The Pasco County Commission wants to improve the county’s appearance and one of the ways it wants to do that is by prohibiting chain-link fences that are visible from its collector or arterial roadways.
The code change, adopted by the county board at its Dec. 6 meeting, does allow an exception for properties being used for legitimate agricultural purposes.
Enforcing the chain-link prohibition is expected to prompt new commercial fencing regulations.
Commissioner Kathryn Starkey said a commercial fence permit process is needed to enable the county to enforce the new standard.
“If we don’t have a commercial fence permit requirement, how will people know what’s allowed and what’s not allowed?” she said. “I don’t want someone to come in and put in a chain-link fence and then have code go out and say, ‘You’re not allowed to do this.’ That’s just a nightmare for us. I want them to know ahead of time.
“If we’re going to have some fence rules, we need to be sure that we are catching these and have the ability to enforce it,” Starkey said.
County Attorney Jeffrey Steinsnyder recommended the board revise its ordinance and then let the permitting process catch up to that.
He said the revised section of the code should read: “Chain-link, welded wire or similar fences and gates visible from collector or arterial roadways, on the highway vision map and functional classifications map, shall be prohibited.”
In addition to adopting the revision relating to fences, the board adopted a number of other changes to the land development code. These include:
- Requiring two shade trees at residential lots that are 6,000 square feet or smaller. One shade tree had been required. The change also allows a shade tree to be placed in the right of way fronting the lot.
- Requiring applicants for comprehensive plan amendments to post, publish and mail notices of the request. The code had only required notices of applications for comprehensive plan amendments to be published, and in some cases, posted, but not mailed.
- Allowing publication of requests to be made by posting to a newspaper of general circulation, or any other means. That change anticipates the implementation of a new state law that allows publication on a publicly available website, instead of requiring publication in a paper of general circulation.
- Making it possible for some projects to be approved through a development agreement, a special exception, (or) a conditional use, instead of being required to go through a master-unit planned development zoning.
The code revisions also provide new definitions for what constitutes a family, a group living arrangement, and a residential treatment and care facility.
Those changes were prompted by a previous case involving what the county considered to be a residential treatment and care facility, but which the applicant argued fell under the county’s definition of a family.
The changes are meant to clarify when special permission is needed for a particular living situation within a single-family neighborhood.
The amendment defines group living arrangements as those including, but not limited to, convents, monasteries, fraternities, boarding homes, shelters for abused children, runaway shelters, and dormitories.
Group living arrangements do not include residential treatment and care facilities or independent living facilities.
The definition for residential treatment and care facility was modified as well, to reflect that these facilities employ the help of skilled and licensed practitioners.
Published December 14, 2022
