Assistant County Administrator Ron Pianta began by informing the Board that Pat McNeese, Hernando County Planner will be leaving the Planning Department in order to care for her mother in Pinellas County. In conjunction with that Michelle Miller, Senior Planner and Cayce Dagenhart, Planner, are new hires for the Planning Department. Miller will be running the Kass Circle Project.
A discussion ensued on a group of business leaders, which includes Coastal Engineering, who wish to evaluate the future land use map and potentially suggest changes to that map. In order to do so, it was of general consensus that they would have to come to the board under the same process used for any citizen.
The last workshop occurred in May 2017 and several changes to the draft comprehensive plan were directed by the Board of County Commissioners, which were accounted for in the revision.
“At the May workshop we got direction to reduce the size of the document, the number of mandatory statements, down to what’s required by state law primarily. We were asked to provide statutory references for those. Improve the property rights section. Take a look at the open space and ecological linkages and clarify the environmentally sensitive lands strategies,” said McNeese.
During her presentation, McNeese provided some background about growth in the county. She explained that a comprehensive plan is the “blueprint for future growth and development in the county.”
“Under the current plan which has been in effect for 27 years, we do have quite a bit of development,” said McNeese. But there is quite a lot of potential left for growth as well.
She explained that there are about 60,000 units in the county that have not been built and about half of those are in developments that haven’t started yet.
The draft comprehensive plan extends the “horizon” to the year 2040 and “consolidates” the number of plan elements from 15 to 11.
There are no Future Land Use Map (FLUM) changes included in the plan and it retains the framework of the current plan, McNeese explained.There is a 30% projected population increase between 2017 and 2040.
According to McNeese, revisions to the first draft include:
• Pages reduced by 60%, “shalls” reduced by 36%, language further simplified and clarified
• Statutory references included Bert J. Harris Act reference added to private property rights section
• Density/intensity caps clarified as averages, increase maximum density from 16 to 22 units per acre
• Removed Ecological Linkages map and strategies from the Future Land Use Element
• Added agritourism strategy “in order to clarify that those projects should meet the state intent of agritourism,” explained McNeese.
• Note added to Planned Development District section to clarify that strategies are specific to individual Districts
• Environmentally Sensitive Lands strategy consistent with adopted Board policy
• Added review standard for future fracking proposals that may impact groundwater or karst
• Consolidated future transportation maps into one 2040 Roadway Plan Map. McNeese stated that the map they are using is from the Long Range Transportation Plan which is developed by the Metropolitan Planning Organization.
• Cultural resource strategies revised to provide improved technical guidance for site surveys and protection
• Expanded Economic Development Element to include economic development strategies of business recruitment, business retention, incentives and promotion of Brooksville-Tampa Bay Regional Airport
“This is an optional element that we are keeping,” stated McNeese. She said that the current economic development element is “severely outdated.” They completed a full overhaul to ensure they are consistent with county strategy.
• Added a land use chart to the Future Land Use Mapping Criteria
• Future Land Use Map modified text to remove Education Category and,
• Concentrate scope of Public Facilities Category to large facilities only (such as landfills and sewage treatment plants)
Commissioner Champion requested detail on what was added to the economic strategy at the airport.
Pianta stated, “In general what we tried to do is make it supportive of the economic strategies of Mr. Sossamon and the Board and the county as a whole.”
“What makes me nervous about it is that we’ve already had all these strict guidelines that’s keeping competition out. I don’t want to see anything like that in there. It’s keeping the little guy out of the airport,” said Champion.
McNeese responded that the goal they added in reference to this is Strategy 3.04 A7 which reads, “ ‘Ensure that economic strategies and initiatives include the promotion of opportunities at the Brooksville Tampa Bay Regional Airport. ’ “ “That’s it,” she said.
Members of organizations such as the Women’s March Central Florida Gulf Coast Chapter, Hernando County Native Plant Society and the Sierra Club spoke about their disapproval of the revisions to the draft comprehensive plan and were in support of the first draft of the document.
Gordon Carroll representing the Hernando County Democratic Executive Committee and the Hernando County Democratic Club, stated, “We come here today to recognize the excellent work of the Hernando County Planning Department in creating the first draft of the new land use plan. And to say that recent revisions to the plan made at your direction have substantially weakened and undermined goals for protecting our environment, creating healthy communities and promoting smart planning, specifically the following:
*The map and support for protecting Ecological Linkages and wildlife corridors was removed; *The role of the Environmentally Sensitive Lands Program has been reduced to ineffectiveness;
*Energy efficiency standards in the land development regulations have been weakened from “shall” to “may” in every section for public and private building, parking, transportation access, public space, architectural standards, construction standards and throughout the entire plan;
* The section on mining still uses projected market for resource, analysis of need and impact of jobs as the criteria for deciding future land use amendments to allow new mining while ignoring consideration of impacts to nearby residents and businesses, historic sites and wildlife, other than as mechanism to mitigate to find ways to allow mining. We join the chorus of others to say we oppose any new permits to mine in Hernando County.”
Pat and Shirley Miketinac, community members who urged commissioners and county planners to revise the draft plan in order to restore private property rights, spoke as well.
“I believe the revisions to the 2040 Comprehensive Plan represent a decent compromise between the liberal progressive environmental philosophy versus the conservative property rights based constitutional philosophy. Since the beginning of this process there has been a high percentage of environmental groups that have been invited to participate. That’s why it’s so now vitally important that the board directed staff to remove as many of those shalls, wills and musts that were not state mandated and they did an admirable job…” said Shirley Miketinac.
Anthony Palmieri spoke about how the plan isn’t going to make everyone happy, because it is a compromise. “I think the plan you have here is one of the best the county has ever had. At least it’s better than what we had before… It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we could have and I think staff has done a terrific job.”
Commissioner Jeff Holcomb stated that conservation land makes up 30% of the county and agricultural land is another 24%. “That’s more than half of our land in the county… I think that’s a significant number. I think that’s a good number to let everyone know that our land is important to us,” he said. He emphasized that it is a “strategic plan” which should give leeway to future boards and citizens in the future. Holcomb said that the county needs to grow so that expenses that keep going up in price like health care do not create a tax burden on the county.
“We have to find the right places to grow, the right places to conserve and the right places to protect some of those environmental assets like water,” said Holcomb.
Commissioner Champion commended both Ron Pianta and Pat McNeese for the work they have done on the Comprehensive Plan, but also singled out citizens that have been particularly active in this issue.
“I wanted to commend Pat and Shirley (Miketinac) because you guys have really opened our eyes to a lot of things and you’ve done your homework… I know you sat down with all of us I believe and spoke about your concerns and not that every one of them was addressed… It’s a plan that’s not going to make everyone happy. There’s still some things in there that I’m not so crazy about. But what I do like about the revised plan is the less government mandates. There should be nothing more restrictive than what the state and federal government is calling for,” Champion said.
As far as mining, Champion stated, “We have material that people want. They need it around the state and around the country to build houses with etcetera and those are quality jobs, so yes we got to have provisions in place so that we are not polluting the environment, but taking limerock out of the ground is not the end of the world.”
Links for current plan and draft plan updates: http://www.hernandocounty.us/plan/2040-plan •
Contact the Planning Department: planning@hernandocounty.us 352-754-4057
Next Steps:
October 9, 2017 – Planning & Zoning Commission Workshop
November 13, 2017 – Planning & Zoning Commission Public Hearing
December 5, 2017 – Board of County Commissioners Transmittal Hearing
Review Period – Florida Department of Economic Opportunity and state agencies
March 2018 – Board of County Commissioners Adoption Hearing