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City has Dunedin state of mind

By C.T. BOWEN
Published July 3, 2005

New Port Richey has Dunedin envy.

Residents look to that Pinellas County city to the south and see the town they want New Port Richey to emulate: A bicycle trail through its downtown. Multiple quality restaurants. Antique stores and other specialty shops. Civic events. Tourists.

"There's no reason we can't be Dunedin," Ed Beckman, one of the 70 participants in a New Port Richey citizen visioning session, said this week. "We actually have a better city infrastructure. We have a river running through the middle of the city."

He wasn't alone in his observation. Some in the audience at City Hall Wednesday evening applauded his remarks. Others included Dunedin-like aspirations in their own to-do lists, but it wasn't the only idea to come from the kickoff to New Port Richey's state-mandated update of its comprehensive land-use plan.

The residents produced an extensive wish list that stretched from a mounted police unit to a plan to relocate professional offices off Main Street to open more room for retailing.

They like their library, parks and boat ramp at the Pithlachascotee River. But, they want want better code enforcement and say the city must hold landlords accountable for the condition of their rental properties. They want a gateway to the city from the east to replace the vacant houses and for-sale signs. They worry the neighborhoods around Community Hospital will fall into disrepair after the medical center, the city's largest employer and taxpayer, completes its announced move to Trinity. They seek a safer U.S. 19. There is a need for parking and for traffic calming devices. They want better paying jobs and affordable single-family homes.

This is the third visioning session I've sat through in New Port Richey. The first one, more than 10 years ago, drew only a couple of gadflies, a trio of journalists and the city's department heads to listen to elected Council members detail their own ideas.

Yawn.

This week was a significant improvement. That being said, residents must realize it will take more than marker writings on easel paper to make these ideas reality. You can't just long for a coffee shop, you have to become part of the clientele. Neither of the independent coffeehouses that opened downtown over the past decade survive today.

New Port Richey has invested millions of dollars in its downtown beautification, Sims Park improvements and riverwalk. It has increased its allocations toward Downtown Main Street and the events it helps promote. Past Council members absorbed the political wrath of evicting a shuffleboard club from a city-owned building in an attempt to spur more commercial activity.

There have been a few hiccups as well. In the past few years, council members were unfriendly toward bed-and-breakfast proposals and undermined their own sign ordinance by being too generous with variances.

The end result is a city determined to move forward with an aggressive redevelopment effort, but its downtown remains skewed toward professional services.

Demographics pinpoint the significant obstacles. Renters live in more than a third of the city's housing stock. By contrast, across Pasco County, owners occupy 82 percent of the homes. In New Port Richey, less than 8 percent of the residents hold a four-year college degree. Statewide, the figure is three times higher. Individuals living below the poverty level account for 16.6 percent of the city's population. Across the county, the figure is 10.7 percent.

Translation: New Port Richey's residents are poorer, less educated, and more transient than their Pasco County neighbors. It's not the kind of statistical profile that will bring high-end, out-of-town investors searching for a new location for a Bonefish Grill. It also helps explain why HCA decided to move its hospital closer to the upscale market in Trinity.

It means, for the immediate future, investment likely will be local. Peter Altman, former mayor and county commissioner, is the leading example. He lured Gainesville developer Ken McGurn to town and the result is Main Street Landing, a $30-million mixed-use project of retail shops, restaurants, luxury condos, townhomes and docks to be built at Main Street and River Road.

Now, it is just cleared lots and orange construction fencing, but its fate will be the key to the city's long-term future. Success there will stir greater activity. Modest neighborhoods could become ripe targets for a gentrified housing stock.

If so, think ahead to visioning sessions in the next decade. Some small-town participant elsewhere in Florida might stand up and challenge the citizenry:

There's no reason we can't be the next New Port Richey.

--Reach C.T. Bowen at bowen@sptimes.com or at 727-869-6239.

[Last modified July 3, 2005, 02:15:16]