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Buy now to save in future, road planners say
By TIM GRANT, Times Staff Writer
Half of the $36-million cost of widening Race Track Road will be spent on buying the right-of-way. The same goes for Gunn Highway. Hillsborough county will spend $11-million to widen a quarter-mile stretch of Gunn from S Mobley Road to the intersection at Sickles High School, and half of that money will go to businesses and private landowners. "Your mouth drops when you hear the cost of some of these road projects," said Ned Baier, a county planner who manages transportation projects. Those are just two examples of the high cost of rights-of-way. Simply buying the land to widen or build roads can exceed 70 percent of the construction cost in some developed areas. With those costs in mind, county officials have embarked on a year-long study to identify rights-of way for future roadways, utilities, trails and public transit. They would like to buy these lands before the prices go up even more. They will consider this concept at a series of public workshops on what is called the Hillsborough Corridor Plan. The first two meetings will take place April 21 and 28 at 6:30 p.m. at Westchase Elementary School and the Jimmy B. Keel Regional Library, respectively. "The thought is that it will be cheaper to buy rights-of-way now than 20 years from now after areas have been developed," said Steve Valdez, a county spokesman. "This study will design the corridors for future roadway expansion." County officials could have widened Sheldon Road for a fraction of the cost, had they bought the right-of-way when Citrus Park was a rural area, Valdez said. That same land became prime real estate after developers announced they were building a mall. New Tampa is another example of missed opportunity, Valdez said. The community desperately needs an east-west corridor from Morris Bridge Road to Livingston Road. "The problem is because that area is so densely developed, the cost of acquiring right-of-way is very expensive," Valdez said. "If we had bought it 20 years ago, when the area was on the conceptual board, it would have been a fraction of the cost." The new corridor plan will look beyond the 20-year horizon of the current transportation and development plans to address possible build-out scenarios for the county during the next 50 years or more. Baier said the study should be completed in February 2004. That information will then go to county commissioners for approval. The study will look at long-range population and employment forecasts to predict roadway needs. Baier said it also will consider environmentally sensitive areas. While the recommendations of the study will surely run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, Baier said future road construction will not be funded the way most capital improvement projects are. The corridor map could be a tool the county uses to negotiate with private developers, asking them to build portions of the needed roads in exchange for transportation impact fee credits. "The county may not get the benefit with cash," Baier said. "It could be implemented in a different way. "This is an attempt by the county to do better planning that could save taxpayers money in the long run."
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