First, it was a moratorium in a portion of Pasco County for new applications for multifamily developments — now, it’s a proposed moratorium affecting applications involving car lots.
The Pasco County Planning Commission has recommended approval of a 180-day moratorium on the opening of any new car, truck or van sales businesses — while the county staff works on modifications to the county’s land development code relating to these types of businesses.
The only exception to this moratorium are vehicle sales businesses that have an approved site plan and are operating in accordance with the approved site plan, and any county-approved amendments to that approved site plan, according to the proposed ordinance that the planning board unanimously recommended to the Pasco County Commission.
The initiative for the new moratorium is based on a directive from the county board to the county attorney’s office to pursue the pause on businesses involving vehicle sales.
Pasco County Commission Chairwoman Kathryn Starkey has been complaining for some time about the way some vehicle sale businesses are operating.
At the county board’s Jan. 11 meeting, she raised the issue again — suggesting a moratorium, which the county board supported.
David Goldstein, chief assistant county attorney, told the planning board: “The primary purpose of this moratorium is, there’s a number of dealerships that are opening up in Pasco County without going through site plan approval at all.”
The proposed moratorium, the attorney said, “would stop somebody from submitting a brand new one (site plan), or somebody from operating who doesn’t have a site plan at all.
Goldstein added: “If you’re already an approved dealership, you can open up and you can seek amendments to your site plan.”
Attorney Barbara Wilhite, who regularly appears at land use and zoning hearings on behalf of clients, said she wasn’t representing any particular client on this issue.
However, she said, she’s glad the language of the moratorium has been evolving, because she’s sure the county doesn’t want to stop approved car dealerships from opening.
“I understand that this has to do with the used car dealerships that aren’t following any rules,” she said.
The businesses are going onto a piece of property and “they just put the cars on there and turn the lights on, and off they go,” Wilhite said.
“We’ve got to balance the fact that the new car dealerships are high-paying jobs and they’re revenue generators, and pay taxes and all of those things,” she said.
Goldstein said: “We can’t just exempt anybody that submits a site plan because we’ll get a flood of junk (site plans) coming in.”
Part of the county’s dilemma is to avoid having those kinds of submittals from “fly-by-night dealerships,” he said.
Denise Hernandez, the county’s zoning administrator, said the moratorium needs to apply to both new and used dealerships, because the problem involves both.
Goldstein added: “You can’t really distinguish between new and used. Even a new (car) dealership sells some used cars.”
The moratorium is not attempting to go after any dealership that has legitimately gone through the county’s site plan approval process, Goldstein said.
“The issue we’re having is the ones that are not,” he said.
The exemption provides protection for legitimate dealerships, he said.
“If it’s a remodel of an existing dealership, it would already have an approved site plan,” he said, and would therefore be exempted from the 180-day moratorium.
If the moratorium is approved by the county board, which appears likely, a study will be conducted to determine what amendments should be made to the county land development code to ensure safe operations of such businesses.
The next hearing on the proposed ordinance will be on Feb. 22, with a final hearing on March 8.
In other action, the planning board continued a proposal for a 180-day moratorium on the submission and acceptance of applications for building permits, site plans, special exception uses, conditional uses, rezonings and comprehensive plan amendments proposing to increase entitlements within the moratorium areas.
The proposed moratorium ordinance collectively refers to three public-use airports located within Pasco County: the Zephyrhills Municipal Airport, Tampa North Aero Park, and Pilot Country; one private-use airport, Hidden Lake Airport; and, a portion of the conical and horizontal surfaces of the Brooksville-Tampa Bay Regional Airport, as identified on that Airport’s FAA Part 77 Surfaces Map.
County planning staff requested a delay on the hearing, which is now scheduled for the March 3 planning board meeting.
Published February 09, 2022
