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Commission knows sound plan creates smart development

By EDITORIAL
Published May 25, 2006

With new city commissioners and a new mayor on board, the Largo city government will finally return to some important business: implementing the city's strategic plan.

The plan was developed and approved between 2002 and 2004 after substantial work by the city staff, a 20-member Strategic Plan Steering Committee and comments from hundreds of Largo residents. The plan, available for viewing on the city's Web site at www.largo.com was intended to guide Largo's future development to create the kind of community that residents and city officials want.

A lot of strategic planning is about creating a community that makes sense: safe roads that connect appropriately, land uses that don't conflict, sufficient open space and recreational facilities for the population, intense development where it is wanted and protection from such intensity where it isn't wanted.

Largo's plan was put aside last year after a City Commission vote that violated the principles of the plan.

For example, the plan called for an ambitious "town center" development in a place where it made sense: at U.S. 19 and Roosevelt Boulevard, on the former Crossroads Mall site. A developer stepped up with a proposal to create just the kind of live-work-play environment on the site that the city had in mind. The developer's proposal called for offices, retail shops, a hotel, a movie theater and almost 200 apartments and condominiums.

Then a slim majority of the City Commission okayed a project by influential businessman Fred Thomas to build a headquarters and warehouse facility for his chlorine processing business right across the street from the planned homes on the mall property.

It didn't make sense. The town center developer was appalled, and so were some of those who had worked on the strategic plan. Among them were two members of the city's Strategic Plan Steering Committee: Gigi Arntzen and Rodney Woods, who in March were elected to the City Commission. New Mayor Pat Gerard voted against the Thomas project as a city commissioner, and another member of the current seven-member City Commission, Gay Gentry, was a strong supporter of strategic planning.

This new City Commission is anxious to get back on track with the strategic plan, and so is City Manager Steve Stanton, whose staff had opposed the Thomas project. Stanton said he couldn't get enough support from the previous commission to pursue implementation of the plan.

Cities need a plan to help them avoid the problems and decline in quality of life that unplanned development can bring. It is good that Largo has a City Commission that understands that principle.

[Last modified May 25, 2006, 00:55:15]