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Environmental Land Acquisition and Management Program

Pasco ‘super park’ land near Dade City

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Pasco County recently purchased 155 acres for a proposed “super park” at The Villages of Pasadena, off Prospect Road and Highland Boulevard, near Dade City.

The acreage is conservation land that is the second purchase of a three-phase acquisition process. When complete, the county will have nearly 320 acres for the super park.

Because the 155 acres will remain natural and be used for passive recreation, the $4.6 million purchase price will come from the Penny for Pasco funds set aside for the county’s Environmental Land Acquisition and Management Program (ELAMP).

However, the sale will be treated as a loan, with repayment in the form of park impact fees. Those fees will be collected from new residential and commercial development at The Villages master-planned community.

Also, new development within the Connected City corridor, including the master-planned community of Epperson, will contribute their share of park impact fees for the super park. A road is expected to link Connected City to the super park in The Villages.

“The county is still in the acquisition phase,” said Keith Wiley, the county’s parks, recreation and natural resources director.

Capital funds to design and build the park aren’t available as yet. The final land purchase of about 95 acres also must be negotiated, and approved by the Pasco County commissioners.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” Wiley said.

The inclusion of Connected City as a contributor of impact fees for the park should help in getting the needed funds, he added.

Pasco County commissioners approved the newest purchase in December. The sale closed in January.

When the park is built, it will essentially result in two parks that are the size of district parks, next to each other.

One will be kept in its natural state for passive recreation, such as walking trails and kayaking. It will provide access to Buddy Lake.

The other will be an “active” park with ball fields, playgrounds, trails and other amenities.

There also are plans to co-locate the active park area with a planned elementary school. Co-location is a trend, as the county seeks to make the most efficient use of funds.

The recently opened Starkey Ranch District Park, at Starkey Ranch, is an example of co-location. It was built in partnership with Pasco County Schools, which plans to build an elementary and middle school at the site.

Published March 14, 2018

Pasco County moves toward wildlife corridors

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A proposed ordinance to create wildlife corridors in Pasco County is expected to be considered soon by the Pasco County Commission.

With some tweaking, county planners hope to bring a revised ordinance to commissioners in the next weeks.

Commissioners reviewed the ordinance proposal at a workshop on Feb. 16 in Dade City. Six months earlier, they postponed public hearings on the ordinance to gather additional input.

This fox squirrel is one of the kinds of animals that would have more options for getting around if Pasco County creates proposed wildlife corridors. (File Photo)
This fox squirrel is one of the kinds of animals that would have more options for getting around if Pasco County creates proposed wildlife corridors.
(File Photo)

The central issue is balancing conservation and property rights, and determining compensation for land acquired by the county from private owners.

The county needs to acquire about 2,500 acres of the roughly 7,000 total acreage needed to establish seven wildlife corridors, primarily in central and east Pasco County. Corridors would link proposed and built development projects, including those at Starkey Ranch, Crossbar, Connerton and Cypress Creek.

Portions of the corridor are wetlands that are not suitable for development, and the county previously has acquired some land through the Environmental Land Acquisition Management Program.

The options are to obtain the remaining corridor property through eminent domain or through an ordinance that focuses on buying land from willing sellers.

“This should not be implemented on the backs of landowners,” said Pasco County Commissioner Kathryn Starkey. “Landowners should want to participate in this, because they are more than fairly being compensated.”

As drafted, the ordinance would apply only if a landowner sought to rezone property for land uses of greater density or intensity, and had some portion of the corridor within the property’s boundaries.

There are exemptions including existing development approvals.

The county and landowner would provide property appraisals and reach agreement on a sales price through negotiations. Landowners also could appeal if they disagreed with the price.

Five workshops were held over the past year to gather public input from residents, developers and landowners.

The issue, however, has lingered for more than 20 years since a court settlement mandated that the county create the wildlife corridors.

“This challenge is before my time. We’ve got to get off the dime and get this done,” said Pasco County Commissioner Ted Schrader. “I think there is real value in establishing the corridor. This thing has gone on way too long.”

The corridors are intended to preserve wildlife habitat by allowing movement between preserved lands for such species as the spotted turtle, gopher frog, osprey, American oystercatcher, fox squirrel and river otter. They also aid in preservation of water resources, wetlands and recreational opportunities.

The corridors will be a long-term asset, according to Apopka resident Richard Stauffer, who attended the workshop.

“I think it will mean a whole lot,” Stauffer said. “We might not appreciate it today, but someday in the future our grandchildren will appreciate the wildlife and what we have.”

The ordinance would provide two compensation methods. In one, known as fee simple, the county would buy the property outright. At an average value of $10,000 per acre, taxpayers would spend about $26 million.

In the other method, known as less than fee simple, the county would acquire use of the land, but would not own it.

Under this method, based on an average of about $7,800 per acre, taxpayers would spend between $19 million and $20 million.

However, those property valuations seemed too low to commissioners as fair compensation and likely will be revised upward when the ordinance is brought back to them.

If lieu of an ordinance, the most expensive route would be eminent domain, based on county estimates that the costs could be as much as $78 million.

However, when the ordinance is rewritten, Pasco County Commissioner Mike Moore wants it to be in “plain English” that makes it clear what landowners can expect.

Some families, he said, have passed land down for generations.

“They depend on it as income producing property. It has to be spelled out.”

Published February 24, 2016

Pasco administrator set to retire in 2017

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Pasco County Administrator Michele Baker expects to be very busy over the next year and a half.

She’ll be crossing off a to-do list, one by one, before leaving in 2017 to go on a lengthy road trip with her husband.

The couple will hit the road with their recreational vehicle and their motorcycles, on a tour of as many baseball parks and national parks as they can squeeze into a year.

“That’s been our dream,” Baker said, so letting her contract lapse in July 2017 makes sense.

But, don’t expect a lame duck administrator.

“There’s no kicking back here,” Baker said. “This isn’t me slowing down.”

Pasco County Administrator Michele Baker has much work to do before her planned retirement in 2017. (File Photo)
Pasco County Administrator Michele Baker has much work to do before her planned retirement in 2017.
(File Photo)

Baker has told Pasco County commissioners she won’t seek renewal of her current two-year contract, which makes her last day July 9, 2017.

By then, Baker will have worked 35 years in public service, 24 of those years with Pasco County.

Her to-do list, in short form, includes:

  • Completing master plans and updates for storm water, solid waste and tourism
  • Funding and building a diverging diamond road design to ease traffic congestion at State Road 56 and Interstate 75
  • Completing the State Road 56 extension
  • Nurturing SunWest Park, the county’s fledgling aqua park
  • Replacing and repairing aging infrastructure and roads damaged by the summer flooding
  • Making progress on the expansion of the jail and construction of new fire stations
  • Relocating more government offices to central Pasco

Baker also plans to fill vacancies for a few key leadership positions that remain, including an assistant county administrator for public safety and administration.

Progress has been made, Baker said, but government services still could be more customer-friendly.

A culture that was decades in the making is being changed, she said. “You don’t get to turn a canoe. You’re turning a ship.”

Public service wasn’t Baker’s first career choice.

Over the years she worked as a waitress, flight attendant and a theater manager. She also served in the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

Her undergraduate degree was in business administration.

It wasn’t until she accepted a secretarial position with Miami-Dade County’s emergency management office that she discovered her passion for public service.

“I see that it was the hand of God, a bit of destiny with doors I went through and doors I didn’t go through,” Baker said. “But, I fell in love. I am not a competitive, money-directed person by nature. Public service allowed me an opportunity to make a difference.”

She was an emergency operations officer in Miami when Hurricane Andrew devastated that city in 1992.

Pasco County Administrator John Gallagher hired her away the following year as Pasco’s emergency management director. She interviewed for the job the day before the “No-Name” storm (also known as the “Storm of the Century”) slammed Florida’s coast and flooded west Pasco.

Baker cut a vacation short to take on the new job.

Over the years, Gallagher showed his confidence in her, tapping Baker as program administrator for engineering, and for nearly six years as his chief assistant county administrator.

As head of engineering, she oversaw the launching of the county’s Environmental Land Acquisition and Management Program, which buys and manages environmentally sensitive land throughout the county.

She also got the Penny for Pasco program off the ground. Funds from a penny sales tax are shared with the county, cities and the school districts for building projects.

“We had a new program to seek stewardship of at its birth,” Baker said.

She took the helm as interim county administrator in 2013 when Gallagher retired after more than 30 years in the job. County commissioners initially offered the administrator’s job to a candidate from Texas who unexpectedly walked away during contract negotiations.

When Baker was appointed, she was the first woman to hold the county’s top administrative job.

She took over as the county struggled with deep budget cuts and staff layoffs, following the nation’s deepest recession in history.

Baker credits Gallagher for initially steering the county safely through a new era of leaner budgets and fewer staff members. Even as Gallagher prepared to retire, about half of the county’s departmental managers indicated they also planned to retire.

“He empowered me to begin the transition,” she said. “We saw the handwriting on the wall. There was going to be a substantial correction. We didn’t know how bad it was going to be. But, we knew our revenues would be tightening.”

Baker also shared with Gallagher a vision of reorganizing county government and putting an emphasis on customer service.

“You have to operate more efficiently and keep level of service residents want because government has less money,” Baker said.

Baker routinely provides county commissioners with a quarterly report updating them on her progress for the projects on that to-do list.

Discussions are expected to begin soon on how the board will search for a replacement. That typically takes about seven to nine months, Baker said.

She would like to have that person on board before she leaves to help with the transition.

“I am, by nature, an organized planner,” Baker said. “I want to hire and mentor that person. I will have been successful if my successor is successful.”

Once the ignition key is turned on the RV though, it’s a new adventure ahead.

Published January 27, 2016