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Builders in Pasco find cities get it done quicker

A swamped county development department has some builders looking to Dade City and Zephyrhills because the process is faster.

By CHUIN-WEI YAP and MOLLY MOORHEAD
Published July 25, 2006

For nearly four months, Bobby Simmons has been working on an application to build Crosswinds, a 500-unit residential development proposed for southeast Dade City.

He's on the cusp of getting final approval early next month, in a space of time he would never dream of getting had he put the same proposal through Pasco County offices.

"The cooperation from city officials has been beyond what I expect," said Simmons, of Simmons and Beall Surveyors and Planners. "They were putting forth additional time (with me). I got to work one on one with them, from the city attorney to planners. I can get conversations with Dade City commissioners or planners within a day or two. I get written responses in three or four days."

As backlogs pile up at county offices, the development community says interest in Zephyrhills and Dade City properties is growing because the cities can lay claim to faster turnaround in processing development applications. Development in Pasco County continues to romp east, and these cities are the islands where bureaucratic processes march to a different beat.

But even as developers call for county commissioners to urgently beef up Pasco's development staff numbers, few fault the county staff.

Pasco handles more than 10 times the number of applications that go to east Pasco's two major cities, and its projects often dwarf the cities' in scope and size.

But to the customer who has gone through processes on both sides of the fence, it's clear which is the more pleasant experience.

"Pasco covers a large area, and they've been so overloaded with an influx of out-of-town and out-of-country money," Simmons said. "In the cities, they are trying to purchase land for annexation. You get a sense of cooperation."

In Simmons' case, the application involves changes in the land-use map, which often means complex negotiations with municipal planners and flurries of paper records.

But even on issues as simple as building inspections, the development community is looking to faster processes in Zephyrhills and Dade City.

"The inspectors in Pasco told me they got 30 inspections to do a day, when the average should be 18," said Darvin Hargett, a superintendent with Caroline Construction. "In Dade City, it's about 15. In Pasco County, if I call for an inspection on Monday, I might get it Wednesday or Thursday. In Dade City, I'll get it the next day."

Hargett supervised the building of a Subway in Dade City last year, and is building 39 condominium units at Paradise Lakes resort in northern Lutz.

"A lot of people are looking at Zephyrhills and Dade City instead of Pasco," said Patrick Berman, a real estate broker with Tampa's Cushman & Wakefield firm. "It's just an easier process, and it's a natural reaction. It gets too cumbersome at the county."

Midsize developers - 100,000-square-foot grocery-anchored malls, for example - prefer dealing with the cities, Berman said. For developments of that scale, a city permit can be a done deal in a few months, he said. In Pasco, be prepared to wait nine months.

Samuel Steffey, Pasco's growth management administrator, confirmed that the rezoning process for a typical retail-residential mixed development would take that long.

The two cities follow virtually the same process in handling development applications as the county, but they trumpet their small staffs and accessibility as advantages to developers.

"We are not overwhelmed by the multitude (of applications)," said Dade City Manager Harold Sample. "We're personally invested in the process and we're personally familiar with the projects.

"Here, you're dealing with the same people from the beginning to the end."

The same is true in Zephyrhills.

"Unless I'm in a meeting, they typically can come in and see the head planner," said Zephyrhills city planner Todd Vande Berg.

It's not that the county staff is unfriendly, Berman said. It's just the sheer volume of overloaded county offices.

County staff members agree.

They say workload has doubled in the past four years.

The tracking sheet at the county's development review offices lists 331 ongoing projects across all classes of development, including those for amendments and road construction.

In the growth management department, there are currently 33 active "master-planned unit development" applications, or MPUDs, on planners' desks. That does not include a slew of others on hold.

Such applications often are for complex, mixed-use developments covering hundreds of acres, and negotiations can drill down to fine details including yard setbacks and road design.

The number of planners to work on them: two.

County planners say one clear bottleneck is the requirement for traffic studies to accompany any and every rezoning application. Consultants might need to be drawn in if further studies are warranted.

How many county transportation planners to coordinate these studies? One.

MPUDs like Boca Vista and Columns At Bear Creek took eight months each to clear.

That doesn't even include "Developments of Regional Impact," or DRIs, which typically take three to five years to clear, developers say.

DRIs are for developments of more than 2,000 homes or 400,000 square feet of commercial space, which are deemed to have multicounty impact.

"In the past, I had just one planner handling DRIs, amendments to DRIs and comprehensive plan issues," said Steffey, who counts a two-decade career in Pasco. "In the last five years ... there are now five people doing DRIs. I have two people working on comprehensive plans, and two working on MPUDs."

Developers know it's not the county staff at fault.

"The county just hasn't kept up the number of its staff," Simmons said. "Pasco's even slower than adjacent counties. My clients are getting turned off by the length of time."

It's a whole different bureaucracy at the cities.

"I don't think they are as overloaded," Hargett said.

According to a new online tracking system on the city's Web site, Zephyrhills has about 30 projects pending, from small individual office buildings to sprawling multiuse subdivisions.

Vande Berg and an assistant handle the bulk of the work, and the city is looking at adding staff - a necessity of growth.

"I think the pace is picking up," Vande Berg said. "We're starting to grow and we've had to look at the big-picture items a little more now than we've had to in the past."

Dade City, likewise, has just a few people to do the work. And so far, the workload - roughly 25 new projects are waiting in the pipeline -- is manageable.

Though an average turnaround time is difficult to peg, both cities say they can have applications processed and a public hearing set within about a month. Final approval can be won within 120 days.

Large projects -- those more than 10 acres - always take longer because they have to be approved by multiple agencies in Tallahassee. That process adds a minimum of three months.

But here's the kicker:

As the little cities see an uptick in growth rates, their review processes are sure to slow down. Dade City and Zephyrhills both have recently added ordinances to the books governing landscaping, "big box" stores and townhouses. More regulations mean more review.

"We have to look at the big picture to ensure quality development happens," said Vande Berg.

A cooling property market may slow the pace in county offices, giving staff a breather from boomtown. But the crowded corridors of Citizens' Drive in New Port Richey don't suggest the corner has been turned.

For now, the cities hold the advantage.

"The city has more time to talk to us," Simmons said. "It's not their fault, but Pasco County is overwhelmed. The (county) commissioners need to spend some dollars to bring the staffing up to date."

[Last modified July 24, 2006, 20:26:13]