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Manatee completes a circle of sprawl

The newest, and last, outpost for housing in the Tampa Bay area has some thinking that management of the area needs to be handled regionally.

By JEFF HARRINGTON
Published August 1, 2005

Four grazing cows blocked his way on the makeshift dirt path. Options were limited: a dense cluster of oaks to his left and a 15-foot drop on his right to a meandering creek called Cabbage Slough.

Undaunted, developer Allen Tusing inched his brand-new Honda Ridgeline truck forward, into bovine blockade. "We'll get through," he said.

No doubt.

The developers are coming. Here at the southern junction of Interstates 275 and 75 in Manatee County, acreage historically populated by more cows than people, the Tampa Bay area's next suburbia is emerging. More than 12,000 homes are on the drawing boards. Just north over the border into Hillsborough County, up to 13,000 homes are expected in less than 10 years.

But this is more than just the latest rash of construction in a hot market. It completes the bay area circle as the southern outpost of Tampa Bay's suburban sprawl.

Developers are promoting the housing as homesteads for workers who live in St. Petersburg, less than a 20-minute jaunt over the Sunshine Skyway, and to commuters who work in Brandon and Tampa to the north ... and possibly Bradenton to the south.

Consider this a clarion call that, ready or not, the disparate communities ringing the Tampa Bay are morphing into a region. And as a result, traffic, congestion, water demands and cultural and environmental issues are increasingly crossing county boundaries. Whether the bay area is ready to embrace regional cooperation in working through those issues isn't clear.

The Manatee County boom, for example, is just a few miles from the Hillsborough County line, where houses are going up but at a much lower density.

"The tradition in this state is: local governments characteristically get to make these decisions" on zoning and building issues, said Charles Connerly, chairman of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida State University.

"How do you do that when every decision a local government makes impacts other parts of the region?"

That question is at the heart of a two-year, statewide study that's about to be released.

Led by the Urban Land Institute, a 37-member panel has been analyzing what steps Florida can take to promote regional cooperation and how it's fallen short. The group's recommendations have been forwarded to Gov. Jeb Bush.

"The state of Florida is comprised of very distinct regions that have very distinct issues that need to be solved uniquely," said Shelly Lauten, the project's executive director and head of an Orlando regional cooperation group.

"We need to be thinking about new public/private partnerships. We need to think about state agencies coming together with business leaders to solve community issues."

Cities and individual counties, Lauten said, aren't equipped to handle on their own problems triggered by sprawl, but the state is too large to dictate sweeping solutions that would work for every region.

The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, one of 11 statewide, must approve large developments, but its scope, budget and mission are limited. The business-oriented Tampa Bay Partnership focuses on economic development and marketing. In crisis situations, such as a looming water shortage, bay area communities historically have come together.

What's lacking, some say, is a regional group to handle everything falling through the cracks: demands on air and auto travel caused by new development; the future of regional transit; county border disputes over zoning; the marketing of sports and arts centers as regional draws; providing access to specialized health centers which serve a multicounty area, like the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center.

Hillsborough County Commissioner Kathy Castor said the county is forced to spend millions of dollars resolving traffic jams in New Tampa in part because of a lack of coordination with Pasco County development. And she fears a similar disconnect with "little to no dialogue" with Manatee County about its growing effect on the southern Hillsborough region she represents.

Acting as a region, she said, would be much more cost-effective.

"I don't think there's a choice for us," added Avera Wynne, planning director with the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. "Within five or 10 years there will have to be some sort of regional federation or authority to solve some of these issues."

In some respects, Manatee County is the bay area's final regional link.

Pinellas County and much of adjacent Hillsborough are built out. Developers in recent years have flocked to Pasco County and, to a lesser degree, Hernando County.

Yet, northern Manatee has kept much of its rural flavor. A lack of sewer/water infrastructure has slowed development. Some builders also cite a slow, laborious approval process through county planning.

Wynne calls it good growth management by Manatee County.

"They've held pretty tight," he said. "They've done a pretty good job at having compact development."

Wynne is somewhat surprised the area hasn't developed more quickly, especially since it could mean shorter commutes and cheaper homes for St. Petersburg workers who live in points north such as Safety Harbor and Pinellas Park.

He surmises it's partly because the 4-mile-long Sunshine Skyway has remained a psychological barrier between the two counties. Recent commuting patterns show that's changing.

"That commute from Pinellas to Manatee is probably picking up more than any of the other cross-county commutes," Wynne noted.

Bob Pederson, administrator of Manatee County's community planning division, describes north Manatee as "the next logical area" to lure developers after subdivisions to the east in Parrish and off of State Roads 64 and 70. The biggest obstacle, the expense of extending water and sewer service, will be borne in part by the developers teaming up to share costs.

Nearly a dozen homebuilders and commercial developers are eager to move ahead with projects bearing such names as Sweetwater Preserve, Curiosity Creek and the Woods of Moccasin Wallow.

"But we're going to be the first ones in," Allen Tusing predicted.

Tusing's boss, Alan Zirkelbach of Zirkelbach Construction, bought a cattle ranch off the Moccasin Wallow exit of I-75 last year. He plans to build 127 houses and 800,000 square feet of commercial space, including a shopping center, restaurant, community bank and light industrial buildings.

If the land had been neglected for years, recent price appreciation is certainly making up for lost time.

About a year ago, Zirkelbach paid a total of $7.25-million to two landowners to assemble more than 200 acres - roughly $32,000 per acre. Today, he figures it would cost him north of $100,000 per acre.

A year ago, he anticipated selling homes in the $200,000s; now he predicts a price point closer to $385,000.

"I could lie to you and tell you strategy is everything," Zirkelbach said with a laugh. "But the market just really got hot. Timing is everything and we stumbled into the timing."

Based on initial queries to Zirkelbach, about 50 percent of potential buyers are expected to come from St. Petersburg. The other half, Zirkelbach said, will be a mix: Brandon, Tampa, Sarasota, Bradenton and Ellenton.

Laura Plumb Duda, who works for TECO Energy in downtown Tampa, is among those used to the commute from Manatee. Unable to find a new home at a price they were willing to pay, Duda and her husband, Michael, looked south and bought a house last year in a new development in Parrish.

It takes her between 40 minutes and an hour to get to work, but "once the Crosstown (Expressway) gets fixed up, it's going to be a sweet commute," she said.

The new housing is on a large tract of northern Manatee County that has "urban fringe" zoning allowing three homes per acre. Just over the county line, rural Hillsborough is zoned at one housing unit per 5 acres.

"It's not unlike Pasco. They have a different pattern on their border than we do," said Lorraine Duffy, countywide team leader with the Hillsborough County Planning Commission.

Duffy describes the relationship between counties as cordial, but not without issues.

Some worry about the future of the Little Manatee River and runoff from new developments. Some worry that I-75 can barely handle the flow of traffic near the I-275 junction.

"There's a concern we might have a parking lot on I-75 in five to 10 years," noted Jim Hosler of the Hillsborough Planning Commission.

To avoid that scenario, planners are pushing for mixed-use projects that provide retail and job opportunities close to the new homes and, ideally, cut into commuter clog on the interstates. Efforts to widen the north-south thoroughfare U.S. 301, to add an interchange off of I-75 and possibly reroute I-75 around the development cluster are at various stages of discussion.

Planners also are looking for relief from the state. Part of that was supposed to come via the Legislature's overhaul of its growth management rules. The new law provides $1.5-billion to build schools, roads and water systems, and requires roads and schools to be in place within three years of a project's approval by local government.

But it does little to spur regional cooperation, said Bob Rhodes, a lawyer with Foley & Lardner and key player in Florida's growth management planning since the 1970s.

"I thought it was an opportunity missed in terms of providing more incentives to promote regional cooperation," added Rhodes, formerly executive vice president and general counsel for the St. Joe Co., Florida's largest private landowner.

The only part of the overhaul Rhodes could cite that does address such cooperation is the Transportation Regional Incentive Program. The program sets aside nearly $400-million in state matching funds this fiscal year to be used on major road, air and transit projects cutting across a region.

That's just a starting point, Rhodes said.

Lauten, the Orlando-based regional development promoter, offers several suggestions likely to be incorporated in the Urban Land Institute's report. What's key, she said, is creating a network of leaders who act and think regionally. The group needs to have a place to go to regularly discuss issues and a way to measure results of their efforts.

Citing the demands on air travel as an example, planners say a regional approach may work better than each county and airport authority acting onto itself.

One suggestion: Put the area airports under a single authority to distribute loads. Tampa International could be converted into a passenger-only airport, with cargo traffic routed to Sarasota and smaller craft to Clearwater.

"The state of Florida could really lead the nation in how we govern ourselves," Lauten said.

Rhodes of Foley & Lardner states the situation simply: "Growth," he said, "doesn't recognize county lines."

[Last modified August 1, 2005, 14:16:03]