Pasco County has established a new minimum standard, relating to residential lot sizes.
The Pasco County Commission wants new residential lots to be at least 45 feet wide, except in specific situations.
The new policy will affect applications that had not yet had their first round of comments, as of the board’s meeting on Aug. 8.
Pasco County Commission Chairman Jack Mariano said that’s the fair approach to take.
“To throw the switch on them, would not be the right thing to do. We haven’t done in the past, with other things we’ve changed in the county. I don’t want to start doing that now,” Mariano said.
Martin Frame, incoming president of the Tampa Bay Builders Association (TBBA), told the board that the building community had expressed significant interest in when the new rules would be imposed.
“This was a hot-button issue for us because we have a lot of projects that have taken quite a while to get through comments,” Frame said.
Nectarios Pittos, director of planning and development for the county, gave the county board an overview of the rules that resulted from collaboration between the county’s staff and stakeholders from the building community.
“Forty-foot-wide lots will only be allowed in specific instances, in TNDs (traditional neighborhood developments) or TOD (transit-oriented developments,) or in 55-plus communities,” Pittos said.
Otherwise, the minimum lot width size will be 45 feet, Pittos said.
The TBBA initially pushed for a minimum lot width of 42 feet, Frame said.
“We’re at 45 today, and, while it’s not exactly what we want, we’re willing to support it because we know it’s a negotiation. We want a back-and-forth relationship with you all,” Frame said. “We have a lot of support internally. And, it’s not without some internal debate to get where we are today.”
Edward Briggs, of the Florida State Consulting Group, also addressed the board, on behalf of the TBBA.
“I think one of the biggest things that came out of all of this is options. That’s what you’re looking at today, is different options for homebuyers, different options for the market.
“This memo that you have before you today, the TBBA feels comfortable supporting.
“Is it everything that we want? No.”
“I think what this memo does — keeps the integrity of the market, allows those options to continue, allows for that flexibility of the homebuyer to be able to afford different particular price points, but also gives you something that we’ve heard over and over, which is quality product that will last the test of time,” Briggs said.
County commissioners have been discussing the need to create better-looking communities.
They don’t want neighborhoods that have too much concrete and not enough landscaping and trees. They don’t want rows of houses that all look the same, jammed up next to each other.
They don’t want vehicles that are parked in driveways to overlap sidewalks, and when there’s parking on the street, they want enough room for garbage trucks and emergency vehicles to get through.
When the discussion on lot size began months ago, Commissioner Ron Oakley said he wanted to do away with 40-foot-wide lots. Commissioner Kathryn Starkey, however, said she supports the 40s, but thinks that parking needs to be behind the homes on 40-foot-wide lots.
Discussion is likely to continue over these uses and other development standards, but the Aug. 8 session set the general tone of the county board’s expectations for a higher degree of quality for future residential development.
Published August 16, 2023
