The Pasco County Commission has adopted a land use change, setting the stage for Odessa Town Centre — a development area that is expected to include light industrial, business park, mixed-use office, retail and high-density residential uses.
The county took the lead of this planning effort because of concerns about the potential for piecemeal development on about 81.5 acres at the southwest corner of Gunn Highway and State Road 54.
The approved plan is the result of about two years of work, including community meetings and efforts of county planners and an outside consultant. The idea was to create a cohesive approach to future development — while allowing existing property owners to keep their current rights. Existing property owners that wish to redevelop in the future will need to abide by conditions adopted for the Odessa Town Centre planned development.
Pasco County Commissioner Kathryn Starkey led the effort for the county-initiated land use change.
“This will be very good for the community, and the county and residents,” Starkey said.
Without a big-picture plan, she feared the development of individual properties at the site would lack cohesion.
During a previous county board meeting, Starkey also noted mounting development pressures in the area: “They (potential developers) are circling, circling around.”
Herbert Heap, a resident with property in the affected area, confirmed developers’ intensifying interest in the area.
“I’ve had quite a few people contact me … You won’t believe, I betcha I’ve got about 100 letters, phone calls, people contacting me. Matter of fact, I’ve had to block some of them,” said Heap, who owns land on Old Gunn Highway and Blissfield Road.
“I just want to know, are you going to run me out of there, or what,” he asked during the county board’s June 20 meeting.
At the same session, Starkey told her colleagues: “What we did, in doing this, was to increase their property values. But not everybody understands how development works. It’s complicated, especially in this kind of plan.”
She suggested to Heap: “Why don’t you come to my office and we’ll help you.”
Heap said he just wants someone who will speak with him honestly.
“We’ve got that big tower up on the corner, we’ve got a lot of vultures on it. Well, we’ve got vultures circling my property, circling me,” he said.
Pasco County Commissioner Seth Weightman asked what assurance the county would have with the land being designated for commercial or industrial uses instead of being developed as multifamily, as is permitted under the recently passed state Senate Bill 102.
Chief Assistant County Attorney David Goldstein said that law applies to a site’s zoning, not land-use designation, an issue that won’t come up until the zoning phase.
Goldstein added: “All of these have to go through me. I don’t let staff rezone to commercial/industrial, without addressing this issue.”
The county board voted 5-0 to approve the Odessa Town Centre land-use change.
In a related action, the board approved a rezoning request from a Miami-based mixed-used developer to create a project on about 20 acres on the western portion of the Odessa Town Centre area. County board members approved a request to rezone the land from general commercial and agricultural residential to a master-planned unit development.
The site is approximately 2,083 feet west of the southwest corner of the intersection of Gunn Highway and State Road 54. The new development is expected to have 12,000 square feet of commercial/office space and 320 multi-family units.
The office and retail will be the ground floor of a multi-story building, with apartments above it.
In addition to the vertical mixed-use buildings along the State Road 54 frontage, the master-planned development will include interconnected streets, trails and sidewalks to create a network for pedestrian/bicycle activity within the larger Odessa Town Center area.
Published July 04, 2023
