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New homes expected to top 100,000

With about 62,000 of those houses already approved, the county will have to deal with water, roads and other major issues.

By JAMES THORNER
Published January 30, 2005

If you think Pasco County's a bit crowded today, take a gander 20 years from now.

Another 104,000 homes could boost Pasco's population by 200,000 to 300,000.

The school age population could double from about 60,000 to 120,000, an increase requiring dozens of new schools.

The road system would need at least triple the number of lanes to handle hundreds of thousands of new cars.

And tens of thousands of new households would collectively consume billions of extra gallons of drinking water a year. That's enough additional water to fill Raymond James Stadium about 16 times.

Unbelievable? Not really.

About 62,000 of those projected 104,000 lots are already approved. It's just a matter of laying the asphalt, burying the utilities and raising the rooftops.

They're contained in such large central Pasco developments as Meadow Pointe III and IV, Seven Oaks, Connerton and New River.

Proposals for at least another 42,000 homes are still under review. Developers await government approval to start scraping clean ranches and orange groves.

"Right now the number one problem area is the Wesley Chapel area. That has the greatest amount of potential growth," said school district planning director Mike Rapp. "The emerging problem area is the Suncoast Corridor area."

Though one person's problem is another person's prospect, no one can dispute Rapp's geography.

Projections call for 15,000 homes on a five-mile stretch of SR 54, from the Suncoast Parkway to U.S. 41. Several, including Ballantrae and Suncoast Meadows, are up and running and selling well.

Accounting for about half the housing growth in the Suncoast corridor is Bexley Ranch, 6,872 acres about two miles north of SR 54. The first of its 7,000 homes probably won't hit the market for a couple of years, though.

U.S. 41 is having its own block-and-stucco metamorphosis. Led by Connerton, with the first of 8,700 homes already under construction, U.S. 41 could produce at least 12,000 new homes. Tierra Del Sol, Asbel Creek and Lakeshore Ranch are among the names of new subdivisions.

That leaves the greater Wesley Chapel area. Belle Verde, which occupies the former Cannon Ranch, has been approved for 6,700 homes south of State Road 52.

Heading south down Curley Road, ranches held by such prominent families as the Eppersons and Kirklands have deals with developers for at least another 8,000 homes.

The plot thickens near SR 54 in Wesley Chapel. Aside from Seven Oaks, Meadow Pointe and New River, which could collectively deliver a combined 10,000 to 12,000 new lots, you've got Wiregrass Ranch waiting in the wings. The first 1,999 homes at Wiregrass were approved last year, but another 14,000 await the green light from state and county planners.

Even the western reaches of Zephyrhills have gotten in on the act. The biggest of the bunch is Two Rivers Ranch. Its owners suggest 7,000 homes would fit nicely on 3,500 acres southeast of Morris Bridge and Chancey roads.

Though developers and builders aren't neglecting the retiree housing market, most of the new homes cater to younger families.

The example of Suncoast Lakes is telling. Under construction at SR 52 and the Suncoast Parkway, miles from any concentration of stores and entertainment, the development is seeing a scarcity of open lots.

"Ninety-five percent are family commuter buyers," said Tony Polito, whose housing marketing firm Metrostudy tracks Pasco. "They were selling out very quickly."

The groundwork for the housing explosion was laid in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Pasco wrote its comprehensive growth plan, which charts how many homes can go where.

Real estate interests - farmers, ranchers, Realtors, developers and builders - made the most of the recommendations.

They ensured that the southern tier of Pasco, the section closest to Tampa and St. Petersburg, would be ripe for suburban development.

For the past several years their work has borne fruit. Influenced partly by low interest rates, Pasco's housing starts totaled about 6,940 in 2004, and buyers closed on about 6,500 homes.

And the county's prospects as a hot suburb for Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater show no signs of abating.

Speakers at the National Association of Home Builders convention in Orlando this month predicted new home sales peaked in 2004 and could drop 3 percent in 2005. But those are national figures. The Tampa Bay area, thanks to strong job growth, is expected to outperform the nation.

So what does all this mean for population growth in Pasco?

The 2000 census counted 344,765 people in Pasco. Census estimates last year revised the number of county residents upward to 390,000.

Based on that rate of growth - 50,000 new residents in four years - the county's population prediction for 2020 - 510,000 residents - could be grossly under counted.

With demographic trends pointing to a massive influx in three-person households, a realistic estimate for 2020 is 600,000.

And the new residents will generally be wealthier: New residents in Wesley Chapel and Land O'Lakes generally have at least twice the median household incomes of the retiree-dominated communities along U.S. 19. Figures from the 2000 Census, the latest available, show Wesley Chapel with a median household income of $65,293, compared with New Port Richey's $25,881.

The Pasco school district can't afford to lowball population estimates. Pasco set a record this year when 3,100 more students jammed the corridors of its 55 public schools. The prediction for the 2005/06 school year: another 3,400 students.

The district has labored to acquire school sites before they're either swallowed by homes or shopping centers or priced out of reach. In 2006 alone, at least five new schools should open.

"We have about 25 school sites we've already extracted from the developers," Rapp said. "But they're in the middle of nowhere and we can't use them yet."

To keep traffic flowing, Pasco engineers have fast-tracked highway projects to create a network of roads when most of the homes arrive.

The Overpass Road extension between SR 54 and SR 52 north of Wesley Chapel, the Zephyrhills West Bypass, Chancey Road and State Road 56 will move traffic east-to-west between Morris Bridge Road and Interstate 75.

In Land O'Lakes, Lake Patience and Tower roads will grow from country lanes to four-lane thoroughfares. Ridge Road will extend eight miles from Moon Lake Road to U.S. 41. Already jammed with cars after its recent widening, SR 54 will grow in 2006 to six lanes as it approaches I-75.

Left out of most of the equations is the housing explosion's impact on the environment. That's where Jennifer Seney, one of the county's foremost environmental activists, comes in.

Seney is concerned about how the focus on building schools, roads and fire stations will affect Pasco's watery terrain.

Wesley Chapel and Land O'Lakes are crisscrossed by tributaries of the Hillsborough River, and last year's hurricanes proved that even lots deemed high and dry could flood. Another 100,000 housing slabs will alter the lay of the land.

The average Pasco household consumes 203 gallons of water a day, or 74,000 gallons a year, according to Tampa Bay Water, the regional water utility. At the same rate of consumption, another 100,000 homes would suck up another 7.4-billion gallons a year.

"One hundred thousand homes? Oh my God, I don't even know where to start," Seney said. "The issue should be, what is it going to do to the quality of life in Pasco County?"

[Last modified January 30, 2005, 00:10:19]