Land use plan must stretch as we grow

The controversy over County Commission approval of an amended Pasco County comprehensive land use plan illustrates the document's shortcoming: little flexibility.

A week ago, commissioners approved, on a 3-1 vote, an amendment allowing the family of Commissioner Ted Schrader to triple the maximum housing density on more than 1,000 acres of east Pasco farmland. Schrader correctly recused himself from the discussion and did not vote. He is not the issue.

Critics contend the change promotes urban sprawl. Unfortunately, so does the status quo. Allowing one home per acre epitomizes sprawl, requiring installation of roads and utilities for a small population and effectively driving up the infrastructure costs for everybody. An alternative, reducing the service requirements for water and sewer, is just as disagreeable.

Rejecting development of the land entirely is an unlikely option as well. Few local government officials in Florida want to entangle themselves in costly litigation tied to the state's Burt J. Harris Act, which protects private property rights.

Commissioners approved the Schrader family request of three homes per acre on the advice of county staffers who said that the infrastructure will be available to serve the eventual development. Ironically, that is because the county is trying to accommodate demands from existing growth in Wesley Chapel.

Booming neighborhoods there - plans for some of which predate adoption of the comprehensive plan in the late 1980s - required the county to acquire land for a regional park near Interstate 75 and Boyette Road. The access roads to the park land also will serve future residential development in the vicinity. It helps explain why the county put the extension of Overpass Road on the fast track.

Regardless of the community road network, commissioners had few alternatives to consider on the Schrader proposal. The county does not offer a land use category splitting the difference between one and three homes per acre. Nor does it encourage clustering of growth via transfer of development rights, a process used effectively in other locales. In Charlotte County, for instance, development east of Interstate 75 requires swapping density credits with existing developments. The tactic effectively takes developable land and turns it into permanent green space by switching the growth to another location.

As the county writes the comprehensive plan amendments due to the state next year, it should give commissioners more flexibility by adopting similar strategies. The benefits are many. Clustering development maintains open space, protects wildlife, reduces pollution, and assists public safety by ensuring police, firefighters and rescue workers can respond to emergencies in a reasonable time frame.

The unattractive alternative is blanket suburbanization of Pasco's privately owned open land.

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