Big project at I-75 gets first nod but also push back from Pasco officials
As one of Florida’s fastest-growing counties, Pasco doesn’t see a month go by without government approvals of new construction on vacant land, actions that current residents have increasingly criticized.
This week, it was the Pasco County Planning Commission, which gives the first public review of such projects, that balked at revising the county’s land development code for a massive mixed-use development slated for nearly 800 acres just west of the Interstate 75 interchange at State Road 52.
The area has been set aside for dense development because of its location, but planning commissioners declared they have had their fill of giving developers breaks on requirements.
“I’m tired of driving by places that look like crap because we took it on faith,” said Planning Commission chairperson Charles Grey, who specifically was calling out the Lennar Homes development approved two years ago on Little Road.
The development now up for approval is planned for 785 acres northwest of the interchange by Mulandco Liquidating Company LLC, a Houston-based company. The project is proposed for 190,000 square feet of retail and commercial buildings, 3 million square feet of light industrial, 500,000 square feet of office, a 250-room hotel, 1,550 apartments, 150 townhomes, 600 single-family homes and 27 single-family estate homes.
Planning Commissioner Jon Moody repeatedly asked Clarke Hobby, a representative for the developer, to detail how it was going to meet county rules while getting breaks on development regulations. The developer was seeking code exceptions that would cut down on park land, buffers and parking requirements.
“I’m in support of this development. We want to do it right,” Moody said. “I don’t think you have all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed.”
He asked how the development would handle lower parking requirements, and Hobby said that in an urban development plan, street parking or parking garages may be added. But Moody said apartment dwellers ikely would want to park near their apartments.
Moody also took issue with allowing 30-foot-wide lots in the housing area, even though county rules require lots to be 40 feet wide. Small lots and short setbacks have drawn criticism that people cannot park a truck in their driveway without blocking the street or the alley.
Moody said that a request to drop a required landscape buffer doesn’t remove the requirement to enhance aesthetics between incompatible land uses and mitigate the impacts of pavement and large buildings.
Hobby said the project was intended to be more urban, despite county standards aimed at suburban development and that the detailed plans Moody sought aren’t required.
“We’re heading down a road where we’re just going to lose this project over this,” Hobby said. He said after 2½ years of work, that would be unfortunate, since this project was designed to produce many jobs.
Moody countered that the public has been paying much more attention to what has been happening with growth and that “the public screams at us. They’re making some very derogatory comments” on social media about the county, this project and this developer.
“I want to get it right. That’s all,” Moody said.
Hobby told planning commissioners that he could not provide the details requested but his client would drop the 30-foot home lots in favor of 40-foot lots and would drop the requests for fewer apartment parking spaces, less park land and no landscape buffering in commercial areas. Those concessions brought a unanimous vote to recommend the project to the County Commission.
Grey said he sided with Moody’s concerns and was also tired of hearing residents complain.
“Pasco County has a product that’s worth something and we have to demand that developers,” Grey said. “if they want to come here and make money and leave the county with all that money, more power to them, but we have to get something from that.”
