The Pasco County Commission has expanded its multifamily moratorium area, despite concerns raised about urban sprawl and affordable housing.
The board adopted the new boundary areas, which are within Pasco County Commissioner Mike Moore’s District, essentially within Land O’ Lakes and Wesley Chapel.
The proposed expansion area drew pushback from two professional planners and from a chamber leader.
Cynthia Spidell, now with Stearns Weaver, a law firm in Tampa, previously worked in Pasco’s planning and capital budgeting departments.
She reminded the county board that when she worked for Pasco: “We had invited the ULI (Urban Land Institute) to evaluate Pasco County market areas.
“They came up with a proposed market area, which included the South Market and the Urban Service Area, and these areas were adopted.
“These areas include the State Road 54 and (State Road) 56 corridor, and are the intended target for growth.
“The multifamily moratorium is slowly expanding into the Urban Service Area and South Market area.
“This moratorium is counter-intuitive to this growth management strategy.
“Unintended consequences may include promoting multifamily outside the moratorium boundary, such as suburban and rural market areas; as well as unintentionally, or inadvertently, promoting smaller single-family lots, including the 40s (40-foot frontage lots), as the market adapts and seeks to achieve density in other housing products.
“These types of moratoriums perpetuate urban sprawl, do not promote getting people out of their car and lastly, during the recent PEDC (Pasco EDC) economic forecast luncheon, rent was shown to be the largest contributor of inflation.
“Restricting density on the supply side will continue to exacerbate the already high rents,” Spidell said.
Nicole Lynn, from Ardurra Group, in Tampa, also spoke against the expansion.
Ardurra provides land planning, engineering and other services.
“The expansion of the moratorium area obviously seeks to limit the housing opportunities, where the ULI Study previously had identified for concentration to be, so obviously, urban sprawl would occur,” Lynn said.
Hope Kennedy, president and CEO of the North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce, also voiced opposition.
“This is absolutely terrible for business. Please do not continue with these moratoriums,” Kennedy said. “We have a workforce problem and the housing crisis is directly correlated with the affordable housing.
“Moratoriums are lazy,” Kennedy added, urging the board to find more creative solutions to the county’s workforce and affordable housing issues.
Moore responded: “The majority of people that live in Pasco County are for this (moratorium), and I represent the citizens of Pasco County.”
Commissioner Jack Mariano said: “I’m comfortable with what we have in place.”
Commission Chairwoman Kathryn Starkey said she agrees with concerns raised by Kennedy about the lack of affordable housing.
“I get calls all of the time. People can’t find a place to live. We’re trying to attract companies here, and where are they going to live? There is no inventory out there for someone to be purchasing a house or renting an apartment,” Starkey said.
“I agree that we want to protect jobs, but I think we can have housing and jobs,” she said.
She pointed to vertical mixed-use developments, which include both housing and jobs.
Commissioner Ron Oakley said the apartments that are being built in the moratorium area are not affordable housing.
“These apartments are renting for $2,000, $2,200 a month,” Oakley said.
“Some of these are not for jobs in our county, but for jobs in other counties nearby,” he said.
Oakley also noted that since the moratorium was imposed, some other areas of the county have been getting some multifamily developments.
The approved expansion of the moratorium area is retroactive to Jan. 6, the date of the Pasco County Planning Commission’s public hearing on the issue.
The moratorium on new applications for multifamily developments is set to expire in April.
Published February 16, 2022
