DADE CITY \u2014 Pasco County commissioners rarely fail to rubber-stamp recommendations by their Local Planning Agency.<\/p>\n
That isn\u2019t exactly surprising: Commissioners, plus a school district representative,\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0the members of the planning agency, the state-mandated body that gives a preliminary yea or nay to the county\u2019s biggest development proposals and changes to the Pasco land-use plan. Wearing different hats, commissioners end up voting twice on the same projects.<\/p>\n But that awkward arrangement would change under a host of recommendations by the county staff to shake up how development gets approved in Pasco County.<\/p>\n Among those proposals:<\/p>\n \u2022 Designating top county administrators, who sit on the Development Review Committee, as the new Local Planning Agency. That means the administrators would hold public hearings and make recommendations to commissioners.<\/p>\n \u2022 Shrinking the size and duties of the Planning Commission, an 11-member board of appointed residents, and setting criteria for appointments.<\/p>\n \u2022 Phasing out many of the Development Review Committee\u2019s duties by allowing lower level staffers to approve certain smaller scale projects based on a new land development code. The Urban Land Institute said then that the DRC, where administrators often hash out the details with developers and opponents, was cumbersome and uncertain. Commissioner Ted Schrader said the Planning Commission was really not in the planning business; its duties would instead focus on routine zoning cases. \u201cWhen you talk about planning, it\u2019s more visionary,\u201d he said, suggesting the board might even consider changing the panel\u2019s name.<\/p>\n County Administrator John Gallagher said one thing the board could consider is turning over the function of making recommendations on major developments to the Planning Commission. Officials noted that planning commissioners aren\u2019t always equipped with the technical expertise on projects. But County Attorney Jeff Steinsnyder said that planning commissions worked.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the quality of the person you put on the board and the amount of time they\u2019re willing to put into it,\u201d he said. Trilby community activist Richard Riley told commissioners they would need to address what type of residents they would want doing that.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to differentiate between Richard Riley in the public and (development lawyer) Clarke Hobby in the public,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d hope you\u2019d differentiate between those who would financially benefit from it and those who would philosophically benefit from it.\u201d<\/p>\n Also under the proposal, the county staff could approve certain projects if they met the new code. Such projects include small commercial developments, professional offices and some multifamily housing. Another proposal includes removing Assistant County Administrator Bipin Parikh from the DRC and replacing him with Pasco Economic Development Council president John Hagen.<\/p>\n Officials reasoned that the move would free up Parikh to advocate for the county staff\u2019s position on transportation items, typically the most controversial development issues. DADE CITY \u2014 Pasco County commissioners rarely fail to rubber-stamp recommendations by their Local Planning Agency. That isn\u2019t exactly surprising: Commissioners, plus a school district representative,\u00a0are\u00a0the members of the planning agency, the state-mandated body that gives a preliminary yea or nay to the county\u2019s biggest development proposals and changes to the Pasco land-use plan. Wearing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/palmharborrvrentals.com\/hobbylaw\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/palmharborrvrentals.com\/hobbylaw\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/palmharborrvrentals.com\/hobbylaw\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palmharborrvrentals.com\/hobbylaw\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palmharborrvrentals.com\/hobbylaw\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/palmharborrvrentals.com\/hobbylaw\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":765,"href":"https:\/\/palmharborrvrentals.com\/hobbylaw\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions\/765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palmharborrvrentals.com\/hobbylaw\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/palmharborrvrentals.com\/hobbylaw\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palmharborrvrentals.com\/hobbylaw\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palmharborrvrentals.com\/hobbylaw\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe proposed changes, expected to shave weeks off the development approval process, stop short of a consultant\u2019s 2008 recommendations that called for disbanding the Development Review Committee all together.<\/p>\n
\nBut the proposals, which commissioners took under consideration Tuesday, raise questions about the balance between getting developers a speedier decision on their projects and letting residents have a say in the process.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThat\u2019s the guts of how you want your community shaped,\u201d he said. \u201cThink about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nAnother idea floated at Tuesday\u2019s meeting: Let two residents serve on the DRC.<\/p>\n
\nIn 2008-09, there were 40 of those types of developments. The next year, there were 17.<\/p>\n
\nNo one had a bad thing to say about the move, including Parikh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"