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Planning – GL Homes, FPL, Commercial and other issues
Can we hold development of commercial areas to present levels and not increase taxes? Or, is there enough commercial to support a municipality?
There is already County approved, unbuilt commercial over and above the existing built commercial in the area. We can not take those rights away from property owners with approvals that are unbuilt. By Statute, the municipality must honor what is already approved by the County ie. GL Homes county approved development or Northlake / Coconut commercial approvals.
There are already properties that would be eligible under the existing County Comprehensive Plan for commercial development. Specifically, the County Road network, which will all become a minimum of 5 lanes, and the intersection of those County thoroughfare roads, make them eligible for land use and zoning changes. The County currently has the sole authority on all land use and zoning decisions. If we were incorporated, the municipality would have the sole authority to make the decisions on land use and zoning within our boundaries.
As a municipality, we could shape what is allowed pursuant to the vision of the community. Our Town Council will make the decisions about what is approved, not the County. We envision small community serving businesses rather than another strip mall, big box store, drive-through restaurant or gas station as examples of what we don’t desire.
Under Florida Statutes, you can only include commercial that is built in revenue calculations, meaning we can not rely on what hasn’t been built. The Feasibility Study of 2021 and the 2022 Addendum, both show that we are feasible with the current commercial. The Feasibility Study and the 2022 Addendum can be found here.
If we incorporate, would we have any say on whether or not “halfway†or “group†homes are allowed?
These types of homes are protected by the American Disabilities Act. There are additionally some limitations at the State level. The County is currently grappling with this. They had a study done last year or so and had the first reading of the ULDC changes recently. If you are interested, you should watch that BCC Zoning meeting. Those changes create some zoning language which the County and municipalities are permitted to do. There are some municipalities that also are models for how they have handled it. So in short, we can’t say no entirely but we can address it through zoning code and any legally existing ones would have to be grandfathered in.
What has the County approved for the GL Homes Property?
There was a presentation by GL Homes at the July 29th, 2021 ITID FCR Committee meeting setting out their approval.
They have been approved for up to 3,897 residential dwelling units, 300,000 sf of Commercial Retail and 50,000 sf of Office space. On 4,871 acres which translates to 0.08 du per acre, similar to the Acreage however it will be clustered for building leaving more land to be preserved.
GL has a developer agreement with Indian Trail. Part of the agreement required to the donation of 640 acres for water storage. This property is currently held in escrow by Indian Trail subject to permitting and finance for project construction. It will benefit the M1 drainage basin. GL will not be using Indian Trail for drainage as they have their own drainage permit through their CDD and SFWMD.
GL’s development approval and developer agreement with Indian Trail is based on phased construction starting with Phase I on the south side of 60th (Cowan parcel) which is proposed to be included in the boundaries of the municipality. Phase II and Phase III are North of 60th and are proposed not to be included in the municipal boundaries at this time. Currently, under the developer agreement with Indian Trail, GL is required to become an active unit of ITID upon platting for construction.
This is a link to the agreement between ITID and GL Homes Proposed Charter agreement with GL Homes_10-20-2021
This is a link to the currently approved Master Plan map
All documents can be found here on the county site
FPL also has a portion of their land that is west of 190th to Carol Street and north of 60th Street to Orange that is included in the boundaries and will be paying taxes to the municipality.