Connerton's future pegged to water

The state wants assurances that Pasco has enough water for the development's 15,000 homes and 30,000 residents.

By JAMES THORNER

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 7, 2000

LAND O'LAKES -- Connerton New Town Development got the blessing Thursday of Pasco County's top administrators, but questions about the availability of drinking water continued to hound the proposed project of more than 15,000 homes.

Connerton, touted as an experimental city of the future in the heart of Pasco, is scheduled to be built over as long as 30 years. It would include a city center of shops, schools, a hospital, a town hall and a community college.

With an estimated future population of at least 30,000, Connerton will also have a large thirst for the region's precious drinking water. State regulators are requiring landowners get assurances that Pasco has enough water before construction begins on each of the development's three phases.

At a hearing Thursday before Pasco's Development Review Committee, Connerton attorney Rhea Law complained the requirement opens the possibility that future water shortages could freeze the project midstream.

The first phase of Connerton, 3,800 homes, is scheduled for completion in 2005. Subsequent phases of 5,339 and 5,978 homes would follow.

"We'd hate to get to phase two and three and hear, "We're sorry, we've given it all away,"' Law said of potential water supply problems.

Tampa Bay Water, the regional water authority that supplies Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, is obliged to provide every drop of water demanded by member municipalities.

The authority is scrambling to build a new surface water treatment plant and desalination plant to meet some of the projected water needs of the three-county region.

But Tampa Bay Water officials pointed out that each county is responsible for monitoring its future water needs through five-year plans.

"We're not a retail provider of Connerton," said Tampa Bay Water's Paula Dye. "They would have to go through the county."

Doug Bramlett, Pasco's assistant administrator for utilities, said that based on his "best guess," the county should be able to supply Connerton.

Law didn't appear completely satisfied with Bramlett's promise. "We'd like to be assured . . . the county is making these demands of Tampa Bay Water," she told the committee.

The issue of making Pasco the guarantor of Connerton's drinking water didn't sit well with county administrator John Gallagher.

"It's not my job to guarantee water. It's Tampa Bay Water's job," Gallagher complained.

But if Connerton is forced to seek assurances of adequate water, so should housing developments in Hillsborough and Pinellas, Gallagher said. After all, most of the region's water comes from Pasco well fields, he said.

Thursday's meeting was the third time the development review committee studied plans for Connerton, proposed for the 8,000-acre Conner Ranch east of U.S. 41 in Land O'Lakes.

Following the committee's thumbs-up recommendation, Connerton's development order, the document the Conner family needs to proceed, is scheduled for a vote before the county commissioners July 18.

Family spokesman Doug Conner said he already has enlisted a nationally known developer to oversee the project. He declined to reveal the developer's name.

Assuming a positive vote by the commissioners, Connerton could break ground as early as next year.

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