Commissioner Murman quoted in this Tampa Tribune article on expanding water, sewer services:
Politics
Hillsborough mulls expanding water, sewer services
By Mike Salinero | Tribune Staff
Published: February 8, 2015
TAMPA — For the first time since the start of the Great Recession, Hillsborough County planners are considering expanding the area where the county provides water and sewer service.
To the planners, the change is necessary to handle future population growth. But opponents argue that extending expensive water and sewer lines farther into the county is a catalyst for road-clogging urban sprawl.
The last time developers and large landowners pushed to extend the boundaries of the county’s urban service area was September 2007. At the time, the planning commission recommended against expansion, saying there were 15,500 acres of developable land available inside the existing urban service area — enough to handle population growth through 2025.
But now, with new population projections in hand, the planning commission staff is recommending that the urban boundaries be expanded in three areas totaling over 16,000 acres, about 25 square miles. The recommendation comes on the heels of a recent planning commission study called Imagine 2040, which projects the county will grow by 600,000 people in the next 25 years.
“What we looked at in our Imagine 2040 outreach process was how to accommodate that growth,” said Melissa Zornitta, the planning commission’s executive director.
“We heard from a lot of people who said they want to focus on opportunities for redevelopment and infill. But we did hear from some folks who said they wanted to have choices, opportunities for a suburban lifestyle.”
So far, the urban boundary changes have been discussed quietly in planning commission workshops that draw few members of the public. But last week, County Commissioner Stacy White raised concerns about the issue in an opinion piece in The Tampa Tribune.
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White, whose district includes two of the expansion zones — 6,678 acres in the Balm area and 9,374 acres south of the Little Manatee River — said the expansion would involve building miles of sewer and water lines into rural areas where population is sparse. He and other critics say such urban sprawl ultimately is subsidized by taxpayers.
The expanded urban service areas would also put more pressure on an “already strained transportation system,” White said, at a time when the county is trying to find ways to make up a $7 billion deficit in road and bridge needs.
“How can we talk about the transportation problem out of one side of our mouth, and then continue with this almost reckless sprawl,” White said Monday during a meeting with the Tribune editorial board.
Instead, White said, the county should concentrate on redevelopment of blighted areas and filling in developable land already inside the urban service boundary.
“We need a lot of revitalization efforts in our older communities,” he said.
Professional planners generally agree that sprawl is bad for taxpayers and the environment. Evangeline Linkous, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of South Florida, said an urban service boundary should not be moved unless environmental concerns or population pressures dictate it.
“If the county, through public consensus, adopted their comprehensive plan that has an urban service area, and if we’re going to open that up and rethink where we created the urban service area, there needs to be a good reason why,” she said.
Linkous cited a 2011 Hillsborough planning commission study that showed a “good deal” of undeveloped land inside the urban service area.
Current figures from the planning commission seem to bear this out: The urban service area now has 49,596 acres of vacant and developable land, including parcels in the cities of Tampa, Temple Terrace and Plant City.
Of those, 36,770 acres are in parcels 5 acres or larger, according to the planning commission. Most of the larger parcels — 27,668 acres, all told — are in unincorporated areas of the county.
“I think in Hillsborough County we’ve got plenty of space inside the urban service area to grow in the ways we want to grow,” Linkous said.
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Any time a county proposes extending expensive public infrastructure into outlying areas, it’s bound to be controversial, said John Smogor, Orange County’s planning administrator. That’s the case with a proposed development east of the Econlockhatchee River in Orlando that would put 5,300 residential units on 2,677 acres. The land is currently outside the county’s urban service area, Smogor said.
The county is considering a proposal to construct water and sewer lines to the proposed development, but Smogor said it wouldn’t technically be a change to the urban service area.
“This is an area that’s been trying to do it for a number of years,” Smogor said. “You have all the issues that come up. Transportation is always a big issue; environmental concerns are also big.”
Smogor said Orange County makes relatively small changes in its urban service area every year based on applications by land owners or developers. The larger applications are considered during the county’s major comprehensive plan reviews every seven years.
The Hillsborough planning commission staff has already drawn up comprehensive plan amendments for two of the expansion areas — 72 acres in Lutz and the 6,678 acres in the Balm area southeast of Riverview. The amendments will be discussed by the planning commission at an April 27 public hearing.
The area in Lutz, near the apex of U.S. 41 and North Dale Mabry Highway, is surrounded on three sides by the urban service area, Zornitta said. It is currently zoned for four housing units per acre.
“It’s not something that really fits with the rural area based on its land-use category,” she said.
The area under consideration in Balm is designated as rural but long ago was zoned to allow planned villages of two housing units per acre — provided the builder paid to have water and sewer extended to the villages. Some of that development is already happening, Zornitta said.
“From a planning perspective, two units per acre is not using the land and the infrastructure wisely,” she said. “It’s eating up the rural area, but not in an efficient way.”
The largest area under consideration for urban services, 9,374 acres between the Little Manatee River and the Manatee County line, is not ready for hearings or workshops. The planning commission staff and the county’s Development Services Department are working with a group of large landowners who want to develop some of the area while preserving its environmental features.
The largest of the landowners is a development group associated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Rhea Law, the attorney representing the church, could not be reached for comment.
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The county development department got involved because of the planning commission’s population projections, said Lucia Garsys, the county’s chief development and infrastructure administrator. Using the landowners’ money, the county hired a consultant to help with the planning process.
“There were some landowners interested in shaping that community into something that doesn’t turn into sprawl in future years,” Garsys said. “It was timely to take a look at that because we were looking at a comp plan update.”
Garsys said taxpayers will not pay for sewer, water or roads to serve the area south of the river. She suggested some type of special taxing district could be set up to pay for those services if and when the area is developed.
“We have been very clear and upfront about the fact that the county was not going to be paying for their infrastructure or services out there,” Garsys said. “If we’re going to get to a point of development and population out there, that would have to be handled by the private sector, and that includes water, wastewater, roads and other services.”
A move to expand the urban service boundaries is sure to arouse opposition from environmentalists and other community activists who helped defeat the last attempt in 2007. Besides White, Commissioner Al Higginbotham expressed doubts about the proposal’s chance of passing.
“There is no support from the staff to expand it,” Higginbotham said, “nor do I see this board ever voting to support that.”
Commissioner Sandy Murman said she’s waiting to see what the planning commission recommends before making a decision. She pointed to an economic prosperity committee she chaired several years ago that recommended creating economic development areas along existing or planned thoroughfares or mass transit. None of the economic development areas were outside the urban service areas.
“We thought by urbanizing these areas where we already had pockets of development, that would lessen sprawl to a degree by creating more suburban development that would be inside the urban service area,” Murman said. “We have to be very careful with anything that has to do with extending the urban service area.”