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County pushes to get a handle on its growth

Commissioners hope a revision of the county's comprehensive plan will help keep development density at acceptable levels.

By GARRETT THEROLF
Published January 3, 2006

This was a year when county government made gains - and losses - in its effort to keep pace with the county's current development boom.

In lengthy meetings, commissioners gathered for the most intense work on how to use the county's remaining vacant land since zoning was first introduced in the mid 1970s, and they dreamed large about the possibilities across a 20-year horizon.

But at the same time, often out of the commissioner's sightlines, a crack in the county's ability to deliver basic services emerged as the utility system was revealed to be woefully ill equipped for the increased demands upon it.

"The accomplishment for the year was just hanging on while the most meteoric growth in Pasco County occurred," said Commissioner Steve Simon, making reference to Pasco's status as the 38th fastest-growing county in the United States.

The long-term planning for that growth, to be codified in a revised comprehensive plan that still requires final county and state approval, is several years in the making.

The fundamental shape, however, is now clear.

"You're going to see that there is going to be some reining in of the types of development where the density reaches a controversial nature. It's going to be in the shape of conservation easements," Simon said.

Also planned in the $2-million rewrite is another try to bring high-paying office jobs to pockets throughout Pasco to bring home the estimated 46 percent of working residents whose jobs are in other counties.

"This (rewrite) is the really meaty thing going on," said County Administrator John Gallagher, who along with the commissioners usually spends the bulk of thousands of hours in public hearings every year hashing out land-use questions only in pieces.

"On the development side, I hope they say "It's not as bad as we thought it would be," Simon said.

Meanwhile, officials in the county utility department were accumulating an embarrassing string of environmental sins as the elected officials and top administrators devoted their attention elsewhere.

In August, the Department of Environmental Protection dropped the latest in a three-year series of warning letters for millions of gallons of sewage and treated wastewater spills that commissioners acknowledged had accumulated largely unnoticed.

The most severe failing, the DEP said, occurred this past summer in the Lake Bernadette neighborhood near Zephyrhills.

For 43 days, more than 21-million gallons of sewage was released into a small waterway at the center of hundreds of homes, giving rise to a reeking smell at the peak of summer.

The problem wasn't corrected by county workers until a DEP inspector ordered it fixed.

Separately, the county chose to press ahead with the expansion of the Wesley Chapel wastewater treatment facility to meet the increased demands there. That choice came despite the DEP's refusal to issue a permit because of the problems with existing facilities.

Now, the commissioners can expect 2006 to greet them with DEP fines that threaten to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for the whole array of violations.

In other county news, good and bad:

--The more than five-decade effort to dredge the Hudson Channel was finally completed, creating a deep path from the sleepy waterfront community to the depths of the Gulf of Mexico. The $2.6-million project was crippled in places, however, because of the rocky underwater terrain. That caused the county to pull back from its goal to dig deeply enough to make way for large pleasure boats even at low tide.

--The Penny for Pasco money approved by voters in 2004 began to roll in in 2005. That allowed the county to select the first 761 acres to be preserved in the conservation portion of the sales tax program. Bird watchers, fox squirrels, sandhill cranes and wood storks are all expected to be the better for it.

--Finally, perhaps no issue sparked more constituent and reader attention than the plague of Muscovy ducks that roamed some Pasco neighborhoods. Residents cried that they dirtied their driveways and harassed them for food. At last word, county attorneys were drafting an ordinance to outlaw feeding the ducks to try to drive them away.

--Garrett Therolf covers Pasco County government. He can be reached in west Pasco at 727 869-6232 or at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6232. His e-mail address is gtherolf@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 3, 2006, 01:57:16]