the collector and arterial roads, but I guess we could assume the board. If
we have the same issue where the construction traffic is mixing with the traffic on a collector and it could impede the traveling party. Okay. I would think that you'd want to protect it even if it was on a collector as well. Is that something you can look at?
Absolutely.
I'm
I'm gonna give a thought. I don't know if you can do that.
Um
a collector's design for these heavy trucks is where you wanna keep if a school zone is there, there's three lanes of traffic. Bad.
Well all it but all it requires of it is is that it that they work with the school bo schools to try to avoid drop off and pick off times. So I'm not sure that that's the end of the world even on a collector. You can put 'em to avoid that, but again to expect them to go differently like that. I'm not saying they should avoid the collector road. I'm saying
they just avoid travel during dismissal.
Okay. That the school's doing their drop off and pickups. Even if it's on a collector.
Alright, any other questions?
Um I just have a comment.
Yes,
Mr. Shark. I just want to say I listen to the Planning Commission. Mm-hmm. And I'm glad we're bringing for staff's recommendations. Because they chewed that thing up. And I I I mentioned this to the administrator and um the ACA. I love our planning commission. And they're all volunteers, but they're not the elected officials. And I want to be sure that what we're directing comes
back to us. And if they have a different recommendation, we'll put it alongside ours if it's substantially different. Because they were really messing.
Yeah, uh very much appreciate the Planning Commission and what they do. Um there were two other items that were a companion to this. Yes. That we tabled um because I think
well the what does tabled mean?
Uh this was priority. We wanted to move the Planning Commission was fine with this one. Uh wooden bridge prohibition and street trees was something um that they weren't comfortable with. So we just knew we needed to get this approved. So we moved this forward while we reassess uh.
Disappears die. Sure.
So uh under no circumstances do I want to
Understood.
I mean I thought we fixed that twenty years ago. So
Yeah, the the main point the Planning Commission had, and I don't necessarily disagree, is what our code does require, it requires a tree in the front of a home, not necessarily in the right-of-way. So the Planning Commission said, Well, if it's in the front of the home, it's still technically it could cover the street, providing that canopy. So we have The intent
is to get a canopy and how we arrived there.
Sure.
Just figured that out.
Right.
Yeah.
Okay. Alright. Thank you.
Thank you. No action required here. Item P51, we approve.
We do. Item P51 was published in the Tampa Bay Times on July 22, 2026.
Public comment.
Oh. Do we vote on
Oh we
do vote on that, don't we? No action. There's no item coming.
So you do need to take public comment of that. Is there any public comment for item P fifty? No the audience coming. Anyone online?
Everyone's online.
Close public comment on T fifty one. Get approved? Yes. No.