A decision on transmitting the Hernando County 2040 Comprehensive Plan to the state was before county commissioners on Tuesday Jan. 23, 2018. Transmittal of the plan to the state was delayed again in order sort out some concerns related to the School Facilities element of the plan.
The Hernando County Business Alliance asked the commission to delay the December 2017 vote on transmitting the plan until they could suggest changes to plan and Future Land Use Map (FLUM). Some of the suggested changes were in relation to the Public School facilities element of Future Land Use Element (Element number 1). The business alliance suggests striking in entirety objective 8.02A: “The County shall cooperate with the School District in the implementation of capacity determination standards” which is about 4 pages of regulations.
In December, the Board directed staff to meet with the business alliance to see if they could address concerns. “A couple of things came out of that meeting,” said Pianta, “one is we did not discuss any specific changes to the Future Land Use Map as the Board has asked us to do, however, the business alliance suggested we review the land use map within one year of official adoption of the plan.”
Community Member Shirley Miketinac spoke positively about the suggested changes made by the Business Alliance and the work they’ve done, “They’ve gone through this plan. They’ve tightened up language. They’ve looked at words maybe none of the rest of us would have considered. They took out a lot of ‘shalls’ and prohibitions. I think what they’ve come up with here is excellent. They’ve actually gone through the text word for word.” Shirley Miketinac and her husband Pat Miketinac have been very active in the development of the Comprehensive Plan as they pushed hard for the revision relating to strengthening personal property rights within the plan.
The Business Alliance concerns relating to the school facilities were sent to the school district, and the county has received a response back from them. According to Pianta, the county would meet with the school district on Thursday Jan. 25. Pianta recommended delaying the transmittal hearing until March 6, 2018.
Tindale Oliver, the school district’s planning and engineering firm, reviewed the proposed changes and responds,
“The primary focus of the proposed changes is to eliminate concurrency review and allow countywide school capacity to be considered during the development review process. The intent of the school concurrency was to provide equal and fair treatment to all future development while not placing additional burden on existing population. The basic concept of concurrency is to address locational and timing issues faced by School Districts/local governments in providing the necessary infrastructure. Although there may be some room to improve the existing Public Schools Facilities Element, the proposed changes eliminate the County’s and School District’s ability to meet the original intent of the Element.”
The letter explains that several schools are already over capacity. The proposed changes could negatively affect elementary schools in particular and travel times for students.