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Welcome everybody to the February 9th, 2026 public hearing of the Planning Commission on City of Tampa Comprehensive Plan Amendments.

We thank you for attending this meeting.

Your comments and participation are encouraged.

For those attending in person and wishing to speak on any agenda item, please sign the register at the rear of the room and turn off any devices that may be a distraction.

To minimize feedback in the audio, all online participants in the meeting will be muted until it is their opportunity to speak.

Planning commissioners should unmute themselves to indicate that they would like to speak.

Please be sure to state your name at the beginning of your remarks for the benefit of the clerk.

If anyone has difficulties or is watching via HTV and would like to provide comments to be included in the record for the local government hearing, please email them to Planner at Plancom.org.

For those of those of you who are not familiar with our process, the meeting will be conducted as follows.

Following presentations, members of the public may address the planning commission when recognized by the chairman.

Public comment will be heard for three minutes per person.

Presentation should not include matters related to zoning applications and site plans that are not before the commission.

The request is to go from a residential 20 future land use category to community mixed use 35.

The subject site is located within the South Tampa Planning District as well as the Fair Oaks Manhattan neighborhood.

This is an aerial of the subject site and surrounding area with the subject site outlined in yellow.

The surrounding area is a mixture of uses, including light commercial office and retail uses to the south and west to the south and west, and single family to the north, east, and directly west, with scattered industrial and two family uses to the east.

These are our site photos starting looking directly at the subject site.

This is looking south of the subject site at the back entrance of Britain Plaza.

This is directly west, showing the single family uh the single family dwelling units to the west along West Euclid Avenue.

This is east of the subject site showing the intersection of West Euclid Avenue and South Himes Avenue.

This is looking south of the subject site along South Hims Avenue.

This is the adopted future land use map with the subject site outlined in black under the designated designated under the residential 20 future land use category.

To the north and east of the site is the residential 10 category.

South is community commercial 35 with residential 20, community mixed use 35 along West Euclid and South Himes Avenue, including adopted TACPA 2512 located to the west.

This is the proposed future land use map showing the site under the proposed community mixed use 35 designation.

Under the adopted future land use of residential 20, the site may be considered for four dwelling units.

The site could be considered for just over 6,000 square feet of neighborhood serving commercial uses.

Under the proposed community mixed use 35 designation, the site may be considered for eight residential development units and just over 25,000 square feet of commercial uses.

The proposed CMU 35 designation would result in the increase of residential density and commercial intensity, as well as introduce the possibility of CG uses to the subject site.

We would also like to note that our we would this application was sent to our partner agencies, and there were no objections to the request.

Policies that were considered taken into consideration when evaluating this amendment included in field development policies.

And this concludes my presentation.

I'm available for any questions.

Alright, we didn't have anyone sign up in the public comment for this one.

Oh, sorry, does the applicant have a presentation?

Jumping ahead.

I know there's a full room tonight.

Um I think Megan set this up perfectly.

This is right here at the corner of Euclid and Himes.

As you can see, this is directly adjacent to Britain Plaza, which is obviously a commercial use.

Over time, a lot of these uses along the southern portion of Euclid Avenue have transitioned from single-family residential to other commercial uses, including office and just general commercial.

This is the location of the property.

Again, this is at the corner of Himes and Euclid.

You can see it here from the corner.

Again, the overview of the request says this is just adjacent to Britain Plaza.

This is currently operating as a law office.

It's an individual who owns this property.

It's not a corporation.

We just see this future development trend again along this portion of Euclid and believe that this is a justified request.

So this presentation might look familiar to some of you.

We were here a little bit ago for this other corner piece adjacent to Britain Plaza at the corner of Sterling and Euclid.

That was found consistent by this board and eventually adopted by City Council.

Here is a justification for this request again.

It's at the corner of two collectors.

The commercial nature in which this portion of Euclid is trending.

We don't believe that single family residential is as compatible here as commercial would be today as it is exists today and continuing into the future.

And we believe that there's a host of policies and objectives in the comprehensive plan that support this request.

I won't go through those in detail, but those are included in the staff report.

As Megan mentioned, we did get a consistency recommendation from staff, and we would respectfully request the same from this board this evening.

That's all I have, but I'm happy to answer questions.

Thank you.

All right.

We didn't have anyone sign up in the public comment for this one.

So I will turn it over to the board members for questions, comments.

Commissioner Sebens.

Did we talk about potentially looking staff looking at an overview of this area for changing future land use potentially?

I think we did with the prior amendment, and um it is on our list for uh looking at potential in the future some proactive plan amendments in that area.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Right.

Are there any other questions, comments from the commissioners on this one?

Thoughts.

Going once, going twice, then I will close the public comment on this item and open it up to motions.

Commissioner Cone.

Yeah, motion to find TA CPA 2518 consistent with a comprehensive plan.

All right, Commissioner Bowden.

All right.

Motion of consistency finding by Commissioner Kona, a segment to that consistency finding by Commissioner Bowden.

Questions, comments from the commissioners before we take our votes.

Seeing none, then we'll also signify their agreement by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

That motion carries unanimously.

All right.

Next up on our agenda, we have item 2B, TACPA 25-19 comprehensive plan map amendment, Museum of Science and Industry, Mosey.

Museum of Science and Innovation now, isn't it?

If I'm not mistaken.

Um and the presenter is Quinn Steele.

Good evening, Quinn Steele Planning Commission staff.

Tonight I'll be presenting TACPA 2519, which is a map amendment for the Museum of Science and Industry located at 4615 and 4801 East Fowler Avenue.

The request before you is publicly initiated in small scale, covering approximately 11.25 acres.

And the request is to change the future land use designation from light industrial and public semi-public to a unified public semi-public designation.

Here's a general location map.

The subject site is located within the university planning district, the Terrace Park neighborhood, and the Tampa Green Tech Corridor.

This area shows the subject site outlined in blue with the adjacent publicly initiated plan amendment TACPA 2520 outlined in pink.

This site is located south of East Fowler Avenue and the University of South Florida.

Immediately east of the site is a daycare center with commercial and multifamily uses located further east across North 50th Street.

To the south and west are industrial lands within the Tampa Industrial Park, which continues southward to the Greco softball complex in nearby single family neighborhoods.

Just beyond the frame to the northeast are the unincorporated Hillsborough County and Temple Terrace jurisdictions, and a more zoomed out aerial is included in the staff report.

Here's a photo looking at the subject site along East Fowler Avenue, looking west on East Fowler Avenue.

The subject site is on the left and near that tree line is where it transitions to the uh site for TACPA 2520.

The daycare located directly east of the subject site, looking northeast at the intersection of East Fowler Avenue and North 50th Street, and looking east on North 46th Street towards the vacant industrial land to the south of the site.

The adopted future land use map designates the site as public semi public, which supports public serving uses and light industrial, which allows uses such as light manufacturing and warehousing.

To the south and west is primarily heavy and light industrial with the Tampa Industrial Park.

There are also a few pockets of CMU 35 in this area, which were created through individual plan amendments spanning from 2005 to 2023.

Further south is Rec Open Space in Green, which is the Greco Softball Complex, which then transitions to residential 10.

To the north and east are public semi-public, including USF and that daycare center.

To the northeast outside of the city limits is the Hillsborough County Residential 20 designation here in Brown.

And then further east is Temple Terrace Residential 9 in this peach color with commercial located closer to East Fowler Avenue.

And again, there is a more zoomed out map included in the staff report.

And then this map shows the unified PSP designation for the entire MOSE site.

The site is currently split between light industrial and public semi-public.

Within that light industrial portion, it does not allow residential development and could accommodate just over 400,000 square feet of non-residential development.

The public semi-public portion does not have a defined maximum for residential or non-residential development.

Under the proposed amendment, the site would have a unified PSP designation, which means there would no longer be a defined density or intensity maximum, and future development would be guided by the type of public or public supporting use proposed and its compatibility with the surrounding area.

I wanted to say we sent this out to our partners for agency review and did not receive any objections to the request.

While formulating our recommendation, Planning Commission staff reviewed policies related to the preservation of industrial lands.

Although these policies support protecting industrial areas, the specific characteristics of this site and the surrounding development pattern support the proposed amendment, and staff finds the request consistent with the objectives and policies on the next slide.

The request aligns with the uh Tampa Green Tech Corridor in the University Planning District, which recognizes this area as a major center for education, research, and employment.

The land is publicly owned, and the proposed designation supports the continued use and reinvestment in that long-standing institutional use.

It's also consistent with policies that encourage public amenities since MOSE provides educational and community serving facilities that benefit the broader area.

With that, Planning Commission staff recommends the proposed map amendment be found consistent with the goals, objectives, and policies of the Tampa Comprehensive Plan, and that concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

Does the applicant have a presentation?

Yes.

It looks like it's not on here, so it looks like you'll have to use good evening.

Julia Mandel with the Hillsborough County Attorney's Office, and I also have John Mueller, who's the director of real estate and facilities for Hillsborough County.

And this is a Hillsborough County initiated plan amendment.

And I think uh the staff did a really great job describing and defining everything.

I'm just gonna put the map up so as I'm talking, which my presentation will be brief, you're able to also look at the site.

Um we are here um for this comp uh for a comp plan amendment for the MOSE part of the site.

There's an adjoining uh comp plan amendment application that's coming after this, but this is simply for the portion of the site that currently houses Mosey and is intended to house the indoor sports facility, which has been recently approved through the Tampa Sports Authority.

This entire site, interestingly, is owned by Hillsborough County, but is within the city of Tampa.

So that is why we are before you on this comp plan amendment.

Um, but um like I said, the intent is to take this from light industrial and what's an existing public semi-public into just a semi a public semi-public comp plan amendment for the purposes of allowing Mosey to remain in its current location as well as the new indoor sports facilities.

It is intended, and you'll hear more about this in the next application, for this uh part of the development MOSE and the indoor sports facility to be actually integrated into the larger develop development, which will obviously have to go through different processes.

Um if you have any additional questions, John Mueller is here to answer them on what's happening and um what what we're doing with MOSE, which it did change its name to the Museum of Science and Innovation.

Um as you heard, staff has found this request consistent with the comprehensive plan, and we would request your approval again, available for any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

I don't believe we had anyone sign up in the public comment for this one.

So I will turn it over to the planning commissioners for questions, comments, discussions.

And I want to say thank you for showing up, Ms.

Mandel.

I know you're used to, sir.

I know you're both very busy people, so I was just shocked to see your face come up there to the mic.

So I think it is important to note that this is a very important uh development project uh overall for the Hillsborough County.

So definitely I've come out of my land use retirement.

You got deputy.

I see our forward.

I see the I see the crowd back there.

I'm like, mention that then uh Mr.

Hordwell, Deputy County Administrator is here as well.

All right, are there any questions, comments from the commissioners?

Going once, going twice.

I'm gonna close the public comment on this one and open it up to motions from the commissioners on this item.

Commissioner Kona.

Motion to find uh TACPA 2519 uh consistent with the comprehensive plan.

All right, Commissioner Kugler.

All right, we had a motion of consistency finding by Commissioner Kona, a second to that by Commissioner Kugler.

Any questions, comments, discussions before we take our vote on this one?

Seeing any would all signify their agreement by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

This motion carries unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right, next up we have item 2C, TACPA 25-20 comprehensive plan map amendment 11315, North 46th Street and Associated Parcels.

And the presenter is Emily Phelan.

Good evening, Emily Phelan, Planning Commission staff.

This is TACPA 2520 located at 11315, North 46th Street and Associated Parcels.

This is publicly initiated a regular scale amendment, and it's approximately 62.8 acres.

The request is to go from light industrial, heavy industrial, and public semi-public to urban mixed use 60 and community mixed use 35.

It's located within the university planning district, the Terrace Park neighborhood, and the Green and the Tampa Green Tech Corridor.

This is an aerial of the subject site and the surrounding area.

The site is outlined in pink, and the previous amendment that you just heard is outlined in blue.

The site is located south of East Fowler and Avenue and directly south of the University of South Florida.

Immediately to the east is a daycare with multifamily and residential uses, which is also part of the subject site.

It's located at the corner of East Fowler and North 50th Street.

To the south and west are vacant and developed lands within the Tampa Industrial Park, which transitions to the Greco Softball Complex, and then further into a single family detached neighborhood, which is just out of frame, but a larger aerial is included within your packets.

And then beyond the frame to the northeast is the unincorporated Hillsboro County and Temple Terrace jurisdictions.

This is looking east on North 46th Street towards the subject site.

This is the daycare located on the subject site, which was in that northeast corner at Fowler and 50th Street.

This is looking west on East Fowler Avenue.

The subject site is off to the left.

This is looking west on North 50th Street at the adjacent residential uses.

And this is looking northeast at the intersection of East Fowler Avenue and North 50th Street.

This is the adopted future land use map.

Outlined in black is a subject site.

Within the light gray color is the light industrial.

And the blue is the public semi-public designation.

These two parcels to the west were as a result of two different comprehensive plan map amendments to the community makes choose 35 designation.

To the north, in the blue is also the University of South Florida and the Mosey site, which was previously mentioned.

And to the northeast, the brown here is the Hillsborough County Residential 20.

Further to the east in the light tan is residential 10 in Temple Terrace and commercial as moving closer to Fowler and Community Mixed Use 35 is along Fowler.

And further to the east of the subject site, you have the residential 35, the residential 20, and the residential 10 designation, which does move towards the single family neighborhood.

This is the proposed future land use map.

The subject site is outlined in black and represented with the urban mixed use 60 designation, which is the light purple, and the community mixed use 35 designation, which encompasses an entire folio, but it is under the community mixed use 35 designation.

This community mixed use 35 designation is as a result of staff identifying a potential potential compatibility concerns in that southeast corner.

Staff worked with the applicant and to mitigate potential impacts of this, which is why that request is for the community mixed use 35.

Under the existing future land use designations, residential is not permitted in the light industrial or heavy industrial, and under the public semi-public, the maximum is not defined.

Under the light industrial and the heavy industrial, the subject site currently could be considered for just over 3.6 million square feet of non-residential uses.

Under the proposed designations of urban mixed use 60 and community mixed use 35, the subject site could be considered for just over 3,400 dwelling units or 8.2 million square feet of non-residential or residential uses.

Under the proposed amendment, it would increase the residential density as residential would be allowed in the light industrial and heavy industrial, which it is currently not allowed in, and it would also allow a greater square footage of commercial or non-commercial uses.

And additionally, industrial uses would no longer be considered where they are today under the light industrial and heavy industrial designations.

The following policies were considered by Planning Commission staff.

They were related to the Green Tech Corridor, housing and mixed use development.

Although these policies support education, science, research, and technology-oriented uses within the Green Tech Corridor, and it would allow ensure an adequate supply of housing would be there for the population growth and the site characteristics of the development pattern do not support the proposed amendment.

Staff does find the request inconsistent with the following objectives on the next slide.

Staff finds that the proposed amendment is inconsistent with industrial preservation and compatibility.

This amendment would remove approximately 55.5 acres of industrial lands, and the request is not compatible with the neighborhood and the surrounding industrial uses, leading to a shift in the land's functional character.

While Planning Commission staff and the applicant work together on the request for the CMU 35 portion, the concerns with compatibility were still present.

And overall, planning commission staff recommends that the proposed amendment be found inconsistent with the goals, objectives, and policies of the Tampa Comprehensive Plan.

And that concludes my presentation.

If you have any questions.

Thank you.

Does the applicant have a presentation?

Yes.

Good evening, Commissioners.

I'm Matt Lewis, um, AICP, principal with Stan Tech here for Alliant Partners, not aligned partners, sorry, AKP Renaissance, LLC, which I know is Alliant Partners from a previous name.

And Hillsboro County, they are in a public-private partnership to really reimagine the area around the uh the current and existing MOSE site, the current Ying Link Center, uh, the Greco Softball Field, the future USF Stadium, Busch Gardens, and that region, that district of uh of the city of Tampa.

Um, we're gonna do this the old fashioned way using the Elmo.

And um I wanna start by um saying that what we're looking for here, what Hillsboro County started with when they asked to do this public-private partnership when they advertised it, is kind of listed on this slide.

And what it amounts to is a transformative project.

They're trying to take something that has been sitting as unused heavy industrial land for quite some time and put it into good economic use.

And that's just not tax based, that's job creating economic use.

And the way they propose doing it, and the way we're looking at doing it through this process is to take advantage of the existing competitive advantage in the area.

And that's a meaningful approach, and what it means is that you are looking at what are your economic assets in the area.

What do you have?

You have the Yingling Center, you have the existing Mosing building, which is why, as you heard from the previous amendment, it's staying in that area.

Um, you have the future USF Stadium, you have Busch Gardens, you have USF itself with 50,000 students in one of the faces of the city of Tampa.

If you're a visitor to the area and um you've never been here before, that's probably where you're going if you're not going downtown or West Shore.

That's that's one of the the pure faces to the rest of the nation.

And it's taking advantage of this competitive advantage that this site already has and realigning the future land use on it so it serves its economic development role that the heavy industrial land use is kind of out, it's it's it's just not there anymore.

And um, and still kind of completes this community.

So we'll move to the next slide.

In the future land use map amendment we're working on here.

This is just the first step in that process.

And um, as staff mentioned, we did work with them to uh modify the southeast corner of this from a UMU 60 ask to a CMU 35.

Um the reason that we had no issues with doing that is because we knew the edges of this were gonna have to be lower intensity anyway.

Um, going through the planning process, you know that you're not going to be putting your most intense uses right adjacent to those lower density neighborhoods and also away from your markets.

It just didn't make planning sense.

So we said, yeah, CMU 35 makes sense in that area.

Also, with the way this site is situated with the existing tree patterns and with the existing heavy industrial developed to the south, what it allows us to do is just kind of push that development north away from the area.

So, what this amendment actually does is it takes something that's currently heavy industrial and puts heavy industrial next to existing residential areas, next to the University of South Florida, right in the face, one of the city of Tampa's faces, and moves that heavy industrial off and replaces it with an economically productive UMU 60 and CMU 35 land use, allowing us to take a full 70-acre site and thoughtfully plan it so that the adjacencies with the heavy industrial, the adjacencies with the neighborhoods can be dealt with thoughtfully.

So the big question we have in front of us is should this remain as industrial property?

And I want to go through a little bit of history with you.

Um it's just a quick quick walk down memory lane about what the University of South Florida Busch Gardens and the Innovation Area is.

So if we go to the next slide.

And the reason it was designated industrial on Hillsborough County's comprehensive plan is because, well, one, it used to be an airfield.

Two, there was easy rail access to it.

And back in those days, if you had rail access and you if you used to be an airfield, you were probably industrial property.

By the mid-50s, 1956, something very significant happened, and that is the University of South Florida was established.

Wasn't built yet, but it was established.

So you've got a seed of institutional change in the area.

And then in the late 50s, 1959s, Busch Gardens was built.

And so you have two bookends of a large change in the area.

When it was annexed into the 60s, into the city in the 60s, it remained industrial.

Into the 80s, it was still an industrial property.

However, the Yingling Center comes in, and the MOSI moves to the area.

Now you're starting to see an inflection point where this area is not actually behaving like an industrial area at all anymore.

It's now a destination.

It's a place where people come to visit on the weekend to see the concert.

The first concert at Yangley, if I remember correctly, was Alice Cooper.

And so they became a tourist destination, but it remained industrial.

Even into the 2000s, it's still industrial.

Our plans, our transportation plans are starting to evolve away from it.

You see our transportation plans bringing rail down the corridor as much as possible, bringing bus rapid transit down Fowler.

So you're seeing the introduction of high-speed, high-frequency transit systems to a low user base.

And it wasn't until really the 2010s and 2020s where this evolution was kind of stopped, and that's really with the Fowler Avenue Vision Plan.

And what that plan did is it took about a dozen plans that have been done in the area in the past and consolidated into one land use transportation integration as well as something that addressed how the economic development strategy for this area evolves.

If we can move to the next slide.

Show that this area is not industrial land.

This area is destination property.

Now you did get industrial development happening to the west following the rails as they predicted in the 1950s.

But it hasn't gone any further.

Move to the next slide.

So what this looks like for the planners among us is if you think about this area in terms of walksheds from destinations, each of those yellow squares are parking lots.

That's where a person with disposable income is coming to go to Busch Gardens to go to a basketball game or a football game or go enjoy a softball tournament.

That's where they're going to park, and each of those areas are within a quarter mile walk shed of this area of the Museum of Science and Industry, as well as the potential main street that can be developed with a UMU 60 land use designation on the property.

So we've talked about this is a lot of words on here.

We've talked about why this shouldn't be industrial.

And I just want to go into how we think about it where it should be going.

And we saw that in the opening slide to this, the the reimagining of this area, transforming it into something with a new economic development purpose.

And I'm not going to read all these to you, but basically from the text of the plan, the the guiding principles for Imagine 2040, as well as the university planning district opportunities.

These are the pieces of the plan that tell you how to think about going about land use planning in in the city of Tampa.

And what they say are that we're looking for seeding complete communities.

And a complete community is everything you need is within a short walk or ride to where you live.

Your daycare, your shopping, your your medicine, ideally your jobs, they're all right there.

What this change does, the UMU 60 is it sets in motion the ability to incorporate a complete community into this area that otherwise would have been a heavy industrial property adjacent to existing residential areas.

It induces the ability to improve our economy, making it more strong, more competitive.

Introduces the more possibility of improved walkability in an area that should be more walkable.

Um and makes a transit systems more affordable for the city of Tampa in the long term.

So I want to move to the next bit, which is our outcomes.

Um opportunities.

And then finally we had uh no oppositions um in our comments.

Um we did review an excellent citizen comment in relation to site planning of the area.

These are things that we had thought about as well.

Um we appreciate the fact that this person also saw this the same issues that we did.

And we respectively asked for your finding of consistency available for any questions.

Thank you.

We didn't have anyone sign up in the public comment on this one, so I will turn it over to the planning commissioners for questions, comments, discussions on this one.

I did have one quick question.

Maybe Ms.

Lord, you could probably opine on this.

Um staff found this inconsistent, correct?

Yes.

It seems it seems like the Tampa Comprehensive Plan may be wildly out of touch or out of step with what's going on on the ground down there.

I mean, I know it's not the staff has to live by what the comprehensive plan document says, and I can respect that.

I'm not gonna call out staff.

When I read through the report, I can see where you know Tampa's comprehensive plan does talk about keeping industrial areas at all cost.

Why is Tampa's comprehensive plan so you know rigidly why is it doing this?

I don't understand like what I don't know that I can speak to the origins of that policy from but I can speak to the fact that we are in the process of changing that.

Um staff and and the city recognize that the industrial policies need to evolve, and as part of the draft that will go to Tampa City Council on Tuesday, there is a different approach that looks at um criteria for consideration of whether or not industrial should be preserved or it's time for it to transition.

Additionally, within that draft, there are is a whole set of policies related to the Fowler Vision Plan that Planning Commission staff completed that plan, but those policies have not yet been adopted by City of Tampa, so we could not take them into consideration.

Is it looking like city council is feeling better about getting this one by, or they're gonna have to go to the attorneys again this time?

Hold up progress in our county.

I don't want to predict, but I feel like don't put yourself in any minds.

No, I I feel like um well, I'm hopeful we're in a good space.

All right.

Commissioner Kugler.

Thank you.

It was a very good presentation and uh and a mind changer for sure.

Um very good revisioning it.

My um my concern always is um as we lose industrial land, do we have uh a place for it to go?

And so my I guess my two questions would be do we have offset land that is part of the green tech corridor?

And that's one question.

And number two, uh I realize this has been this land has sat like this for something like 50 years or so.

Um do we have any uh evidence of the Green Tech Corridor being used?

Having developed at all in the last um 20 years, let's say.

Emily, want to take a stab first and then I can chime in.

Um I will say that the Green Tech Corridor is fairly large, and there are a lot of existing industrial uses as far as if there are any that are new.

I can't answer that.

Um, but there are a lot of existing industrial uses further to the west of the subject site as well.

Yes, they're they're more to the west and to the south.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Emily's uh absolutely right.

Um I don't know that we've seen that the green tech green tech quarter policies have really come to fruition.

That's something we looked at in the update of the comprehensive plan, and that's why we're moving towards this different approach, looking for that area to be in the Fowler Vision uh plan and as part of a regional activity center that focuses more on employment focus more than just solely industrial.

But again, those policies are not adopted yet.

So that's Commissioner Lincas.

Um I just want to say that um yeah, I do understand the findings of inconsistency in regard to some of the issues that have been discussed here.

But mostly I think this is such an exciting project, such a long overdue change for the area.

Um I live fairly close, and you when you drive by and see the lack of anything happening over there, you're like, when is this gonna change?

And there's been so much coordination in this area around significant planning among state and local agencies and even the university.

And so this this is really a landmark change, a great public-private partnership, and and I really did appreciate the presentation.

It was really informative and interesting.

So I I'm excited for this project.

All right.

Any other questions, comments from the commissioners on this one.

Not seeing a lot of excitement.

I will go ahead and close the public comment on this item and open it up to motions from the commissioners on this one.

As a matter of fact, I'm gonna pass the gavel and make the motion myself on this one.

So Commissioner Seaban, you get the power.

And I'm gonna make a motion finding TA CPA 285-20 consistent citing.

Get ready to write all these down, Ms.

Ornita, because I got a litany of them.

Land use policy 1.1.7, land use policy 1.2.8, land use policy 2.1.1, land use objective 4.4, land use policy 4.4.3, land use objective 6.1, land use policy 6.1.3, land use policy 6.1.10, land use policy 6.1.13, land use policy 9.4.1, land use policy 9.6.2, land use objective 9.8, land use policy 9.8.4, and INF policy 1.1.18.

All those in favor.

Aye.

All right.

All right.

Good job.

All right.

Our next item of business for the night is oh, that was our last one for that one.

So I guess at 617, the Tampa public hearing is adjourned, and I will read us into our Hillsborough County public hearing.

All right.

Welcome everybody to the February 9th, 2026 public hearing of the planning commission on Hillsborough County comprehensive plan amendments.

We thank you for attending this meeting.

Your comments and participation are encouraged.

For those attending in person and wishing to speak on any agenda item, please sign the register at the rear of the room and turn off any devices that may be a distraction.

To minimize feedback in the audio, all online participants in the meeting will be muted until it is their opportunity to speak.

Planning commissioners should unmute themselves to indicate that they would like to speak.

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If anyone has difficulties or is watching via HTV and would like to provide comments to be included in the record for the local government hearing, please email them to planner at plancom.org.

For those of you who are not familiar with our process, the meeting will be conducted as follows.

The agenda item will be introduced.

Staff will give their presentation with a 15-minute time limit.

The applicant will be given the opportunity to make a presentation with a 15-minute time limit.

Following presentations, members of the public may address the planning commission when recognized by the chairman.

Public comment will be heard for three minutes per person.

The applicant will be afforded the three-minute period for rebuttal response.

Planning commissioners will then ask questions.

Public comment will be closed.

Then upon a motion, a second and discussion, a vote will be taken.

To all participants, please note that tonight's hearings concerns proposed changes to the comprehensive plan.

Presentation should not include matters related to zoning applications and site plans that are not before the commission.

Zoning conditions are not relevant to plan amendments and may not be considered by the planning commission.

The planning commission's purview and making a recommendation is limited to consistency or inconsistency with the comprehensive plan.

That I'd like to ask the clerk to please call roll again.

Good evening, Commissioners.

Kona?

Here.

Hoogler?

Here.

Lincas.

Well.

See them?

Sync.

Here.

Barry?

Here.

Orton.

Lori Belangia for Michelle Orton.

Joseph.

Here.

All right, thank you.

You have quorum.

Thank you.

The first item is 2A, HCCPA 25-26, comprehensive plan text amendment.

South Hillsboro County Plan.

And the presenter is Victoria Durand.

All right.

Good evening, Planning Commission.

Victoria Duran, Planning Commission staff, and today we'll be presenting HCCPA 2526, a text amendment to the South Hillsboro County Plan, currently known as the South Shore Area Wide Systems Plan.

All right.

For some background information, the South Shore Area Wide Systems Plan was originally adopted in September 2003 and updated in September 2015.

It was established to guide coordinated growth and development in South Hillsboro County by addressing transportation needs, environmental protection, cultural and historic preservation, and economic development.

This this text amendment is a publicly initiated amendment directed by the Board of County Commissioners on July 22nd, 2025, to rename the South Shore Areawide Systems Plan to the South Hillsborough County Plan within the livable communities element of the unincorporated Hillsboro County Comprehensive Plan.

The map on the right on the screen shows the South Shore Areawide Systems Plan boundary highlighted in blue.

And the plan also incorporates several community plans within it, which I will mention on the next slide.

So as a part of this text amendment, all sections and elements referencing community plans within the comprehensive plan were reviewed.

Effective policy was only found within the livable communities element.

Accordingly, the South Shore Areawide Systems Plan, the Ruskin Community Plan, the Riverview Community Plan, the Apollo Beach Community Plan, the Gibson and the Gibson Ton Community Plan will be updated to reflect the new name and maintain alignment throughout the comprehensive plan.

Also, the proposed name change will not affect the intent of policy.

And before I move on, I would like to mention that no comments were received from the reviewing agencies.

Planning Commission staff found that the proposed amendment is consistent with the objectives and policies found on this slide.

The amendment aligns with a future land use and intergovernmental coordination elements of the comprehensive plan by supporting community planning, coordination, and consistency across adopted plans.

It reinforces policies that emphasize the role of community plans as integral tools for guiding long-term livable development and ensuring coordination among the county, planning commission, and affected agencies.

Overall, the amendment facilitates a coordinated community plan name change that improves clarity and consistency without altering the plan's intent.

Planning Commission staff recommends that the proposed text amendment be found consistent with the goals, objectives, and policies of the Hillsborough County of the unincorporated Hillsborough County comprehensive plan.

This concludes my presentation, and I am available for any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Does the applicant have a presentation?

The applicant is the Board of County Commissioners.

This was publicly initiated.

Sorry.

Not seeing a lot of excitement.

I will close the public comment on this one and open it up to motions from the planning commissioners on this item.

Commissioner Kona.

Motion to find HCCPA 2526 consistent with the comprehensive plan.

All right.

We got it.

I second that.

Motion by Commissioner Kona of consistency, a second to that motion by Commissioner Kugler.

Are there any questions, discussions before we take our vote?

Not seeing any, then would all signify their agreement by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

That motion carries unanimously.

All right.

Next up, we have agenda item 2B.

HCCPA 25-29, comprehensive plan text amendment, rural light industrial future land use.

And the presenter is Melissa Leinhard.

Yes, thank you.

Good evening, Commissioners.

Melissa Linehard Planning Commission staff.

I'm here tonight to present to you HCCPA 25-29, which is the rural light industrial future land use category text amendment.

There's been a trend of plan amendments to the suburban mixed use six or SMU 6 and Office Commercial 20 or OC20 future land use categories in the rural area over the past few years.

There have also been several plan amendment requests to light industrial and light industrial planned future land use categories.

While those last two don't increase density, they do allow for a very urban floor area ratio.

Overall, these categories would allow for a density and an intensity not supported by our adopted policy direction.

Some policies identified in past reports include our rural area policies that were cited, the transition of use policies, policies about compatibility, as well as conflicts with community plan visions.

Based upon this trend, at their August 14th meeting of last year, the Board of County Commissioners directed planning commission staff to create a new future land use category that would be in the rural area and that would allow for considerations of uses that are more intensive than neighborhood serving commercial, but not as intensive as a heavy or a typical light industrial use.

So this would be a category that would try and meet the needs of what we're seeing today from an applicant perspective while also trying to balance the policies of the comprehensive plan.

Again, this is publicly initiated by planning commission staff, and there's two efforts here.

One would be to add a new category to table 2.2 of the future land use section of the comprehensive plan, the rural light industrial category, and then the second would be to add a definition of limited light industrial uses to the comprehensive plan, and I'll go through that definition in a couple slides from now.

So there were several uh research efforts taken to kind of come up with this language and go through what I'll what I'll read on the next couple slides.

But the first research effort was to identify if any nearby or similar counties in the state of Florida have future land use categories that address this trending issue of privately initiated amendments that are requesting future land use categories that may result in an excess of density or intensity in more rural areas.

Uh the counties we researched included Manatee, uh Polk, PASCO, and Osceola due to their proximity to and sharing characteristics with uh Hillsboro County.

Um so each of those counties researched um are currently still developing, so they have vacant developable land.

They have a variety of allowable um, I'm sorry, a variety of available lifestyles, so urban, suburban, rural, and are experiencing development pressures that are similar to Hillsborough County.

Uh while each county had unique ideas on how to address certain uses within their jurisdictional boundary, ultimately, none of the research counties appeared to have a future land use category that allowed something similar to a limited light industrial use category in more rural areas.

So then the second research effort involves staff researching the number of privately initiated plan amendments from the January 2020 cycle of plan amendments to the July 2025 cycle of plan amendments that requested one of those categories that I mentioned on the second slide.

So suburban mixed use six, office commercial 20, light industrial or light industrial planned.

Um in total, there were 18 plan amendments requesting one of those future land use categories, each with varying planning commission recommendations, as well as Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioner decisions during that time frame.

So 18 plan amendments out of the total 98 plan amendments that were included in that cycle range of privately initiated amendments with those four categories represents approximately 18% of the total privately initiated map amendments submitted with one of those four categories during that time.

The third research effort involved making a distinction between the uses that are allowed in the commercial intensive zoning district, but not allowed in other commercial zoning districts of commercial neighborhood and commercial general, as outlined in the Hillsborough County Land Development Code.

This distinction is important in that residential future land use categories allow for the consideration of neighborhood serving commercial uses, and the comprehensive plan defines neighborhood serving commercial uses as those types of uses that are not allowed in the commercial intensive zoning district.

It's important also to note that the suburban mixed use six, office commercial 20, light industrial and light industrial plan categories allow for the consideration of the commercial intensive zoning district uses along with the uses that are allowed in the M or the manufacturing zoning district.

So for the purposes of creating the new light industrial, I'm sorry, rural light industrial future land use category.

The board directed initiative included the creation of a category that would allow for some utilization of light industrial uses, but not the full range of light industrial or heavy industrial uses that we'd be permitted in the M zoning district.

So the full list of uses that are allowed in the commercial intensive zoning district, but not in the other two that are considered neighborhood serving is found at appendix.

I'm sorry, attachment E of your staff report.

And then we can dive into the impacts.

The existing doesn't exist today, so there's nothing to analyze as far as that's concerned.

But for the proposal, we are proposing a 0.25 floor area ratio or 175,000 square foot maximum, whichever is less intense.

This category would allow no residential development, but for limited accessory residentials, such as an on-site security guard, which is similar to the light industrial categories.

This category would allow for the consideration of limited light industrial uses, which would be defined as uses that are compatible with rural residential development patterns, then do not produce significant noise, dust, odor, smoke, or vibration as specified in the Hillsborough County Land Development Code.

And some examples which will be included in the definition include small-scale manufacturing, fabrication, and assembly of refined products, as well as warehousing or wholesale operations.

And then in order to control for compatibility issues such as scale, building placement, buffering and screening, things like that, a plan development or a PD zoning district district would be required, and this essentially means that the zoning would require a site plan and conditions of approval.

This item was sent out for agency review with the October cycle of plan amendments.

There were no objections received.

However, we did receive some comments of note that I'll just quickly go through.

And this brings us to the consistency review.

While formatting formulating our recommendation, planning commission staff reviews all related policies regarding the proposed request.

And although the request is related to several general policies relating to agriculture, staff found six main areas of consistency.

I'll go through those.

By utilizing the floor area ratio maximums that typically are reflected in the more rural future land use categories like agricultural rural one to five and residential one.

The development potential of a site of a site that's designated as rural light industrial would be similar to development expected in the rural area, which is consistent with the rural area policies as well as policy direction related to compatibility.

Also, because the creation of this category fits a need that's been identified in the market, it also is consistent with direction in the future land use section with regard to providing job creation and optimizing economic benefits within unincorporated Hillsboro County.

And then the last consistency review slide by limiting the range of uses, the development potential of sites within the rural light industrial category would complement the rural area.

It would also be expected development pattern would be consistent with the rural area policies as well as the neighborhood protection policies of the future land use section.

And then in addition, this category would allow for the consideration of agricultural agricultural and agricultural related uses, which is consistent with our policy direction that supports agricultural and agricultural uses and they're the preferred uses in the rural area.

With the intention of development in this category to not connect to public water and sewer, unless an exception is outlined in the one water chapter has been met.

This component of the proposed light industrial rural light industrial future land use category is consistent with the one water objective 4.3 and its modifying policies.

And I'm the applicant, so all right.

Uh we had two individuals sign up for public comment on this one.

I will start with Kyle A.

Uh Kyle ask you, and I apologize.

I signed up for the wrong one.

All right.

Which one were you trying to sign up?

Uh C.

Okay.

Sorry about that.

No problem.

Next up we have Charlie A or S.

Okay.

All right.

Well, we didn't have anyone sign up for this one.

All right.

So I will.

Yes, ma'am, please come up.

Identify yourself first, and you have three minutes.

Hi, my name is Kelly Fells Miller, and I live in a rural area of Hillsborough County.

It's unincorporated.

So I hearing, I guess it's kind of more of a question.

Am I hearing that they're wanting to take agricultural areas and convert it, zone it as a light industrial unit that would be consistent?

You know, the board thinks that she was showing on here, the ratio is just dropping in density.

And then when y'all change the zoning to where light industrial can happen, then nothing comes before the homeowners, the people who live around it.

I'm in a residential one house for five acres.

And I don't see where you could put a agricultural commercial unit near my house and have it be fitting and similar to what I'm used to now.

Am I making any sense?

I mean, do you understand?

Am I understanding what she's saying?

Is that you want to take an agriculturally zoned area and rezone it as a commercial, light commercial, industrial?

You can ask your question and give you can finish using up your time and she'll respond when you're done with your time.

Okay.

Are you done?

Yes.

Okay, then please sit down.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

Now she'll come up and respond.

She has a three-minute response period.

So to answer the question, um, nothing is changing with the map today.

This is simply a an option if someone wants to come in and change their the their designation on the future land use map.

This would just be an additional category that they could elect to select.

But nothing is changing on the map today.

You're welcome.

All right.

Thank you very much for that.

And now over to our planning commissioners for questions, comments, discussions.

Commissioner Lincoln.

And I just um mostly for the information of the um the person who asked the question.

If the sort was requested, would there still be an opportunity for public comment then?

Absolutely.

Um a map amendment would be you know subject to our uh procedures manual procedure, so there would be noticing.

Um there would also be an ad in the paper.

And then, of course, we're not talking about rezonings, but if there is a rezoning, there's a separate noticing um for that as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Kona.

How does um open storage fit into this new category?

It would be permitted, it's a commercial intensive use.

Okay, thank you.

And that's honestly one of the uses that we see the most for these.

We ask in our application what's the intended use.

It's not locked in, there's no conditions, of course, with the map amendment, but we do see a lot of um of the applicants are requesting they would like to eventually seek open storage and a rezoning.

Okay, thank you.

Yep.

Are there any other questions or comments?

Ms.

Liner, I just wanted to give you a shout-out for cleaning it up as you we discussed in my briefing.

You weren't there for my second briefing, probably because of the josselations, but I noticed the changes in the tying it to the land development code, so I thought that was a good job on your part.

So are there any other questions, comments, discussion items from the commissioners on this one?

Not seeing any, then I'll close the public comment and open it up to motions from the commissioners on this one.

Any commissioner Kona.

Uh motion to find HCCPA 2529 consistent with a comprehensive plan.

All right.

Is there a second out there?

Commissioner Kougar?

Oh, second, that's right.

We have a motion of consistency finding by Commissioner Kona, a second to that motion by Commissioner Kugler.

Any questions, comments, or discussions before we take our vote?

Hold it down back there.

All right, not seeing any, then we'll all signify their agreement by saying aye.

Aye.

Those opposed that motion carries unanimously.

All right.

On to our next agenda item, our last agenda item for this one, apparently.

Item 2C, HCCPA 25-37.

Comprehensive plan map amendment 40 ranch road, and the presenter is Gillian Massey.

Good evening.

This request is privately initiated, a large-scale map amendment, meaning it's over 50 acres in size, at a site located on approximately 7,944 acres.

The request is to change a land use category from agricultural mining 1 to 20, agricultural mining 1 to 10, agricultural rural 1 to 5, and natural preservation to planned environmental community 1 to 2.

The subject site is in the northeast part of unincorporated county, abutting the Pasco County border.

It's in the rural area and not within the limits of a community plan.

This is an aerial photo of the site outlined in pink.

Generally, it's bound by the Pasco County border to the north, Paul Buckman Highway to the east, Quail Meadow Road to the south, and U.S.

Highway 301 to the west.

Across 301 to the west is the Hillsborough River State Park, and further northwest, you can see the blue dotted line, and that's the Tampa service area.

Currently, the site is undeveloped and contains a large area of environmentally sensitive land.

Within the vicinity of the site, there's natural undeveloped land, agricultural uses, and single family residential uses.

This is another more zoomed out aerial photo of the site where you can see the general area, the development pattern to the north in Pasco County.

There's the mosaic phosphate facility site over to the east on Paul Buckman.

Some more rural residential development agricultural uses to the south, and the Hillsborough River State Park, which is the larger green area to the west of U.S.

Highway 301.

This is a photo of the subject site on the east side of U.S.

Highway 301.

This is the entrance to the ranch.

This is the entrance to the Hillsborough River State Park on U.S.

Highway 301.

So just another example of what it's like in the area on the on the eastern.

I'm sorry, this is facing north on 301, closer to the PASCO border.

And so then this this photo is over on the eastern edge of the subject site facing north on Paul Buckman Highway.

And then facing south on Paul Buckman Highway.

So as you can see, uh both of the major roadways that are bound by the site are uh one lane going each direction.

Um miss staff does not have the purview to take other jurisdictions, future land use categories into consideration.

Um however, in order to provide some further context, this slide shows the land use categories north of the subject site into Pasco County.

So it appears that there's land designated as residential one, residential three, residential six, major uh recreation and open space, conservation land, and planned development.

So just wanted to give that context.

The rural land use categories that make up the sites generally allow for mining and related activities, farms, ranches, feedlots, rural residential, neighborhood commercial offices, and industrial uses related to agricultural uses.

Uh the sites surrounded by other land use categories in the rural uh context, including agricultural estate one to two and a half and residential one.

Uh the planned environmental community one to two, which is the Lime Green, is located to the west across U.S.

Highway 301 and contains the two rivers development.

Other non-residential land use categories are within the vicinity, including natural preservation, which is the lighter uh green teal color to the east and west, and heavy industrial to the northeast across Paul Buckman Highway, which is a mosaic site that I mentioned earlier.

The proposed land use change would um allow for consideration of those same uses.

However, mining, feedlots, and industrial uses are prohibited.

Um residential development can be considered at a density of up to one dwelling unit per two gross acres, and non-residential development can be considered at an intensity of 0.25 floor area ratio.

A variety of environmentally sensitive design criteria must be met in this category, and the category also requires a connection to potable water and wastewater utility services.

Overall, the proposed amendment would allow for an increase in development potential by allowing a higher residential density and commercial square footage.

The change would eliminate industrial uses and mining uses.

So currently the site could be considered for up to 704 dwelling units or approximately 86.4 million square feet of non-residential development.

The change to planned environmental community 1 to 2 would allow for the consideration of 3,972 dwelling units or approximately 86.5 million square feet of non-residential development.

It's important to note that the maximum density calculations in each future land use category consider the gross age acreage of the site and do not consider the net density when accounting for site characteristics, such as the presence of wetlands or infrastructure improvements, and that varies from site to site.

This request was sent out for agency review, and all of the responses received can be found in your packet.

Some of the comments that were notable that were from the county water resource department, which indicate that potable water and wastewater service will not be available to the subject property as there's currently insufficient capacity to serve any new developments in the area.

The fire rescue department states that the amendment may have a significant impact on call volume and response times, and that the closest station from the site's furthest point away is 12 miles away.

The Office of Emergency Management states that from an emergency management perspective, the potential population increase presents significant concerns as it relates to items such as limited evacuation infrastructure, flooding and stormwater management, wildfire interface, shelter capacity, and power grid, and critical infrastructure strain.

The environmental protection commission wetlands division indicated that the utilization of the maximum residential development potential allowed under the proposed land use category may not be compatible with the subject property.

It may present permitting challenges due to the amount of wetlands on the site.

Furthermore, the waste division indicated that the site is identified as a petroleum contamination discharge monitoring site.

Lastly, Hillsboro County Public Schools have indicated that Cork Elementary, Marshall Middle, and Strawberry Crest High Schools are projected to be over capacity given the approved development and the proposed amendments.

However, this is an anal, this is an analysis for adequate facilities only and not a determination of school concurrency.

When formulating our recommendation, planning commission staff reviewed numerous policies, including those noted on the screen.

Though these policies would support the request, the overall request is inconsistent with these policies and objectives or objectives and policies on the following slides.

Staff reviewed the request and has found it to be inconsistent with several objectives and policies in the comprehensive plan.

Future land use section objective 1.2 says that the rural area is intended to provide areas for long-term agricultural uses, large lot rural residential uses, and undeveloped natural areas that can exist without the threat of urban or suburban encroachment.

Although a suburban style development would be anticipated due to the open space and clustering requirements of the planned environmental community one to two category, there's nothing that would prohibit a more urban-style development, such as a single family attached or multi-family dwelling unit, as the unincorporated Hillsborough County comprehensive plan does not regulate housing type.

The surrounding land use pattern consists of agricultural lands and large lot rural residential lots.

The two rivers development to the west is developing at a density of one dwelling unit per two gross acres.

However, that property is unique to the area as it's the only planned environmental community one-to-two designation in unincorporated county.

The proposed land use change would allow for a consideration of about 5.6 times the existing potential density within this 7,944-acre site.

And that would fundamentally disrupt the surrounding land use pattern and introduce a density and a potential lotting pattern that does not exist within the proximity to the site within unincorporated county.

The scale of residential development that could potentially be introduced threatens and threatens that suburban encroachment into the area that we read about in the rural area policies.

Policy 1.2.1 outlines that the default density to be expected in the rural area is one dwelling unit per five gross acres.

Though the same policy language indicates that there's some areas in the rural area that may carry a higher density, such as a suburban enclave, a planned village, a rural community, or a planned development within the planned environmental community one to two future land use category.

The subject site is not currently designated as any of those.

Future land use section objective 3.1 outlines that new developments should recognize the existing community surrounding them and be designed in a way that's compatible.

Staff's finding is that any increase in density over an area that's approximately 8,000 acres would be significant out of significantly out of scale with what currently exists in an area, and that it would fundament fundamentally change the character of the development pattern.

The increase in density with would also be inconsistent with the neighborhood protection policies under future land use section of objective 4.4, which calls for enhancing and preserving existing neighborhoods and communities by designing those that are related to the predominant character of their surroundings.

The surrounding future land use categories and established character of the area, mostly comprised of agricultural uses and rural large lot residential development, demonstrate that the in the res the requested increase in density is inconsistent with this policy direction.

It would significantly have an impact on that agricultural development pattern in the rural area.

While the Planned Environmental Community One to Two category has an extensive list of criteria that outline design requirements that expand and enhance these resources, staff has to carefully consider and balance the fact that there are already measures in place and existing policy language that require protection and mitigation for adverse impacts on environmentally sensitive land and significant wildlife habitats.

Furthermore, the potential development under existing conditions would require the involvement of the Department of Environmental Protection and the Environmental Protection Commission at a minimum.

To continue with the consistency review, the environmental and sustainability section of the comprehensive plan, uh, goal five, objectives 5.2 and 5.3, and their implementing policies, recognize the importance of river corridors in general, with the emphasis on preserving and restoring natural preservation and wildlife habitats along rivers and primary tributaries.

Under the current plan categories, a subject site would be allowed to have a residential development that's in scale with what surrounds it, but would also balance that development with the preservation of environmentally significant areas adjacent to the regional resource of the Hillsborough River State Park.

The potential increase in density would put a significant pressure on the substantial environmental resources, which would be contrary to objective 5.4 and the intent of the PEC 1 to 2 category.

The subject sites also located within the surface water resource protection area per one water section objective 1.3.

It's important to protect surface water and groundwater quantity and quality for both current and future use.

Increasing the density in this area that contains important ecological resources, such as the Hillsborough River, its tributaries, and wildlife corridors and habitat, as well as the regional resource of that the Hillsborough River River State Park would put increased pressure on the surface water resource protection area, potentially compromising the surface water and groundwater quantity and quality.

And finally, the intergovernmental intergovernmental coordination element, policy 1.3.8 encourages coordination between local jurisdictions and state agencies with other public and private entities to consolidate power, gas, water, and wastewater utilities.

As previously mentioned, the county water resources resources department provided comments that indicate potable water and wastewater service will not be available to the subject property.

And no comments were received from PASCO County to the North.

One water section policy 5.2.1 states that if weight wastewater service is not available or feasible, then properly cited permitted and maintained septic tanks are a suitable alternative.

So based on those considerations and review of the objectives and policies in the plan, planning commission staff recommends that the proposed map amendment be found inconsistent with the goals, objectives, and policies of the unincorporated Hillsboro County Comprehensive Plan.

And I'm available for any questions.

Thank you.

Does the applicant have a presentation?

Good evening.

Cami Corbett with the law firm of Hill Ward and Henderson.

I'm here representing the applicants.

They are two entities that are owned and controlled by the Thomas family.

And the Thomas family is a family with an undeniable conservation effort at record for generations.

If it continues, you're going to be escorted out of this room.

There's respect given for everybody who's at this mic.

Now simmer down and let the applicant give their presentation.

You'll have time to speak when it's your turn.

Thank you.

For generations, they have protected and preserved land through action, establishing cutting-edge agricultural practices to preserve and protect the environment while improving water quality and flooding conditions.

They actually donated the land, the thousand acres, that is the Hillsborough River State Park and Fort Forrester to ensure that they were preserved, protected, and open to the public.

They have a family motto: make it better if you can, share reasons, share resources with the community, and ensure the next generation has sufficient sufficient wherewithal to carry out that vision.

And this context is very important.

This land use category reflects a carefully planned long-standing division vision.

If development occurs on this property, it should be done in a way that puts the environment first and protects environmental resources.

The category itself, PEC one half, was the vision of the Thomas family that's on the two rivers property directly to the west.

This they proposed that in 2005.

Twenty years later, the property is developing consistent with that vision.

It has a conservation environmental management plan in place.

It is developing at a rural density of one unit to two two acres, and then it is connected to public water and sewer.

And it did take some time to get connected to public water and sewer, but the Thomas family is voluntarily asking for this plan amendment category that requires them, if they're going to develop it with residential development to connect to public water and sewer.

And we think that that is a good thing.

The PEC one-half category would actually protect any wetlands that are on site with an additional buffer, which you'll hear more about in our presentation.

And with that, I'd like to turn it over to our environmental scientist and our planner who will indicate to you how this is consistent with the comprehensive plan and the long-term vision of the property.

Hi.

My name is Evan Porman.

I'm an environmental scientist at Clearview Land Design.

And I'm just going to be speaking to the environmental benefits of this future land use category.

The PEC category has numerous environmental policies that not only align with the Hillsboro County's land development code, but exceed the environmental protection standards within it.

For example, the PEC would install a 90-foot wetland buffer around the Hillsborough River, which is a 40-foot increase from the current future land use standards.

In total, we are looking at about 338, a 338-acre increase in buffer areas around the property.

And these areas would be protected through non-revocable deed restrictions, preventing developers and landowners from conducting activities within them.

Here we have a figure that shows the current wetland buffers of the existing flu.

And you see around the Hillsborough, we have a 50-foot buffer, and all the other tributaries and wetlands, we have a 30-foot buffer.

Under the PEC policy, the Hillsborough and Blackwater Creek would receive a 90-foot wetland buffer, and the remaining tributaries and wetlands would receive a 60, 50 or 33-foot buffer.

An additional policy pertains to wildlife corridors.

So the PEC 1 half policy mandates wildlife corridors over all rivers and tributaries, as well as upland areas surrounding those water bodies.

So this category would conserve more wildlife habitat than what is proposed for protection by the county.

Additionally, any upland significant wildlife habitat that's not already contained within these corridors would be subject to a minimum of 10% increase in preservation requirements for the LDC.

Wildlife corridors must be developed with input from the Florida Fish Wildlife and Conservation Commission.

And per the policy, any recommendations, recommendations they give have to be reasonably accommodated for the PEC policy also has uh enhanced stormwater treatment standards based on mutual agreements between the county and the future applicant.

The PEC policy also has enhanced stormwater treatment standards based on mutual agreements between the county and the future applicant.

Discharges into the Hillsborough River, for example, would have to meet the standard of a class one water body.

A class one water body is for potable water supplies, which the Hillsboro River is.

Additionally, the PEC category requires that all discharges exceed the Southwest Florida Water Management District treatment criteria defined in chapters 6240 of the Florida Administrative Code by 10%.

To assist in the achievement of these standards, the agreement between the county and the applicant will include best management practices for stormwater treatment.

Types of best man best management practices specifically stated in this policy include enhanced littoral plantings, the use of pervious pavements, and increased residence time prior to discharges.

Another part of this category is water quality policy is no septinks are allowed due to the contamination risks associated associated with them.

So what this policy really means to the Hillsborough River by increasing water quality through the wetland buffers and the enhanced treatment criteria, we can increase habitat function.

So better water quality means better plant composition, which in turn affects the health of wildlife populations.

It also means reduced algae concentrations, which are detrimental to aquatic ecosystems.

The protected wildlife corridors would mean less human disturbance, which would help retain natural habitats and increase wildlife utilization.

Corridors allow wildlife to freely move uninterrupted to and from the property, supporting healthy propagation of species.

Just some additional policies that I would like to go over that I think are important.

Everything that I've described here has to be outlined in an environmental management plan, which has to be developed with input from the environmental protection commission, planning commission, and regional water supply authority.

This gives the county and agencies time to basically input their own environmental regulations on the property that they see fit.

Also, there's open space requirements, lawn restriction requirements, and a public awareness program to make the community aware of everything outlined in the management plan.

Thank you.

Good evening, Anna Ritnauer.

I'm a AICP planner at Clearview Land Design, and I'm going to talk about consistency with the comp plan and compatibility with surrounding land uses.

A few things here that Evan already touched on, so I'll skim over it quickly.

And also my presentation is based on the fact that we did not believe that the land included natural preservation.

Cammy already kind of addressed that, so if there's any inconsistencies here, that's why it's described that way.

But the current future land use categories do allow for mining and industrial uses that are associated with agriculture, and those uses would be prohibited with PEC.

Also septic tanks prohibited in PEC.

So I'm going to talk about a few statements from the staff report and why we believe that there are other policies and objectives that make this application consistent with the comp plan.

So the first thing is there was a couple statements about that the project would not align with flu objective 1.2, which is rural area plan policies.

And essentially, I just wanted to point out that PEC is a rural land use category.

It's listed in Table 2.2 as such.

And so I've copied it here, and it's not quite the most dense land use category under land use rural land use categories.

So next, there were a few statements made.

Actually, the first thing I'll talk about is the last bullet.

This says that the project would put significant development pressure on substantial environmental resources.

And then the other three points on this slide were mostly about compatibility with surrounding land uses and the scale of the project.

So I'm going to go through a few maps to try to explain our thought process here.

So this map shows the future land use categories with what we have proposed, PEC on the subject site, and PASCO County and Hillsboro County land use categories within a two mile radius.

That was just taken because of the scale of the project.

This site is about four miles long, so it it's difficult to see at times when you're looking at a map, the full scale of the property and the land uses around it.

So I wanted to point out that we've done a rough calculation of the future land uses in Hillsborough and PASCO, which you can see on the slide, and the maximum development potential within each of those.

So with the existing flu on the site, which is not shown graphically, but um with the existing flu and then all of the existing future land use categories within that two mile radius, there would be a maximum of 20,407 dwelling units allowed.

Then that doesn't include any of the non-residential categories or entitlements.

Um our proposed future land use category would make the maximum allowable residential 23,673 units.

So then this next slide is kind of an extent for my next two slides.

I just wanted to break it down in kind of quadrants uh since it's so large.

So the next slide will be the northwest uh or so quadrant, and then the following slide after that would be the south half.

Um so here you can see zoomed in a little bit, same um land use categories, but at least with the parcel lines to see the development pattern in the area, and um you can see that mosaic site uh that was referred to earlier.

And then the next slide is the southern half of the site, which um you can kind of see that development pattern.

There's a lot of R1, AE, AR.

Um, our client does not want to continue that development pattern.

We want to be more thoughtful and include all of the protections on the regional resources, the Hillsborough River, and then clustering of development, which is really the purpose and requirement of PEC.

Um, this next statement is mostly about um compatibility in relation to the form and scale of development.

And then I'm just reminding you all that PEC requires a PD zoning.

So it would require a site plan.

It also requires an environmental management plan.

Um, and there's one only one example in the county of this being done, and it has been done thoughtfully and um very strategically, so we know that it can be successful.

Um PEC also requires clustering in order to provide um efficient land development.

Um the next statement is a lot about acknowledging the environmental protections that are in PEC.

Staff acknowledges that, um, but then they also still reference compatibility, and so we just wanted to show that um PEC specifically states that all development shall be applied in areas adjacent to sorry, PEC shall be applied in adjacent areas to regional resources, which this property is.

Um, and it also again requires clustering of the development.

Um the compatib.

This is uh continuing on the compatibility discussion.

I'm gonna try to wrap it up here.

Um the last thing that I wanted to talk about is water resources department talked about not having water and wastewater available.

This could be available.

Um it could be a long-term project, but we know that it can be successful because of the other projects that we've done that with, and then also I just wanted to mention this is an excerpt of PEC category, and it is a table that is very prescriptive.

And um it reads like an LDC requirement, but it is in the comp plan and will be required.

So I'll leave it up to respectfully request your recommendation of consistency based on the slides here or the policies here to plan environmental community, one to two acres.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Now we had a lot of people sign up in the public comment for this one, so I'm gonna call a couple names at a time.

I'm actually gonna start virtually to get the virtual people out of the way.

When I move to the people in the room, I'll call a couple names at a time.

And if you'll get cued up and lined up to come up, it'll be three minutes per person, three minutes only.

There are a lot of people here, so please be respectful of one another again.

I know all of you want to get your thoughts and opinions out there.

We want to hear them.

So let's get us get us through this.

All right, starting off virtually.

Let's see if we have Scott Williams on the line.

Scott Williams on the virtual.

Oh, you're not okay.

Okay.

All right.

We'll we'll come back to you, Mr.

Williams.

Is Jesse Williams here with you?

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

We'll skip you two then and we'll go to Stephanie Stevenson.

Is Stephanie Stevenson on the line?

Hi, uh, my name is Stephanie Stevenson.

I would like to point out, I know my time's short, but I'd like to point out all the suggestions that were made for preserving our local area, the environment, the water table.

None of that takes into consideration that one single household provides the usage amount of 300 gallons a day, and one household provides seven tons of carbon dioxide production a year.

You're talking about expanding from 704 homes to over what was it, over 3,000 homes.

That's a carbon dioxide production of over 22,000 a year.

Tons.

22,000 tons a year.

And then let's do the math for the water consumption.

That is astronomical.

We currently do not have the resources to handle the growth that we have already.

This is turning out to be a public health nightmare.

This is going to be a complete fiasco in our health, our air quality, our water quality, our quality of life.

We cannot sustain any more growth.

And while, yes, it sounds great, all the things that they are planning to do, it is not going to cover the immensity that they're trying to change.

And that's all I'd like to say is please continue the please consider the impacts of the public health.

Thank you.

All right.

Next up is Alexis Cummings on the line.

Yes, I'm here.

Good evening.

Members of the planning commission.

My name is Alexis Cummings.

I'm a red uh resident of this community.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

I'm here to respectfully oppose the proposed rezoning and ask that the committee consider the long-term impact this decision would have on a rural community and a way of life.

This area has been intentionally designated as a rural and agricultural area.

That designation reflects how the land is actively used today.

Open space, working ranches, agricultural operations, and vital wild wildlife habitat.

Either not vacant or underutilized, parceled, they are functioning rural lands.

The proposed rezoning would significantly increase density and introduce uses that are incompatible with the character of this area.

While growth is inevitable, where and how it occurs matters.

Once rural land is rezoned and developed at higher density, that loss is permanent.

Many of these surrounding homes, including my own, are multi-generational properties.

Families have lived and worked this land for decades, raising children and maintaining homesteads.

In addition, this area supports animal rescues, livestock operations, and ranch land.

These depend on space, quiet, and predictable land use policies.

Increased density brings unavoidable conflicts that often push these uses out entirely.

This concern is wide widely shared.

As of this meeting, I have submitted a petition with over 1,300 signatures.

This petition has only been live for seven days.

These signatures urge the commission to vote no.

They represent families and landowners who value the rural character of this community and want it preserved.

This process proposal also raises concerns regarding traffic, infrastructure strain, and environmental impact.

Our rural roads and services were not designed designed to support high density development.

And increased clearing and traffic will disrupt our wildlife.

This is not an opposition to growth.

It is a request that growth be directed to areas already planned and equipped for it.

Approving this rezoning would undermine existing rural protections and set a precedent that places similar to ours and our communities would also be at risk.

I respectfully ask the committee to recommend the denial on this rezoning and allow this to remain what it was always intended to be.

Rural, agricultural, and protected.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Next up, is there a Michael R.

Frazier on the line?

Yes, sir.

Oh, nope.

Nope, virtually.

You're here too.

All right.

All right.

Oh, yeah, these are the in-person ones.

All right.

Well, I guess we'll we'll go to in-persons, but we'll go back to it was Mr.

Scott Williams.

We'll start with Scott Williams.

And then I'm fine.

HTV, let's keep them quiet there on the line.

Go with Scott Williams and then Jesse Williams will be next.

How's it going?

I'm Scott.

Um, I live on the south side of this development.

Um, I've got a 15-acre lot that's got two whole branch running right through it.

So we've got a lot of wildlife that runs through there to other rural spots uh south of me.

They just go back and forth between two rivers across my property and into the property south of me.

We see everything otters, owls, deer, turkey.

It's it's a very, very vibrant piece of property.

We were very lucky that to have it.

And just to hear about all this going on is is crazy.

We're glad to be here in opposition to it and happy that everybody else is kind of having the same tone.

I commend the people that put together that uh report.

I agree with it 100%.

A lot of what I plan to say today has already been said in that first presentation.

Um I think the biggest thing I wanted to communicate is how big the scale of this is.

That PEC zoning that's listed in that future land use report is on you know, talks about in the scale of like 100 to 200 acres, and we're talking about 8,000.

You know, uh looking at the uh urban, what do they call it, urban use area?

Um, that's roughly like 30,000 acres, and that the report says that we want 80% of our growth to occur in that 30,000 acres.

Well, that 8,000 acres is 16 percent of that amount of acreage.

50,000 acres in total that that urban um land use.

Uh what else I want to get across here?

8,000 acres.

Fishhawk ranch is 4,000.

So we're twice the size of Fishhawk.

This is basically proposing to develop a new town, but a new town without a school, a new town without a hospital, a new town with this.

It's a new town in the middle of unincorporated rural Hillsborough County, and it's just unimaginable, it's a crime to uh put this forward.

You know, one house every five acres, that's one thing.

And uh, you know, they're talking about one house every two acres, but they're clustering it.

If you look at the two rivers development on the northwest side that they keep talking about, that's a house every quarter acre clustered together.

That's not what the community is where I live on the south side of that.

It's not the community around it.

You know, one house every five is like the normal acreage that you see, and that is helpful for farms and people you know wanting to run a homestead and live off the land.

So that's what it should be.

That's what it that's what this place was zoned for when when all these zoning laws got put into place, and and to change it into this planned environmental community is a crime.

That's all I gotta say.

Thank you.

All right.

Next up we have Jesse Williams, and after Jesse Williams, we'll have Michael R.

Frazier and Paula S.

Frazier.

Good evening.

My name is Jesse Williams, and I'm here tonight as a born and raised plant city resident asking you to please listen to the community and do not allow this rezoning to happen.

Putting almost 4,000 homes in this rural area with an estimated 10,000 new cars commuting on two-lane roads that are already backed up for miles during morning and evening commutes, is unconscionable, reckless, and the most tone-deaf thing you all can do as the people who we the citizens trust to develop the land with respect towards the current residents and the wildlife.

This isn't smart growth, it's suffocation.

This isn't planned development, it's dumping.

I'm begging you please don't move this proposal forward.

Don't let greed ride the future of our great state.

You can decide which version of Florida we pass down to our children.

And I pray it's one that you are proud of.

I pray it's one that you fought for and didn't just give away to another big developer.

Florida is being stripped away one neighborhood at a time, and this rezoning is another nail in the coffin.

Plant city's current population is around 43,000.

And this one project alone can boost population by 23 to 25% over time.

I personally own property on Bruton Road, and my land backs right up to this proposed development.

This hits home for me, my family, and so many others who choose to live here because it's rural and it's to us heaven on earth.

Our property, we have a beautiful creek.

We have otters who keep the invasive apple snail population in check, wildflowers and orchids growing on the creek bank.

Our game cameras are filled with pictures of bobcats, wild turkeys, an abundance of deer, and scores of different bird species.

This is a beautiful thriving environment.

And it unfortunately needs people who will stand up and do what is right to protect it.

I thank you.

Please be those people.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, we have let's hold the applause.

There are a lot of people to go, and we might not get through it if we keep applausing after everyone who speaks.

So let's let's get through it.

Mr.

Frazier, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

My name is Mike Frazier.

I live on five-acre road right near most of that community.

Number one, we were talking about conservation environmentality.

That's part of the mission statement.

Uh not eight days ago, there was an American balled ego sitting on the lawn right across the street from my house.

I wonder how he would feel about the conservation of that neighborhood.

Number two, I fully support our scientist recommendation.

Oh, I'm sorry, we call them the Hillsborough County Development Staff.

And then finally, number three, one of the presenters for the petitioner talked about septic and water flooding, those I don't know if they said flooding.

Septic water might take time to address.

I think you're going to find by a lot of the people that are abutting this proposal.

Um I have septic, cost me $16,000 to put in.

I have water.

Took me thousands to put in.

Oh, wait, no, I don't have septic.

I have a septic tank, and I have a well.

Well, where the water is going to be pulled from that whole aquifer in that whole neighborhood.

Um flooding.

We remember Hurricane Milton.

I was one of the houses along with my uh wife and my mother-in-law, who were primary caregivers for, and my daughter and a couple of my grandkids.

Uh, we waited three weeks for a power truck to get out there.

Bless their heart, wasn't their fault.

There was a lot of work.

But the point was we're out where there are no services.

We don't even have street lights.

We don't have traffic lights.

What we do have is increased traffic because of the housing development that's being put on Knights Griffin Road.

Oh, wait, I'm sorry, that's housing development times two.

That's the impact of those who have to live with this proposal, and I'm asking that you find that this plan is inconsistent based upon everything our county planning staff presented.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Mrs.

Frazier.

My name is Paula Frazier.

Um, I want to say I read your mission statement, and one of the things in it says to your vision is to improve the quality of life for the community.

This will not approve our quality of life.

This will adversely affect us all around between traffic, between water issues, between flooding issues with the wildlife that's in the area, the schools, they mentioned the schools, all of the things that the planning um lady that came up and she spoke were all of my arguments.

They are why we should not approve of this plan.

And so I'm asking that you respect the work that they put in and and what they have said about how it does not it is not consistent with our with the community um comprehensive plan.

It is not, and I I just asked that you would take this into consideration and vote against it.

Thank you.

I'm gonna take a second here to jump back online because staff I do have petitions also.

I don't know if I can give them to you.

Give them to the clerk.

We have like six pages of petitions here.

Yeah, and I know there's several other ones out there.

All right, thank you, ma'am.

I'm gonna jump back online because planning commission staff likes to keep me up here juggling while I'm at the dias running the meeting, so and then I'll bring it right back to the floor for people in here.

Um, is Noelle DeCour on the line?

Noelle.

My name is Noah Lakor.

Hello, my name is Noellecore.

I just want to reiterate that the planning commission staff found the proposed amendment 25-37 inconsistent with the unincorporated Hillsborough County comprehensive plan.

The proposed amendment would allow for development that is inconsistent with the goals, objectives, and policies of the unincorporated Hillsborough County comprehensive plan.

The increased density would have a negative impact on the environmentally sensitive land and significant wildlife habitats that exist on the property.

The Hillsborough River and tributaries run through the property.

Our drinking water comes from that river.

This increase in density could compromise the surface water and groundwater quantity and quality, which would be inconsistent with the one water cap uh chapter objectives and policy.

Portable water and wastewater services will not be available to his property as there is currently insufficient capacity to third any new developments in the area.

I'm just wondering where the developer thinks they're going to find this water.

The water issues here are only getting worse.

You can get that the people with all the dried welds right now out there in East Hillboro County.

Uh, this amendment will ruin the rural character of this area and open it up to more houses on tiny lock with no infrastructure.

We don't even have sufficient infrastructure now.

This is urban sprawl and urban sprawl costs us all.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next up, Alicia Lawson is Alicia Lawson on the line.

Yes, I'm here.

Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you.

Um, commissioners.

My name is Alicia Lawson.

I am a member of this community as well as my children.

Um, I'm here to speak in opposition to item two C to the proposed comprehension or comprehensive plan map amendment for 40 Ranch Road.

I want to be very clear.

My opposition is not uh to this amendment, is not an opposition to growth.

Growth is inevitable.

Uh poorly and emotionally planned growth is not.

The comprehensive plan exists to protect residents, infrastructure, natural resources, and the long-term character of our community.

Changing the future land use designation at 40 Ranch Road undermines that very purpose.

This area was planned with a specific vision in mind.

One that's considered traffic capacity, drainage, environmental impact, emergency services, schools, and most importantly, our quality of life.

One that we chose when we chose this land, when we chose to reside here, when we chose to raise our children here.

You have multiple 4-age families raising their children in this environment.

We want it to be safe and we want it to maintain, be maintained.

And that's what we have trust entrusted you with.

That's why this plan was set forth.

Um approving this amendment sets a precedent that those plans can be altered, not because conditions have changed, but because it is convenient for a single development proposal.

That is not smart planning, that's reactive planning.

Um this amendment raises serious concern.

Traffic and road safety on surrounding roads that are already incredibly strained.

We saw 200 deaths in 2024 due to traffic accidents.

26,000 accidents just in this county.

2025 were already projected at 250 deaths.

Those numbers are not out yet.

I have a teen driving these roads and another coming up to drive these roads.

Hillsboro County is among the highest in traffic fatalities, which has increased by 22% since 2020.

This is simply unacceptable.

Not to mention the stormwater flooding risks, especially in a county that repeatedly faces several weather, um, severe weather, and experienced unprecedented flooding with Hurricane Milton.

Homes that have never seen what we have seen.

Strain on public services like schools, fire, EMS, and law enforcement.

My neighbor has an elderly mother they are caring for.

It takes 25 to 40 minutes to get an ambulance out here.

What do you think is gonna happen when you add what did she say?

23,600 and something units.

All right, Miss Lawson, that's your time.

HTV cutter.

Next up, Gregory Morris.

Is Gregory Morris on the line?

Yes, I am.

Thank you.

Please go ahead.

Good evening.

Thank you, Commissioners.

My name is Gregory Morris, lifelong resident of the rural Tampa Bay Area.

I took the time to read the staff's uh excellent report on this item this afternoon, and I love and want to put a huge exclamation mark on everything they said.

Among other things, their report calls this 8,000 acres environmentally sensitive and significant wildlife habitat and river system, the ESS Goal 6 identifies as quote, an environmental corridor of great significance.

And I cannot tell you how true that is.

So I have canoed and hiked the entire Hillsborough River from Green Swamp to Tampa Bay, and my kids and I absolutely treasure Blackwater Creek Preserve.

And this system, let me tell you, is quite simply the best natural and rural land left in Hillsborough County.

These uh their trees in that river corridor older than the United States.

In many ways, it looks better than treasured areas in Big Cypress and Pacahachie.

I have rarely seen as many birds and alligators and turkey and deer and native plants as I have seen in the Hillsborough River Corridor and its tributaries like Blackwater Creek, which of course runs right through this property.

I think the staff put it very well.

A land use change of this scale in this last bastion of rural Hillsborough would quote fundamentally disrupt the surrounding land use pattern, would be tremendously out of scale with what currently exists in the area and would significantly negatively impact the environmental features of the site, which could then negatively affect the surrounding natural features in and adjacent to the subject site.

Because of course, guys, wildlife doesn't understand the dwindling little threads of trees we've set aside for them.

And we all know dropping thousands upon thousands of homes and octoppling traffic does not improve their habitat, no matter how cleverly development interests are greenwashing their plans.

And let me tell you what this corridor looks like with thousands of new homes.

301 littered with mangled raccoons and deer and bobcats and owls and bald eagles that use that corridor.

The Hillsborough River, which by the way is crystal clear right now, would inevitably be contaminated by lawn runoff, automobile pollution, fertilizer, trash, and construction runoff all floating downstream and into the aquifer that feeds Crystal Spring, practically next door, also originally owned by the Thomas family, if I remember correctly.

And some I think the question before the Planning Commission and ultimately the County Commission is not whether we allow for a bit more suburban sprawl in a nice corner of the county, but whether Hillsboro will have any high-quality rural land or buffer zone left around our most precious natural areas, or will ultimately become sprawl and tracked homes from Pinellas to Polk.

My kids and I certainly hope that's not the county's future.

I hope the Planning Commission and ultimately the County Commission will soundly reject this request as ill-conceived and irresponsible in a move to gobble up the last enclave of good rural land in Hillsborough.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we're going back to in person.

That is all we had for virtual, so we will come back to Bryce Ashmore.

It's Bryce Ashmore here, and after Bryce Ashmore, Carly Effington.

Good evening, and thank you for letting me be here.

Um I'm also a lifelong resident here in Hillsborough County.

I've lived there on Five Acre Road where the bald eagle was in my front yard.

Been there for 40 years.

I've also seen the turkeys, the deer, the wildlife that just runs through the north end of Five Acre Road, Quell Meadow Road, Bruton Road, and so on.

And with developing land like this, there's no way it won't be detrimental to the wildlife that we have.

It's such an important part.

John Muir said the great wilderness wildlife naturalist that the United States had said wilderness is a necessity to human beings.

It's not something we can just throw away for whatever profit there is.

I would say if somebody is treasures wildlife in conservation, would the land I believe should go to the state.

I've hiked many a times through the Blackwater Creek preserved many a times and watched the last time I was there, I watched a doe and a yearling walk across the creek.

Such a great experience.

But that'll be gone.

Not to talk about the traffic, the safety.

There's been a Gallagher Road and Knights Griffin Road.

There's been four accidents in the last two years, probably that I know of.

There's nothing been done to improve it.

The Nice Griffin Road was built in the 60s, in the early 60s.

It was a very rural area with minimal traffic.

And some of it is the same pavement that was put down then.

There's nothing been changed, not to say about the water consumption that's going to happen.

And then when the chemicals go to people's lawns and things that make flowers and what we like, when we do have floods like Hurricane Milton brought along, I'm sorry.

But it's going to end up in the Hillsborough River, the Blackwater Creek that feeds the Hillsborough River.

I strongly, strongly request you to deny this development of this land.

There might be retention ponds built to buffer the tween where the house is and where the river is, but the alligators is going to be what's living there.

I walked when I was a kid, I walked from Chansey Road.

I was a little kid with cousins.

Well, from Chansey Road, September Hills, all the way to the Hillsborough River.

I'll never forget it.

One of the greatest experiences of my life, just a bunch of little kids.

You know, I could tell you story after story.

It's the precious thing that this county has.

We call this a world-class city that we're developing here in Tampa.

And I've lived here, my parents lived here their whole entire lives.

But I'd hate for this part of our county to be destroyed.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

All right.

Carly Evington, and then after Carly is Paul Ethington, and then Carl Bailey.

Good evening.

My name is Carly Ethington.

I am 18 years old, and I'm part of local 4-H clubs here in Hillsborough County.

I love to call this place home, and I know that you do too.

I know that you want to see the economic growth, and I know that you want to see this community strive.

And I know that you heard these lawyers talk about the two river development up north and how that is flourishing just on the north side of the property.

But what I didn't hear you telling them telling you about is the homeless community that also lives there, right by the Hillsborough River.

It flooded last year.

It went all the way over 39, and we couldn't get through for weeks.

These people, they could have drowned.

Their homes will be destroyed.

They have nowhere else to go.

And this will completely destroy their lives.

And sorry.

And in addition to removing the only place that these people have to go home, you'll be destroying ours in the process.

My home isn't just the four walls that I sleep in.

My home is the property that I watched my parents fight for.

I watched them carve out every bit of the life that we have.

And every morning I get to have coffee with them on our back porch.

And I get to watch my horses play with the wild turkeys.

And I get to watch the bald eagles fly overhead.

And when my mom is having a bad day, she gets to go out and see the bluebirds.

And the smile that that brings to her face.

That could be lost.

And I'm sorry.

And this proposal that they are um trying to urge you to vote for.

And they think that one house every two acres doesn't sound very intensive.

But right now, when there are no houses there, putting 4,000 houses there will be detrimental.

This proposal is outside of the urban service area.

This proposal is in the rural service area.

And this intensive development is not compatible with the plan.

So as you are trying to make your decision, I urge you not just to think about people's wallets or the economic growth in that specific area.

Because there are other areas that we can have economic growth.

We can see more homes built and more lives that are able to come here and call this place home in the right location.

But please, I urge you to just think about the effects that this decision will have.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

All right.

Paul Effington and then Carl Bailey after Paul.

Good evening, uh Paul Athington.

There's not much to say that hasn't been said already.

But with the new proposed growth, you're talking potentially 23,000 more commuters a day in our area is some numbers that I've heard on roads that can't even handle what we have now.

Who's gonna pay for that?

What about the time it's gonna take to build it and the accidents and the safety that's involved there?

We've already stated that police and fire are overwhelmed.

Your schools cannot handle another set of kids.

The uh what about the flooding?

This that you're gonna decide on today is not something that is something you'll decide on, and it's done.

This is gonna affect everyone for the next 25, 30, 50 years.

My grandkids, my great-grandkids are gonna have to deal with the decisions that are made tonight.

And I urge you to vote no on this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Carl Bailey.

Good evening, and thank you for the time.

Uh I grew up at 15012 Highway 301.

That's right across the street from this.

When I was a kid, I went to school with the kids from Tuvor Ranch.

My family still lives there.

I've been out of the business for a little while, 24 years of Marine Corps, coming back, and I want to thank you all.

It is good to see democracy in action.

Counselor, thank you for coming.

I wish Thomas Van was here.

For the rest of the group, thank you.

That is actually what I spent my life doing.

I appreciate it.

For the staff.

Thank you.

That I'm smarter for reading that document and having been a staff officer.

I appreciate the careful wording that went into it, and I appreciate the careful rebuttal that went into it.

What we're really talking about is a change to a plan.

And what is not been presented to you is why change it.

Mosey did.

The other private agencies and even public agencies coming forward came to you with a reason to change it.

I heard a wonderful characterization of the Thomas family, which I agree with.

But I have to ask what changed.

Why are they asking you to put in 3,900 more dwellings?

Where I was going to talk for like 30 minutes, but my neighbors covered it.

We don't have the roads, we don't have the infrastructure.

The city of Tampa doesn't have the water.

And when you choke the Hillsboro River, that is where the city of Tampa gets its water.

When you choke the aquifer, that is not just where City of Tampa gets water, that is where Pinellas County also gets its water.

Can't be supported.

We are 301, won't support it.

39 can't support it.

My elementary school Cork can't support it.

Lincoln Marshall can't support it.

Schools can't.

Now this can be fixed.

Everything except for the water problem, because we can't invent water.

All the infrastructure problems, and even wildlife problems my neighbors are going to bring up, can be fixed.

But you throw money at that problem.

The neighbors are going to pay that.

Affordability is already an issue.

When we close insurance rates will go up.

When we close the floodgates for next major rain event, this property will flood.

It always floods.

It has for the last 50 years.

That will raise their insurance rates.

We put this infrastructure in, they're paying for it.

Not the Thomas family, nor the developer.

When we build the schools, they pay for it.

And that's not right, and that's not consistent with your plan.

I yield 10 seconds for questions if you have them.

No, that's not question answer to statements.

Thank you.

Next up, Donna Holt is Donna Holt.

There's Donna Holt across the way.

All right, we'll come back to Donna Holt.

Let's try Kevin K Copper Coper.

Kevin K.

Copper.

This uh I'd like to say that I would strongly suggest voting against this.

Uh my wife and I are the second generation on our property.

And this is directly in front of our home.

We currently live on Quail Meadow.

My wife's family's been there before Quail Meadow was even opened up.

Five acre was a dead end road.

The effects of this will, as you've heard from a lot of the other people, will drastically affect us.

Um infrastructure.

Yeah, there's a lot of that to be had if you want to put that there.

We don't have it out there to provide for anything.

Power company can't handle what we have going on out there.

We have continuous outages, crappy equipment.

We're constantly being flooded.

Doesn't it?

We don't have to have the hurricanes for us to flood out there.

Have any of you ever driven out there when we do have our heavy rainstorms?

Some of our streets you can't cross over.

Where my home and my wife and my my mother-in-law are located.

We are at the south east kind of corner of the property, five acre and quail meadow.

We get the brunt of the water runoff water.

And that water, as everybody else has said, with the properties being uh farmed and things like that, and you're going to add more to this.

This water runs off to the uh it eventually ends up in the Hillsborough River, which provides certain drinking water for hills for the city of Tampa.

If that ends up being tainted, you're tainting your own drinking water.

We don't want that out there with us.

We don't want that for anybody else.

Like for you to all strongly oppose this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, Lori Copper.

Nope.

All right.

Then we will go back to Donna Holt.

Good evening, Commissioners.

Thank you for your time.

Um, as stated, my name is Donna Holt, and I am a stakeholder.

I live on Knights Griffin Road, so I am south of the proposed changes.

But my concern is which all has already been addressed by a lot of our um community, is the fact that you are asking for basically a whole new town to be built.

And we don't have the infrastructure there.

I live there.

One of my house was a house that was flooded.

Um, that my neighbors had seen historical water they'd never seen before.

Um we just were able to move back in my home the week before Thanksgiving from it being rebuilt.

So that's gonna be an issue because that current that property currently holds water.

There's runoff that goes from that water.

Right now it's you know, a pervious surface, it's gonna become an impervious surface.

That drainage, that water has to go somewhere.

That's a concern.

Traffic.

We're gonna see increased times for our response for our first responders for emergencies for fire.

People are gonna see their houses burned, people are gonna die because the county commission is gonna have to approve if they do this for the future financial debt of my children and my grandchildren.

I was born and raised there, but someone's got to build fire stations, someone's gonna have to build schools, someone's gonna have to build a hospital.

In fact, you know, I meant the family mentioned about connection to water and sewer.

I don't know if you're aware, but that water and sewer situation ends basically at I-4 and Highway 39.

It does not get there, and this the existing pipage that is there is too small to even be able to go to a new um construction that was currently approved by the city of Plant City on 39 and Knights Griffin Road.

That's a concern for me because our taxes are gonna go up, our insurance is gonna go up.

I'm my house might burn down if we can't get someone there in time, or you know, one of my children.

I have a son that has down syndrome.

You know, what if I have a medical emergency?

I live on Knights Griffin Road, and that is a thoroughfare from Lakeland all the way to Tampa and from 39.

There is no road widening in the project for 10 plus years for Highway 39 going north of uh Knights Griffin into Zephyr Hills, and also from Knights Griffin 39 all the way to Highway 301 or 301 at all.

We're talking about two-lane roads, and you're talking about by 2050, they're going to increase traffic by fourfold.

And I looked and I believe that the staff did an amazing job with their plan that they found that it's inconsistent with Hillsborough County uncorporated plans.

And I pray today that you guys will do your due diligence for my family, for my children, and for my grandchildren, and for all of our community, and say no to this proposal.

Um it is just fiscally irresponsible for you to approve that because who's going to take on that dollar?

No one.

No one wants to take it on, and you cannot build a town without the infrastructure.

And today I just simply ask that you will um uphold your staff's findings that it is inconsistent with what we are looking for for Hillsborough County and the overlay for the next 10, 20, 30 years.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up will go to Gabriel Holt.

Hello, I can you hear me?

Okay, there we go.

Uh I'm Gabriel Holt, and um uh I do not think that you should uh allow this property to be zoned for housing uh for many reasons, including the fact that we as a community, uh that's already been said we do not have the infrastructure needed to support the thousands of new uh people and new houses.

Uh the aquifer, as has been pointed out, can hardly handle uh the people we already have.

And if we add hundreds of thousands of more people using thousands of gallons per day, that would just not be good.

Um also not to mention the fact that the thousands of people will be driving thousands of vehicles, uh, and that will add lots of more traffic to surrounding roads like um, which is the road I live on, which already is sometimes in the mornings you can hardly get out of the driveway.

Um so uh in conclusion, your decision today will affect my future and the future of other children.

Uh uh, and my hopes of re being able to read my family in this area.

Um even though I'm only 15 by 2050, I'll be already have a family.

And if you approve this, there will be congested roadways, inadequate water supplies, crowded schools, and one of the worst things is there will be a loss of wildlife habitats and less animals.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Well said, young man.

All right.

Next up, we're gonna go to Kelly Miller and Kevin Fales Falls.

Hi.

Um, thank y'all for listening to us tonight and giving me the opportunity to clear up that question I had earlier.

Again, my name is Kelly Fells Miller.

This is my brother Kevin.

Kevin Fells.

And um, we live.

Well, if you step out to the end of my driveway where my mailbox is, and you look to the east or to the west, I'm sorry, if you look to the west, you can see the border of Two Rivers Ranch where they're planning on putting this new town, as they're having said tonight.

And to the north is not but just a little ways, uh, maybe maybe a quarter of a mile north of me.

And my property, we have you have to have five acres of land to have one house.

And they're putting all these homes on this land, and it's not just the how the house itself, but now you're putting in roadways, you're putting in sidewalks, and you're gonna probably put in a clubhouse at least one for that many houses.

There may be a couple of clubhouses.

So all of this is gonna be taking up more space.

Umping an environmentally sensitive area of land, which has always been told we've lived in this area all our lives, and um we were always told that the Thomas family that yes, they may have been uh at one time very environmentally conscious.

That might have been their great-grandfather, their grandfather, and maybe their father.

Now we're on to a new set of Thomas' that are probably more looking more for money than the environment.

Um I think that a lot of their wanting to develop this is financial motivation, but not just that, but we'll go on to the traffic, like so many people have said tonight.

The traffic in that area has changed so much in the last three or five years, and that's because of all the other neighborhoods and growth that's going on out in northeast Hillsborough County.

It's it's crazy.

But this area is two rivers ranch management, wildlife management area.

It was designated, they called it always called it a wildlife management area, and they said it was always gonna stay that.

Um, and again, yeah, if you start putting all these houses in, they're gonna be wanting to tap into the water source, do um, you know, keeping their yards irrigated, putting in their swimming pools, keeping those maintained, and all of the showers and everything, car washes, whatever they're gonna be doing, they're taking water, which is a very valuable resource for Florida.

Yes, we're covered, we've got water three sides of us, but it's not drinkable.

Our drinkable water is in the aquifers, and it's going to be impacted.

No matter how hard they try, it will be impacted.

Um the roads out that way.

Someone that one of our neighbors we've met earlier, uh, was saying that Quelmadow Road now has all right, Miss Miller.

That's your time.

That's your time.

Okay.

All right.

I'm sorry, I picked up your car.

All right.

Next up we have Stephen Hunt, and after Stephen Hunt, we have Byron Nelson and Eric S.

Seavers.

So Stephen Hunt, Byron Nelson, and Eric Sievers.

How are you doing, Stephen Hunt?

I'll make it quick.

I'll try to make it quick.

Um, I grew up here in Tampa.

I went to Lake Till High School.

My family worked in the shipyards, my grandmother rolled cigars.

Love this town.

But at the point where my neighborhood got to 90 breaking and inarings a month because of the growth and amount of people that were coming in.

I moved out there.

So I love the place.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, sir.

All right.

Next up, Byron Nelson.

Then Eric Seivers.

Uh my name is Byron Nelson.

Um I built a house uh in the Midway area about 30 years ago, my wife and I did, just to get away from city living.

And we've been there for a while, and now the city of Plant City is annexed to cells around me.

I have on two of my fences, it's their building is development out there.

Um the point is that we bought some property to get away from that, and uh out on uh dormanty loop.

Well, now they're talking uh when we moved out there.

Now we're talking, we've about to move out there, we've got to build a house yet, and this is comes up, so it's not a good place to go.

So I've been kind of hunting around trying to find a place in Hillsborough County where we can go.

Um most of the people from what I've heard talking to other people of that they live out in that area, they live there because they wanted to get away from developments and live in a rural area.

And in my opinion, this develops not consistent with the current land use out there.

If I heard the lady earlier, I think she said there were 23,000 uh dwelling units.

And if I heard that correctly, uh 23,000 dwelling units on 8,000 acres, comes at like 2.8 dwelling units per acre.

Now maybe I got something wrong.

If you'll correct me if I did, but anyway, which which is pretty dense.

Um roads are not gonna be able to handle a lot of the traffic.

I used to do noise studies and put barriers along if you go down I 75 south, some of the barrier walls you see.

I designed, I'm not proud of that.

I'd rather they put the things farther back.

But nevertheless, our engineer typically use about 10 vehicle trips per day per dwelling unit.

Now a trip is if you leave to go out, that's one trip, you come back, that's two.

So each one's a trip.

But if there's actually 23,000 dwelling units at 10 trips per day, that's 230,000 trips per day in there.

Uh and if I'm wrong on the number of dwelling units, you you can still do the math and come up with what the traffic would be.

Anyway, um our roads just can't handle this.

Getting out on some of the roads around here in the morning at 8 o'clock in the morning or 7 30 is next to impossible.

I heard some people say that about nights, Griffin.

It's definitely true.

Anyway, we need to keep this area rural.

Um not all of Hillsborough County needs to be developed.

We need to keep some rural areas somewhere.

Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Next up, Eric Seavers.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Eric Seavers.

I'm a Hillsborough County resident and a senior ecologist at Wildlands Conservation.

Um it's a 501c3 nonprofit conservation organization in Hillsborough County.

Um this proposed change would undo decades of important and collaborative conservation work done to preserve significant wildlife habitat, sensitive environmental lands, wildlife corridors, and the Hillsborough River watershed.

Hillsborough River State Park, Blackwater Creek Nature Preserve, Lower Green Swamp Nature Preserve, and Lower Hillsborough Wilderness Preserve would all be permanently impacted and degrade already purchased ELAP and state conservation lands.

Um according to discussions I've personally had with Hillsborough County Conservation and Environmental Land Staff, this property in question is the most important parcel remaining for preservation in Hillsborough County.

I had that conversation this week.

Um so sort of in an overall here.

Um as evidenced by staff recommendations and tonight's turnout.

Um I don't think you'll find many empty seats here.

Uh this is my first planning commission meeting.

How many folks here?

Is this your first time at a planning commission meeting?

All right.

Yeah, quite a quite a turnout, quite a few people here um who are concerned with this.

So with those things in mind, I would urge you to find this proposed land use change um inconsistent.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Anna Rittenhauer, and after Anna, we have A N D R it looks like Phyllis is the last name.

I was on there, but I'm on the out.

Oh, okay.

Sorry.

Mr.

Phillips.

I don't Andrewson.

Yes, yes, yes, okay, yeah.

On day.

Yeah, all right.

I gotcha, I got you.

Sorry about that.

Definitely won't find that at Walt Disney World.

Well, commissioners, thank you very much for your time.

Um my name's Andreason Phillips.

I live on 6708 Dixie Roadway Lane.

Um, Plant City, Florida, it's right off Bruton Road.

Um I am respectfully opposing this rezoning.

Um, I'm a third generation owner of this land.

Um my property relies on the watershed that that property that you're trying to develop to drain off of.

It when when we when I get a hurricane, it floods.

It's just what I gotta deal with.

So if they develop that land, my that water has nowhere to go.

Um I did notice that we didn't happen to show what Quail Meadow Road looks like.

If you live out in that area, it is a single lane road.

Most of us drive F 250s, which they're they're not very small.

Um, you have to pull off on the side of the road.

Okay.

Um it's not developed out that way.

Um we all live on wells.

With that being said, where's the water gonna come from?

Um there's no infrastructure out there for city water or city sewer.

Um if if this goes on, you can change that strawberry on Plant City to just a green with Plant City on it.

The strawberry fields are gonna go away.

There they're just gonna be nothing available anymore for nobody.

Um the as stated before, the emergency response times out there, you you got 30 minutes.

Basically, we rely on our neighbors, realistically.

Um I'm very good friends with a lot of the neighbors that I'm around.

And if something happens, you call them, and then you call whoever you need to.

Uh the schools, I went to Plant City High School.

I'm gonna graduate from there.

It was in portables when I went there and graduated in 04.

It they have built strawberry crest, which took some of that burden away, but there are no plans for anything outside of that.

Uh went to Marshall Middle School.

It's busting it seemed as well.

So once uh one of the things is once farmland is taken away, there's no you don't see it come back.

You know, you don't hear about people buying subdivisions making farmland out of them.

So I'm I'm all for development, but however, it needs to be smart.

I got I'd like to thank you all for your time and God bless.

Thank you.

Alright, next up we have Kyle A, and after Kyle, we have Charlie A or Charlie S.

My name is Kyle Laskew.

I'm a sixth generation uh Floridian, descendants of uh Becky and Samy Macintosh.

Um I'm a homeowner out there.

I live on Dormanty Loop and I'm a first responder in PASCO.

I'm a uh firefighter station at 18, which is the closest uh fire station to this uh proposed neighborhood.

So what they didn't say is PASCO doesn't run in Hillsboro unless we're requested.

Hillsboro takes care of their own.

The next two closest stations are next to Keel and Curly and past uh Lake Thinodasa, which is 15, 20 minutes plus.

So if those two are out of service, it's gonna take any longer.

Um there's uh similar community like they're uh proposing up in the Pasco to uh 56 area.

The response time from the beginning of that neighborhood to the back is upwards of 15 minutes.

It takes an extraordinary long time just to get back there.

There's no no plans of fire stations going in the back on the side, around any of it, so it's not feasible.

Um I see a lot of people in here wearing boots, stewards of the land.

I think we should uh respect the amount of work it takes to uh to do that hard work and continue it for generations like me and the younger people in this room.

Um there would be a buffer zone between Quail Meadow and the proposed neighborhood.

It looked like there wasn't, it would just be stacked right on top of it.

Would there be routes to get to 301 to 39?

I don't know.

It takes me about 50 minutes now to get to Wesley Chapel.

Takes me about 35 to get to Plant City, 25 to Zephyr Hills, and then about 35 to Temple Terrace.

Those are the nearest towns that's where everyone's gonna be driving to.

So you can probably see those times increase by probably 15 minutes.

It's in the morning, it's even longer.

Um so I think everyone here made a pretty strong um opposition, made reasonable points.

I didn't see many good points presented at all from uh the party standing next to me.

Um environmentally wise, I didn't see any good that could come out of it.

I didn't see anything at all.

Um that's all I got.

Just respectfully, please consider uh declining this offer.

Thank you.

All right, next up we have Charlie A or Charlie S.

Sorry.

I'm his brother, also sixth generation from Scott Mac or Scott McIntosh.

Let's see.

I have a few issues.

Um growth needs to be done responsibly without it being done responsibly.

You get issues such as response time, crashes on the road, inadequate transportation for our wildlife.

I've noticed that it 301 backs up probably in four mile sections.

You cannot get through 301 efficiently in any time that anyone needs to travel it.

Going to work and going home takes an hour if you decide to go on 301.

I exclusively avoid that road during these hours.

I travel on Knights Griffin, Knights Griffin is not large enough, Knights Griffin needs to be repaved.

Knights Griffin will be the access road for the bottom end of this community, as well as 39 and 301.

They are not wide enough, they do not have enough shoulder.

The drainage will be inadequate, and that will probably be passed on to the taxpayers of Hillsborough County.

The land is not permeable.

The concern I have for wildlife passing through the area is going to be dwindled.

I saw a picture of a Sandhill Crane.

Sandhill Crane will be fine, but a Florida cat will not.

I'm wondering about the housing standards of the building.

Are they going to be hurricane proof?

I see all new construction being made out of polyboard.

Polyboard is cheap.

Polyboard will fail.

Polyboards made to be destroyed.

Let's see.

There is a large amount of homes being built on 301 already on the left and the right side.

They are not all purchased.

There is room for people to go there.

This is a new town.

I graduated Strawberry Crest maybe six years ago.

It was full then.

It's probably already full now.

This is too much traffic, too much housing, too much impact environmentally for responsible growth.

And as stewardess of the land, I ask for responsible growth.

This is not the land for it.

We don't have much of it left.

That's mostly what I have here.

But I want to emphasize the aquifer and the permeable land.

This land is wetland, and I saw it had circles of wetland location.

I believe the entire land is wetland because it's permeable.

It's just how water goes through land.

That's your time, sir.

Thank you.

Next up we have Chris O'Kelly and Karen McColski.

Oh, okay.

What about Karen?

Karen McCalsky, Karen Michalski.

All right, we'll move on.

Possibly come back to Tegan Zaley and Sterling Nelson.

Here wanting to Okay.

Come on.

Yeah, you can come on.

Hello.

My name is Sterling Nelson.

Uh going through this quickly because I know the time.

Um first I'd like to think about the future of our younger generation.

I'm proud of this young man here who I've never met before, and this young lady over there who's 18.

I myself am 22.

We are the future, and I want to keep that in mind.

Our future is important to us.

And we have young generations speaking about this already.

Um the next thing I want to point out is humans in general, we produce trash.

It's inevitable.

There's trash on the side of the roads.

With that being said, there's a lot of farmers out there in that area, and with that trash being around our cattle, our strawberry fields, it's going to pollute our food, which we consume.

Uh continuing.

Um, I like myself get my beef from Davis Family Cattle, which is a local farmer in that area who will be affected by this.

Um another person mentioned is on Quail Meadow Road.

It is a one-lane road.

Um another road is Dormony Road on West Romany Road.

The road itself, I don't know if any of the commission board here has driven on it.

It needs to be repaved.

And with all of that traffic, it's gonna get worse.

Um there's people who will drive in the middle of the road to try and avoid the bumps and messing up at the road.

Um, another one is the young lady over there pointed out the homeless camp.

Uh this is an issue I have also seen.

Me and my family, unfortunately, have driven past them and seen their camps.

We could call it as in sorts, their tents as they sit there on the side of the road.

Um another thing to mention is the wildlife.

For example, the golfer golfer turtles.

Um based off my short research on them.

Um, they're a threatened species, and they are in our area.

They are in the preserve, and they are in this land that we are asking to not be developed.

With that being said, if we develop it, it's going to ruin their threatened species even more than they already are.

Um another issue would be dry wells.

I know that there's families out there, as in the overflow room, he were speaking on it, saying how they have currently right now dry wells.

This will become worse if we develop this land.

Um you should also see the amount of people in the overflowing room.

There's more families out there who are speaking upon this together, seeing how this should not be done.

So please take into consideration the young generation that has shown up here today and took in the time to try and protect our future.

I have a two-year-old sister who is currently in the overflow room right now, and I want to protect my little sister's future.

Thank you for their time.

Thank you.

All right.

Do we get Karen or Teagan?

Karen or Teagan.

Oh, we got someone.

Um, am I able to share?

Uh should be.

There you go.

Okay.

Um, can I move this?

I don't believe so.

No.

No.

Okay.

Uh can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, great.

Uh, Karen Mahalski, do I need to say my address?

No.

No.

Okay, awesome.

Um, so everyone is here, and why is everyone here?

Everyone is here because it is designated, this area is designated as rule.

So, why is everyone in outrage and they are asking to for you to support the amazing staff report stating it's inconsistent.

It's because they believed the comprehensive plan that the planning commission has created that says this is rule.

It is rule until 2050.

It's rule.

So they want to keep it rule.

That's why they're asking you to support the staff report that said this is inconsistent.

Now, here are all of the reasons why everyone moved to this area and why they want to fight for rule.

So here is your own map.

And the designation, kernel density value, zero, which is light green.

This is tell 2050.

It's expected to have density of zero.

Okay.

Here's another one.

So kernel density again, zero is the light pink.

This is your documentation of the planning commission.

And why everyone is here has moved to this area because they believed that this is a comprehensive plan that is strategic planning.

It is not to be changed because of a someone deciding that they want to build, and they are wanting to carve out this planning environmental community.

Um planned environmental community.

Now, why is everyone also maybe not be aware is that this same family has paid the same lawyers?

They withdraw the application, CP 25, 21.

Everyone write that down.

It was withdrawn.

They wanted to change the planned environmental community from one two to one one.

So what is that gonna do?

Everyone, it's doubling up.

Someone said 23,000 homes, 23 times two, 46,000 homes.

It used to protect 40% environmental spaces, all this by uh environmental protection, gone.

They want to do 20%.

Yes, the CPA, 2521 has been withdrawn, but if this gets approved, they can push that through, and now everything's doubled.

And this is a financial disaster for Hillsborough County, financial disaster, as everyone stated.

What's my time?

30 seconds.

So I urge you to support the staff's amazing report.

I urge you to support your own strategic plan that is strategic planning for 2015 and to main this rule designation.

Growth belongs in the urban service area.

The county cannot afford it.

The consequences of this decision at this time.

Maybe in 2050, another time, but not now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

And after Teagan, Eliana Holt.

Thank you guys for your time.

I really appreciate it.

Um, I am here to also oppose this.

I've lived about a mile south of Two Rivers Ranch my entire life.

And it's everything, I mean, I'm just pretty much going to reiterate what everybody else has said.

It's beautiful out there.

We have so much wildlife.

We are very wet out there, and I'm not even gonna go to Milton.

Milton was unprecedented, right?

But every single summer, numerous properties out there have water anywhere from an inch to a foot in any given area.

We are wet.

It's just how we live.

We know that we prepare for it.

But this property is a huge watershed for us.

They go out there and build on that.

It's gonna now start flooding us and impacting us in ways that we can never imagine.

And that's gonna have a huge issue for us.

The roads, I the only way I can get out on the road is by highway 39 or Knights Griffin.

That is those are my two access points.

At any given time of day, I honestly feel like I'm gonna die trying to get out there because the traffic is so heavy.

And that's with me making right turns, not even left turns.

Left turns, that's a whole different issue.

Our infrastructure is not prepared for it.

Somebody brought up Dorminty Road.

I live off of Dormony.

It's like driving a roller coaster every single day.

Um you look like a drunk driver trying to avoid the potholes.

I'm not kidding.

Every time it rains, new potholes pop up.

We cannot support the infrastructure.

We just can't.

It's not there right now.

Like Michelle said, maybe in 20, 30 years, it's not there now.

Fire department, EMS, police, they're too far away to reach Quell Meadow at any timely manner.

Um I just I strongly urge you guys to support the staff and their document and find this inconsistent with your plan.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Eliana Holt.

This Eliana Holt.

My name is Eliana Holt.

I would like to thank everybody in this room for their time and consideration today.

As a young second generation resident of Plant City, I am here to ask that you please vote against this land use change.

I've been deeply involved in 4-H, participating in land ecology, and ecology and land judging events among many other agricultural and conservation events, efforts, and activities.

I have also volunteered extensively with local conservation groups with a strong emphasis on soil, water life, and water conservation.

We know that youth, myself included, and the others in this room are the future of our communities, and we do not want our futures to be negatively impacted by large developments.

This plan stands to triple or quadruple the traffic.

Crowd schools cause water supply issues and impact the environment and wildlife populations.

That includes birds, tortoises, otters, panthers, and other threatened and endangered creatures.

Respectfully, categorizing this development as an environmental community does not negate the habitat loss, environment disruption, and permanent loss of agricultural land.

The current infrastructure is not equipped to handle this impact as others have mentioned, and there are no provisions in the 10-year plans.

The traffic productions do not even seem to take into account the traffic from the industrial park that was recently approved by the city of Plant City.

Consider again that this land is directly tied to riverfront and wetland systems that feed the aquifer, and this change is likely to exacerbate drought conditions for those who depend on the system for drinking water.

The adopted current land use includes agricultural, agricultural, rural, agricultural mining, and natural preservation.

If this is changed, that will drastically increase the development potential and the impact.

As others have mentioned, the staff does say that this all is not consistent with the Hillsborough County comprehensive plan.

I ask you to please consider everything that we have all said today, and thank you for your time.

Thank you.

All right.

That is all we had sign up in the public comment for this one.

So I will turn it back over to you, Miss Corbett, for comments.

Excuse me, Chair, this is HTV.

Uh I believe we still have an individual aligned that wish to speak if you would like to hear them.

Uh all right, just one.

Yeah.

All right, let them go.

Make sure they identify themselves.

All right, Joshua, do you hear us?

Yes.

Uh my name's Josh Briggs.

I currently uh I I've shown up to many of your meetings over the last I'd say eight years, and there's a lot of things that I've found very consistent with what you guys seem as inconsistent.

So the consistency part is is uh you guys will probably approve or not approve this one.

You'll say, okay, you'll you'll rule in favor of uh the the staff's findings, but then you'll turn around and plant city will then run it, and then they'll say, Oh, well, it's consistent within plant city, so everything that you guys have decided on is ruling out what this is, you're gonna go ahead and approve it for plant city.

Now I've done this, uh been there many, many times, and there's a couple commissioners that when it's after public comments will go in and they'll say, Well, your your views are insightful, but they're not credible.

So the credible people meaning is the paid, you know, on the on the other side, the ones that get paid to represent somebody, but yet my own, you know, like I can show up with pictures and videos of yeah, the amount of flooding and why your decisions are poor, and I will be told that I'm not credible.

Or my other favorite one is well, it's it's farmland, so if it floods, it's okay.

Yeah, it's like you know, I've been I've had increased flooding on my property, but that means I gotta pay for uh all the restoration of that property.

I mean, like if I have cattle and I go to you know uh seed and fertilize and everything else, and then it gets wiped out of a flood.

Oh, I'm sorry, it's just flood lines, so it doesn't matter.

But now I've seven residents, uh seven homes that have been completely demolished.

They can't rebuild because they're now the spillways have shifted.

So now my the spillways are are and people can't rebuild after flooding.

So it's like as you guys, you know, and go ahead and keep adding to development, you're taking away land and water to so you're putting more volume on uh the older communities that our homes were not designed for to begin with.

But there's a process for that, it's called eminent domain.

You guys are but you're circumventing that I've got documentation to show for it because all you're doing is putting in the plan, you know, doing what the the lawyer games, you're forcing people to have to pay for attorneys, which I bore four different municipalities plant city, uh Hillsborough County, and Polk County.

So whatever you guys do in this area impacts me.

I have to go to four different meetings every single time.

So I'm seeing trends.

If I gotta pay at a lawyer for one, then I gotta turn around and do it again for plant city because they're gonna try to annex it and they will get approved, and then when we get told why you know why it shouldn't, we will be told by your staff that our our voices are not credible or information isn't credible.

So you guys are limiting the arguments, and you're you're forcing everybody else to just say basically take it, and if you don't like it, then you can go ahead and sell and try to move someplace else.

When we're you've got other people right there that have been moving away from the city.

All right, sir.

That's your time, HTV.

You can cut it.

All right, that's all we had sign up in the public comment.

Back to you, Miss Corbett, for a response.

Cammy Corbett again with the law firm of Hill Ward and Henderson.

I may need 60 extra seconds.

I'll try to get through it a lot that because there's a lot of information that was put out there that may or may not be accurate.

Um, first of all, just to reset this, this is not a rezoning.

We're not asking you to rezone, you don't hear rezoning.

So a lot of the questions and comments about infrastructure and fire stations and schools, they're really not before you.

What this is is a land use change, changing property that has a has land use designations such as agricultural mining and agricultural, and in the agricultural mining portion of the property, which is exactly where the Hillsborough River is, mining is currently allowed.

Industrial uses are currently allowed.

And what the Thomas family saw.

This is their property.

They see scattered lot rural residential approaching them around them on the east side.

There's industrial, and there's industrial encroaching from Plant City coming this way.

There were two two three million uh three million dollar or sorry, three million thousand square foot, or I'm sorry, three million square feet of industrial prude in plant city.

Um, and recently, and so what the Thomas family was looking at was all of the activity around them, and what did they want for their property and not they don't have a developer in hand?

This is not they were not related to the other PEC application.

I was the lawyer, but Mr.

Thomas is not any part of that, and that is not something that is his objective.

There's not a developer here, it's the Thomas family, and this is their vision for how this property should develop in the future.

And talking about a predictable land use pattern, this is what they're trying to do is what is a predictable land use pattern if this property develops in the future.

How will we protect the environment?

How will the wildlife corridors be protected?

What can we do to require that they be protected and that parts of bits of the land in the future can't be sold off for random development?

This plan category requires a plan development zoning.

So before this property can be developed for residential uses beyond the 704 units, there has to be a whole nother process, a whole PD zoning demonstrating all of the buffers, the screening at that time that they come in for rezoning, they're going to have to demonstrate how are they going to satisfy the requirement that they will have public water and sewer.

They can't develop with residential.

If they place this plan category over their property, those 705 homes can't be built with wild and septic.

All of the homes that will be built will have to be on public water and sewer.

And all of those um things will be addressed at that time of development.

And then um just want to repeat this is a rural land use category.

I've heard lots of talk about suburban encroachment.

This category is a land rural land use category in your plan.

And this is what the Thomases have brought forward, not for money, but for the purposes of them planning their land for the future, and we'd respectfully request uh approval or a finding of consistency.

Thank you.

All right.

Now that everybody has had their say, it is our turn.

So again, please be respectful while we have our discussions.

Um, but it is over to the planning commissioners for questions, thoughts, comments on this one.

Not seeing a lot of motion.

I'll set it off.

Oh, Mr.

Cardanas.

Um, so so with that said, there's no the they have no plans immediately to do anything.

This is they're they're just trying to protect the land, uh the way they see it.

Yes.

We don't there it's an active ranch, it's continuing to be farmed and the agricultural for right now, but this is their long-term vision for the property.

I have a question for staff really quick.

Um there seems to be a lot of confusion as to whether or not the environmental protections of the PEC 1 to 2 are more stringent than the current environmental protections in place.

Which set has more restrictive environmental protections?

The PEC one half, one to two, or what's currently there now?

Uh this is Jillian Massey with planning commission staff.

I would imagine that the PEC 1 to 2 category has more stringent requirements as far as the the butt the wetland buffers.

Um isn't also true the PEC one half requires the input of the EPC and also an environmental environmental management plan.

Is there any other planning category in the comprehensive plan that requires an environmental management plan?

I I there isn't any other categories that require that.

However, any property that's rezoned that has wetlands on it would have the input of the EPC.

Okay.

And then have their involvement with the wetland mitigation measure.

Okay, so the environmental engineer who came up and spoke about all the increased protections for the Hillsborough River and all those things was correct then.

He is correct, yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Commissioner Kugler.

Thank you.

I think currently they cannot build houses on it with the current zone, current uh land use, is that correct?

But they can do mining.

And I would I would assume with that proximity to the river and the uh watersheds that the mining would have to be incredibly monitored by EPC as well.

No?

Uh so the the first part of your question is they can build residential on it currently.

Um they could build potentially up to around 700 units.

Um it probably would be less considering how many wetlands are on the site or how many acres of wetlands.

Um and yes, I would imagine that uh a use such as mining would be heavily regulated by the EPC.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Lincoln.

Um I just don't know what other I'd otherwise have a chance to say this, but I just um want to acknowledge all the um young speakers who came out, and I really think that that was a terrific representation of your community and um very cool to see.

We don't usually see that, so thank you very much.

Could I just clarify one thing quickly for the record?

I heard a number of folks in the audience um mentioning something about 23,000 units.

I'm not sure where that came from, but the um under the PEC 1 to 2 category, um the calculated potential density um would be around 3900.

So nowhere near 23,000.

I'm not sure where that came from, but I just wanted to clarify that.

All right.

Commissioner Sink, thank you.

I actually appreciate you clarifying that.

So the 3900 is taken before you even consider environmental protected area, is that correct?

Yes, it's strictly just based on the total acreage of the site.

It's not considering that there's you know thousands of acres of wetlands.

Right.

So that would be if it if everything was buildable and there's no wild wildlife protection, that would be the number.

But being that this is did we know a percentage of that property that is protected?

Um I do not know that exact percentage, but I do know that um under the future land use section, as far as how density is calculated, if anything is over 25 percent wet, which this definitely is, um, then density is calculated a bit differently.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Commissioner Jameson.

So to clarify, as this property's proximity to plant city, there was mention about possible annexation.

It's far removed from any potential annexation into plant city.

Would you agree?

I would agree with that, yes.

Thank you.

Commissioner Bowden.

Yeah.

Um thinking about the preserving the wetlands and the increase in density, would there be any uh transfer of density rights?

Um I'm not entirely sure about that.

There's not a transfer of density rights, but under the plan, as Gillian said, if if they have more than 25 percent of their property as wetlands, then the density gets calculated on their uplands multiplied by 1.25.

They get like an extra a little bit of an extra credit for that 25 percent, but it's based mostly on their uplands.

And then they're allowed to cluster the units on on that upland area that they have.

So it's not they're not really able to transfer them from anybody else's property, but they can they can move them from one part of the property to another to cluster them together on the uplands.

That was Mike.

That was kind of my thought was that uh the user they entire property, the entire all of the land, but then they uh using the formula to actually increase the density in locations.

Right.

Whatever the calculation end up coming out at, let's say, because of all the wetlands, it really only is two thousand units they can get.

Then that number of units can be clustered on um on the upland portion.

So it's not that they're required to have a two-acre lot for every home.

That's just the overall density, and then they can put them like cluster them together in the spaces that are appropriate for there to be development.

And clustering is required by the PEC one to two, correct?

That's so clustering, it's even forced to cluster in the PEC.

Okay.

Yes.

Commissioner Cardinals.

Um I I just want to say a couple of things because I I think about I hear all you guys speaking, and uh and then you guys see us up sitting here.

Um for one, everybody that's sitting up here is is volunteering.

We're we're volunteering here to make some decisions to try to help our community to make good direction.

But at the same time, there's always there's always a a massive amount of misunderstanding of what we do here, and then at the same time, what what gets done, what these attorneys you're here for, um kind of the process when it leaves here, when it goes to the county or when it goes to the city, all these different places.

Um part of I guess what I'm what I'm hoping for, and I'm hoping that maybe staff can help us um kind of explain what it is that the the family's trying to do with with this change versus what would happen if they turn around and sold the the the property or sold the property in pieces the way it is now.

Um so maybe we can get a little bit of understanding on that, is that fair?

Ms.

Lord?

I mean, I can try, but you may want to to ask the applicant as well.

I mean, under the current land use categories, they can build uh a maximum of of 700 some units.

Um and uh anything to get more than that would have to come before this body for a comprehensive plan amendment, just like the applicant is doing right now.

Um again, that 700 units is dependent on what the actual density calculations turn out to be based on the environmental land on the property.

So that the maximums are as Jillian well said, are based on just the the gross acreage to provide an order of magnitude of comparison of what this category allows versus the the PEC one-half, part of the trade-off in that PEC land use category is they're allowed to do additional density because they're doing some additional environmental protections.

And um ultimately it was staff's finding that was uh wouldn't be compatible with the surrounding area, and there wasn't the infrastructure to serve it, but that's that's the crux of it is that that's the point of the category and why it was set up to begin with.

The sellers are selling the pieces of land off, and somebody might come and purchase and do one thing versus another thing.

The seller in this instance is trying to control that to a certain extent.

To try to protect the land, at least that's what I'm seeing here.

I would agree with you, Commissioner Cardenas.

My read of the thing was that you know it seemed like they're they're trying to be more environmentally sensitive and restricting what can happen.

I mean, bigger buffers around things, and when I read through the report, you know, you you all know me, I'm a crazy reader guy.

When you get down to the nitty-gritty of it, it goes towards even saying things like, okay, when uh drainage ditch crosses over a road, the road has to be a certain material and you know, pervious pavings and all kinds of water retainment and water cleaning and all kinds of stuff that you don't really see anywhere else.

Again, I I bring up the environmental management plan.

I think that's huge.

Sorry, I you know, I've done some minor studies in environmental science, nothing big, I'm just a lay person here.

But there's no other comp plan category that demands an environmental management plan.

And I think that's a very huge thing.

Like that to me, if you were planning on just going crazy with development and ruining the environment, you wouldn't bind yourself to an environmental management plan.

And I could be wrong about that.

Maybe there's something I'm missing, but you know, I and it this, you know, it gives me pause like some of the other ones we've heard in the past.

It always upsets me a little when the community comes in, and I know we can't control it.

The community is gonna say what they say, but it seems like we have to share this information with these people so that they understand when you come in and you're you know, you're you're kind of wanting one thing and not realizing that what you're wanting could be more detrimental for you in the future, you know, that's that's a a very precarious thing to me.

And again, my read of this thing is that this will save the bald eagles.

This will help to protect some of these animal corridors, you know, and I mean I don't I again I could be reading this thing wrong, but staff definitely said the environmental protections are gonna be greater here.

I understand that they're gonna add more houses as a trade-off for that, but you know, I guess it's where you fall on that, but to say that they're just gonna ruin the entire environment and they're just gonna go crazy with development and there's gonna be, you know, residences all over this thing, I think is a is a a bit of a stretch.

So, you know, I that was just my two cents.

That the the disconnect kind of, you know, troubles me a little bit.

It kind of troubles me a little bit.

So Commissioner Lincas.

I um I have I have concerns about the the proposal.

Um but I uh um um an academic, a planning academic, and a lot of my research looks at um properties for large landholdings outside of the urban service areas in the state of Florida, and consistently I see a pattern of um development agreement kinds of things and and where where some area of the land is conserved and some is developed.

And I um think the history on a lot of this is is not what it could be.

Um I just Lakewood Ray and if you trace that history was really intended to have these sort of rural preserve areas.

I don't think that you could go there and say that there's much more than sort of like recreational amenities in terms of a lot of the the open space preserved there.

I don't think it's a wildlife corridor.

Um there's a lot in Collier County that I'm familiar with with the rural and stewardship areas there.

Um this ability to kind of really this these this patterning where you enter pr interpose um protected areas and conserved areas is it can be really challenging and problematic.

I love the vision.

I love that that there's um you know tools in the toolbox that make it work, but for um I think one speaker said this is the largest kind of best piece of property left in in Hillsborough County, and I I'm not sure that this is really gonna get us to what folks in this room were talking saying that they want.

So I I have concerns about this proposal.

Commissioner Kugler.

Thank you.

Um Yeah, I've I've toured stayed in uh a number of eco-villages, and you know, there is the planned environmental community, which is a a roadmap for a good stewardship of the land.

But as we know, uh individuals within that are individuals within that.

And as some people brought up the issue of um people putting out fancy lawns that were were not supposed to be there, perhaps in the original plan, but people do their own thing.

And you had situations in Long Island where let's face it, if they had followed the label directions, their their drinking water would have still been potable.

But because people say, uh, I've got so many bed, you know, bugs or termites, I'm gonna double the dose.

Well as people take individual choices into hand.

They they do distort what's originally built as a planned environmental community, and they take it in their own their own interpretation is what often destroys it for them.

So I'm I'm cautious of how well not only is the design but how well is the enforcement of it.

If everybody goes out and b uh puts big sod down, it's gonna change everything.

But if they if they stay within the um environmental um we talk about trying to keep the character of a community, if they stay within the character of that community, it'll probably be just leaves on the ground, not sod and then huge amount of nitrate pouring into the river.

It's gonna be very tough to filter that out as as uh Port of Manatee showed us.

And that was with gypsum stacks.

Again, mismanagement, I know.

Yeah, it's unfortunate here.

We don't have uh, you know, that's not our purview to talk about the management and site design and things like that.

So I think down the road.

Right.

Commissioner Cardenas.

Yeah, and I also want to say like when I saw this and I saw how many s how many acres it was, it was it's huge.

It's huge.

I don't know the last time we had something this big come before us.

So it's on on our side, I think all of us looked at this and said, Oh wow.

So it's not um we're we're in the same way going through this and trying to understand it.

Nobody here knows to a certain extent, you know, everybody's objective on the other side.

Um but looking at the way that it's presented to us is the way that we kind of tend to see the differences because we see consistency or we see inconsistency and how things come before us.

So Commissioner Seabin moving.

Um I had a question for Ms.

Corbett.

Um how were these determinations of conservation made, I guess.

How how was this plan, you know, how was this plan, how did this come about?

Where you guys made these specific choices?

So the PEC one-half land use category was uh something that the Thomas family created in conjunction with the agencies are involved.

Um they worked with they proposed the PEC one-half uh plan amendment, and actually, in between the planning commission and the board hearing, they actually added a lot of policies that you see in the plan today, the specific policies for an HOA management plan to address Commissioner Kugler's um question regarding how do we educate people, individual landowners, we have those protections, and we came up with those in conjunction, and I wasn't involved at the time, but in conjunction with all the regulatory agencies that would oversee this, and the collective conclusion at the end of the day was that the category should and could be created and was created just to on the west side of US 301 for the first 2,000 acres.

And so the Thomas family was the one who created that category.

In fact, your plan says that if you have a regional resource like the Hillsborough River in on your property, PEC one half shall be the category for that property.

That's the language of your plan.

So that is what they created that category for was to protect that land so when it got developed by someone else 20 years later, that it would be done with that conservation management plan and that it would be done at a rural density and that it would connect to public water and sewer.

And so they are at a time now, at the time in 2005, the estate planning laws were such that the Thomases were motivated to keep their density as low as possible, the agricultural mining and the one to one to ten land use categories, but those laws have since evolved, and now it is not detrimental for them to put this protection on this part of their property.

And like I said, when they see the encroachment coming from Plant City and the encroachment coming from the south and the you know, sort of scattered lot rural residential, that's not the vision they have for their property, and that's why they're asking for that category now.

That answers your question.

So you said this how long ago was this 2005.

Okay.

The category was originally established and there was a rezoning in 2006 that accompanied that.

We don't have that rezoning.

Um, but it took 20 years for that to be in a position to be developed.

It's not, it's actually under development now.

Um and the the utility agreement was just approved.

It's a tri-party agreement between Pasco County, City of Tampa, and um Hillsborough County, which is what we would envision would be needed here.

So we would have to work with all of those local governments to ensure that we could provide the public water and sewer.

And if we can't do that at any point in time, we can't develop the residential.

That's a risk that the Thomas family is willing to take to protect the river from the industrial uses, the mining uses, and to have a long-term vision for this property.

And these provisions were all mutually determined by the family and then those municipalities you mentioned.

Were there any external consultants or anybody else who is you know contracted with to make these determinations?

I can't speak to exactly who the consultant team was that worked on it for the Thomas family before, but they got input from EPC and the other environmental agencies, uh, the park system, they communicated with all those stakeholders and were able to successfully establish the category.

And the original intent for the establishment of the category was the same.

Okay.

So and they they have environmentally sensitive land and habitat land on the other site on the western side that it all connects.

And so the original thought process is we want to protect that, and they were ready to do that with that parcel, those parcels of land.

They also have some parcels in PASCO has a similar approval on it, and those were established back in 25 and or 2020, 2006, and then now they're seeking to do the same on this property.

So I can understand where the neighbors would be concerned because you know it's uncommon for landowners to want to um preserve their property for conservation purposes.

You know, a lot of times people want to sell their property and get maximum value.

Right.

Can you speak to and I know we're not necessarily supposed to go into the details of this potentially, but can you speak to the like the intent here, maybe some of the history of I guess maybe go into maybe go into more detail if you have it as to why.

I mean I know you said that it's it's to determine the way that development happens but why would they be incentivized to it determine the way that development happens?

Because they don't want to end up in a situation where we have fragmented you know if if for against going back to their motto making sure that the the family carries out the vision it's one way to help ensure that the family carries out the vision because if at some point in the pars portions of the property could be sold off done what with one thing not have the protections quite frankly if this is denied the property is not protected.

It's agricultural mining it could be allowed that one to ten agricultural uses continue and then you just have the sort of standard buffers and wildlife habitat protections that you have in the code rather than having the heightened protections in the new code that is some of why and there actually is already about um thousand 1400 acres on this map that's already in a conservation easement already.

This is 977.

Oh 977 and the 1400 is up abroad so a thousand acres is already in a conservation easement that was that's in your record.

And so while we didn't designate it as natural preservation it was effectively the decision to not do that was effectively what Commissioner Bowden was getting at is sort of a transfer internal transfer of density so that we could count that land in the density calculation but move it within the property.

And when was that established?

The conservation agent 2017.

Okay thank you all right Commissioner Kugler I see you moving.

Thank you.

So I'm thinking that uh if we if we did nothing it'd be about 700 homes and if we if we make this uh planned environmental community it could be about five times that roughly about five times that number of homes on the ma in the maximum world right not applying wetland density credits which we already know would be about 3200 and not including any of the other additional preservation or anything like that.

So but again I also want to point out we're talking about residential right now it's entitled for 86 million square feet of non-residential uses and that will be this true before and after so it's not a matter of is this property going to be preserved and not developed that's not the question before you it's if and when it develops in the future what would be an appropriate category for the property.

I got you so I was thinking that um I I know the family the Thomas family is very concerned about the environmental qualities of the place and therefore mining would probably be the least likely choice but um it's it's available right now and about 700 homes are available right now versus going with these more heavier protections and about less than less than less than my calculation of five times.

Okay.

Thank you.

Just wanted to think of how um these could balance out your you're really balancing trade-offs in a way right commission um on the agricultural side the mining side I mean what could that look like if it got sold off industrial uses mining of some sort I mean those activities are allowed so there's no protections on the wildlife currently I mean those there's still protections right I mean you can't just kill endangered species right that's that's not permitted.

So there are still some protections that are out there and there's some protection for wetlands but there's not as much protection.

So this category would give more protections.

And it would not allow those things anymore industrial and mining would not be allowed if this category was approved they're specifically prohibited by the land use category I I would just add that there are processes with the county to like you have to get a a mine approved so it's not as if like they have to go through a special use permit that sort of thing.

So there are any other thoughts or I do have a question for you Ms.

Lornita because I heard that our agency was involved with the coming up of this land use category and Commissioner Lincoln said that this is kind of schemy and it doesn't really work in a lot of other places in Florida I believe she mentioned Lakewood Ranch.

I'm wondering does this policy we help create really help save the environment or is it a scam that we've contributed to what which is it well I think it's just the the other property that's subject of this land use category is just being developed now so I don't know that we have the true results of that.

It was not, and then when it went through the the planning commission, and Sean's here, he can uh he was involved just like it to the degree I or more than I was to college.

Um but my recollection was a lot of those enhancements were made when the state got involved.

This was back when the Department of Community Affairs was very active in the review of comprehensive plan amendments.

I recall there being policies that have since been removed about how many units could be developed based on the infrastructure.

There was a lot of um heavy hand of of the state as well as um local agencies in this.

Mr.

College is also our agency expert on environmentalism alongside Mr.

Diego Guerra, who's worked at the agency for many years.

So yes, Sean College Planning Commission staff, I was a long time environmental planner for the agency and now chief of planning and operations.

I I was here.

I started actually work here in 97.

I was here and part of the project team that worked on the PEC one to two.

Uh my I wasn't in a leadership position.

My recollection at that time as a young environmental planner was I was, you know, there was an application by the Thomas family to do this.

They were interested in seeing could we come up with a environmental category that would mitigate increased density, and we went to work on it uh as planning commission staff went to work on it.

We collaborated with other agencies, including the EPC and Tampa Bay Water and others, uh, on what could this look like and what could we do to create a category that would potentially have greater environmental protection for a for the potential for increased density.

And um this is what we ended up coming up with.

This is what went through the planning commission at the time and to the Board of County Commissioners and was approved.

And and and exactly as Mr.

Anita said, um, we're just now seeing some years later what's happening in that property.

So it's kind of too early to tell how that's gonna pan out.

But you know, but yes, that's the history that I recommend recall.

Commissioner Seaban.

Just to clarify, so you were here when this all happened before.

The what you're saying is it was an attempt to increase density while still considering environmental impacts, some sort of balance, I guess, greater than just increasing density, or you know, what were how did how did you think through that, I guess?

My recollection was is that there was a desire amongst the Thomas family to develop that property.

There was also an understanding that it is it was not in an area that was ripe for an urban or you know, heavily suburban style development in the near term.

But so the effort turned to could something else be done?

Could we is there a way to accommodate both?

You know, a development potential while protecting the environmental resources on this site to a greater extent and would be developed under the any other scenario that we currently had in the code in the comp plan.

So that was the balancing act, and that the charging orders were you know given to us to see what you can do to create a an environmental community, whatever that may be.

And those of us on staff and with other agencies that were scientists were environmental planners, went to work.

And looking at the code, looking at the competit, what could we do?

What would make sense?

What would be um palatable to the to the community, to our leaders, to the family itself, and see if something could could we could come up with that?

We came up with this and and at the time it passed.

You know, it passed muster.

I'm sure there were people from the community didn't like it, some many that did, but in the end, the planning commission and the BOC in particular who had to approve it, did approve it.

And how long did it take you to go through that process of coming up with all this back then?

You know, I at my age, my memory is not that good, but I I mean I would I would guess, you know, as today with anything of this extent, it probably took more than a year, you know, a year or two, maybe.

Um I mean, I remember I do a lot of meetings, you know, with EPC.

Uh, you know, we didn't do video calls back then.

We went to each other's offices and set in rooms and hammered this out.

I remember meeting with the Thomas family specifically, and you know, and seeing what their interests were and you know, and talking about the ideas we had for you know what we would want to see happen to protect the environment.

You know, the wildlife corridors are important, uh wetlands are important.

Buffers are very important.

Um it's something that um a lot of communities across the country have very extensive buffers for wildlife and for wetlands and corridors, and um in this part of the United States our buffers are quite a bit smaller than you might see in other parts of the country.

So we were looking at that, and you and as was in the previous uh presentation, there are more better buffers established for this PEC one to two.

Um so that's what we ended up coming up with.

Commissioner Cardinals.

So I got a question for you, Sean.

So you know, for one, I kind of want to say we we also keep in a consideration property owners' rights, right?

People this is their land, just how any of you might own your land, so this is their land.

So if if they wanted to, you know, really make some money on this thing, and this category wasn't available, what would be the category that they would be aiming for?

And can we have an idea what that density would look like?

Okay, well, I'm an environmental planner and that's a land use question which uh you know again they'd have to ask you that a lot of land use planners are at for everything.

Yeah, I mean the the other rural land use categories and c we have a one to two and a half acre category, we have a one-to-one uh one unit per acre category, um the the one to f the one to five, but some of those properties already that, so that wouldn't be an increase except for on the part that's the one to twenty, which is the mining piece.

Um so I mean, and I guess you know, theoretically they could come in, they can come and ask for anything they they want.

Um, you know.

So yes, those those are the other rural land use categories.

Um well if they were going uh but this is still keeping it rural, right?

Don't extrapolate too much now.

You gotta we gotta stay within our lane.

You're making Tracy sweat over there.

Commissioner Sink.

The question I guess that comes out of this is if this category was created specifically with this parcel of property in mind, how would it then be found inconsistent?

Well, it was created for the parcel on the west side of the property, and it it included uh I don't have any recollection of back in 2005 talking about this piece of property, but I wasn't in charge of doing all this back then.

That's correct.

That's right.

But the um but so the property on the west side was locate they they were able to say based on the fact that it was located in the Tampa service area that it would have access to water and sewer.

And that was part of what made the increase in density more palatable as you weren't gonna have one unit per two acres of septic tanks.

Um so that is one part of the category that the category in the plan as it says that the intent is to have be located where there's central water and sewer availability.

We did not hear from any of the reviewing agency that there were.

So that was one of our like cautions and gave us pause.

Certainly the applicant can potentially work that out over time, but that that was a a key factor in why that the west side was considered was that it had the potential through the city of Tampa to get water and sewer.

Commissioner Kugler.

Thank you.

And um the the um comments from the public were really, really impressive tonight.

Um there were people from the young from the elder and experienced and and the gentleman that has kayaked the whole length of it, um, which which gets me to the point.

I'm sure you'll shut me down, uh Chair Joseph at some point, but I do know that as Sean described this PEC in design, and then so crucial to design is also enforcement.

And I know that's not where we go.

But I i it still puts a big doubt in my mind if if that gentleman kayaking up and down that river sees stuff.

What do we do then?

And I know that's not our purview, and that's why you're gonna shut me down.

But I do want to I do want to say that I I think it's very important to know that uh not only is this the best option for us to go forward to protect it, or uh as the public got a really solid idea on what uh what we're gonna be up against in terms of where do we go then if if the design is beautiful but it fails anyway, because this pre this river is a super precious resource.

It's it's what we drink from.

Definitely.

And I didn't shut you down, I want that note.

All right.

Commissioner Seaban.

Um, Mike.

Sorry.

Um back to me.

Okay.

Commissioner Jameson.

Yes.

Question for Mr.

Dornito.

The parcel to the west or the development to the west, you mentioned the city of Tampa.

Was that property annexed by the city of Tampa?

Or is it unincorporated Hillsborough?

It was unincorporated Hillsborough, but there are areas within the unincorporated county that through an interlocal agreement, the city has a service area for utilities into.

And that was what it was in.

And so there was a um uh uh path that could be followed to say that even though the county doesn't have any services in this area for water and sewer, that they could potentially get them from the city of Tampa because of that interlocal agreement to between the county and the city.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

Commissioner Sabin.

Um how many planned categories have less units per acre in residential density than this one and I to extend on that?

How many in this general area?

If just off the top of your head.

Okay.

Um the we have uh one to two and a half, a one to five, a one to ten, and a one to twenty.

There are four categories that have lower density, um, and they are all found present in the surrounding area.

I mean, m a lot of the area where we heard from the speakers tonight are one to five, um uh one to two and a half.

Um, so would this make one the most dense then in the area, or is there more dense?

I mean, it's a little ways to the south before you find residential one closer to Plant City and uh like I4 and Thanona Sassa.

There are there are one unit per acre par properties, but in the immediately surrounding area, it's predominantly one to five and one to two and a half.

Okay.

Um Commissioner Jamison.

So one more question.

Do those rule categories allow for clustering?

Yes, all of the the uh all of the plan categories allow for clustering on the uplands, but as Commissioner uh Joseph pointed out, the PEC has a requirement for a certain amount of clustering.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions?

Commissioner, sorry, Commissioner.

Don't give me that title.

Um I just wanted to point out just one piece of information, as since we've been going through the history of this category, that category was recommended as inconsistent by the staff and the planning commission back in 2005.

So a lot of the changes, as Ms.

Corbett said, came after that finding.

Um the Board of County Commissioners still approved it and forwarded it.

Yes.

Which is an important thing to remember.

We're just a recommending body here tonight.

All you citizens out there, this isn't the last stop.

It still has to go before the board of county commissioners for the final decision, irrespective of what we choose to do here, right?

So whatever happens here, don't this is not the end of your road.

You still have another very important meeting to go to, perhaps the most important meeting, because we're just recommending.

We're not saying that it's approved or denied, or we're just making a recommendation to our elected officials here.

So keep that all in mind.

And also remind the commissioners if anybody has any intent on making a motion in opposition to the staff, please be able to have some sort of policies or goals or objectives set up to be able to make that motion.

So keep that in mind.

Commissioner Kugler.

Yes, Chair Chair Joseph, a question kind of for you.

Um this is land use only, and making a decision for the best possible yet land use.

Will enforcement be something that happens at zoning or beyond with the PEC uh bodies that come and do the inspect.

We don't know where to be.

That's Chad Chronister, I don't know.

You know, that's not our area.

So yeah.

Yeah, I would say that zoning enforcement um they're able to enforce what's in the land development code.

So I'm not exactly sure, you know, if all of the specific policies under the PEC category um are implemented in the code, but to the length of enforcement, yeah, that'll be worked out at the through the rezoning and and things like that.

Yeah.

Commissioner Lincoln.

I just um want to um kind of bring back into the conversation the many concerns about the adequacy of infrastructure in this location.

Um we've been talking a lot about sort of land use and density, but I think um the very serious safety concerns have been brought up.

Um the road capacity concerns, school concerns.

I mean, there's no there was no reviewing agency that I think didn't have a concern about the capacity in terms of infrastructure here.

Um so I think that's an enormous consideration and in this very remote spot.

Right.

We're gonna tie it up.

Is that it?

I'm gonna say a quick going once, going twice.

Do we have any more public comment?

Then I'm gonna go ahead and close the public comment on this item and open it up to the commissioners for motions on this item.

Do we need a recess or somebody's gotta make some kind of we got to do something one way or another?

Commissioner Cardenas.

Uh no, it's a motion, and then you can make comments after we have a motion before we take our vote.

Commissioner Kona.

Yeah, motion to find my glasses.

HC CPA 2537, inconsistent with the comprehensive inconsistent second, motion of inconsistency finding by Commissioner Kona, a second to that by Commissioner Lincoln's.

Any questions you want to make your comment now, Commissioner Cardenas?

Okay.

No, seeing no questions or comments.

I'm gonna kick it over to the clerk for a roll call vote because I don't know how this one's going.

So Alden, yes.

Cardenas?

Yes.

Kona?

Yes.

Yes.

Cookler?

Yes.

Lincoln?

Yes.

Seban?

Yes.

Sink.

Yes.

Joseph?

No.

All right.

Motion carried eight to one.

Chair Joseph voted no.

All righty.

That is the end.

Inconsistent.

Don't forget everyone, though, that isn't the end of the road.

You definitely got to go talk to those board of county commissioners.

So have a good night.

All right, that is the end of our public hearing for Hillsborough County.

And let's keep it down as you leave the room.

We still got some work to do here.

We're not going home just yet.

I know you you're all excited, but we're still here.

So good night.

And if everybody will bear with me, I will read us into our city of Tampa redistricting public hearing, which we still have to sit through here.

So everybody get yeah, exciting.

All right.

Welcome to the February 9th, 2026, first public hearing of the planning commission on City of Tampa redistricting.

We thank you for attending this meeting.

Your comments and participation are encouraged.

For those attending in person and wishing to speak on any agenda item, please sign the register at the rear of the room and turn off any devices that may be a distraction.

To minimize feedback in the audio, all online participants in the meeting will be muted until it is their opportunity to speak.

Planning commissioners should unmute themselves to indicate that they would like to speak.

Please be sure to state your name at the beginning of your remarks for the benefit of the clerk.

There will be an opportunity for members of the public to provide comments when your name is called.

Please wait until the chair calls on you to begin speaking.

State your name at the beginning of your comments and adhere to the time limits.

If anyone has difficulties or is watching via HTV and would like to provide comments to be included in the record for the local government hearing, please email them to planner at plancom.org.

For those of you who are not familiar with our processes, the meeting will be conducted as follows.

The agenda item will be introduced.

Staff will give their presentation with a 15-minute time limit.

The applicant will be given the opportunity to make a presentation with a 15-minute time limit.

Following presentations, members of the public may address the planning commission.

When recognized by the chairman, public comment will be heard for three minutes per person.

The applicant will be afforded a three-minute period for a bottle of response.

Planning commissioners will then ask questions.

Public comment will be closed.

Then upon a motion, a second and discussion of vote will be taken.

To all participants, please note that tonight's hearing concerns proposed changes to the comprehensive plan.

Presentations should not include matters related to zoning applications and site plans that are not before the commission.

Zoning conditions are not relevant to the plan amendments.

Here Kona, still here.

Kugler?

Here.

Lincas here.

Lauk.

Sieben?

Sink?

Here.

Barry?

Here.

Orton.

Lori Valangia for Michelle Orton.

Joseph.

Here.

Thank you.

You have quorum.

Thank you.

All right.

Our first item, first and only item of business is 2A City of Tampa redistricting 2026.

And the presenter is Yasser Gonzalez.

Yes, indeed.

Uh good evening.

This is Yesor Gonzalez.

Item 2A.

This is not a national item.

City of Tampa redistricting first public hearing.

You have received uh the presentation already in your package.

So we're gonna go through this expeditiously as it's getting late, and we're trying to be as efficient as possible.

But of course, I will be here as long as you would like me to for any questions.

There's always the opportunity to do uh one-on-one briefings.

So again, avail yourselves of that if you so desire.

Uh so the agenda for today, we have a we're gonna go over a timeline, why re district, equal population.

We're gonna show you the alternatives once again.

We did that in uh back in January, and uh the outreach effort and uh any key dates that we have.

So uh we started back in October.

Remember, we had our our our workshop on population when that was the soft opening for this process.

Then we two days later we launched the website and we started a comprehensive outreach effort.

And to this day, we've been meeting with stakeholders and uh having public meetings and such.

Uh tonight is the first public hearing, that's why it's crossed out.

Uh, we have two virtual open houses coming up.

March is the second and final public hearing, so please uh stick around for that because we need to, you know, we need we need to wrap everything up by April 1st.

And of course, uh the proclamation by the supervisor of elections will be uh again sometime before April 1st.

And then uh we're hoping in May, but maybe later, depending on the scheduling, uh, we're going to present to Tampa City Council an information item on the approved uh uh you know choice.

Why?

Why are we upsetting all these people?

Uh uh because it's required by law.

Uh um and we do it every four years.

We were here in 22.

We hopefully gonna be here in 20 in 2030.

Uh uh, and then um we also had 20,000 new people to moving to Tampa since 2020.

Uh so this is actually there was the second, you know, uh um the 2016 to 2020 was the largest uh period in which new residents came to Tampa, followed by 2021 to 2025.

We just looked at that data today.

Um equal population.

We discussed this back in October, but just to remind everybody, including y'all and people at home.

Uh per the US constitution, we use total population, no boarding age population or population by race.

And we use this fancy thing called range as a percentage of the mean uh or range, it's just a percentage, and you'll see.

Uh uh and and we'll describe what we do with that.

The American Community Survey uh is what we use as a census data product.

Now we're going to through this presentation incorporate some of the feedback that we have heard in the open houses.

One of the feedback is that why are we using 2023 data in 2026?

Well, because of the scheduling of the process and the way the census delivers some products, we're always gonna be like a year or two behind.

Like when we came here in 2022, we were using 2020 census.

When we come to you in 2030, we were using 2028 census or census product.

So that's usually the way it is.

There's nothing special.

Plus, remember, we also had a bit of a government shutdown, so that also didn't help uh uh trying to get earlier data.

So the alternatives are gonna follow, but uh we need to do reduce the range to 5%.

Currently it's 8.36%, as we explained in the in the workshop back in uh October.

We have a lot of limitations on how we do only 21 prisons can be moved out of 141 precincts.

So it's not like we can do anything we want.

We have to be super careful about what we do.

So for the benefit of everybody here and the benefit of people at home, this is what we facing right now, the status quo court in council districts.

So we start with Council District 4.

Not all of you live in Tampa, so let me, if I may take two seconds to just go over the council districts, because we're gonna go over them very quickly later.

So we start with Council District 4, South Tampa, then Council District 5 is East Tampa, then we drive west to Council District 6.

That will be the West Shore and Airport area.

And then north, when you include the university in New Tampa, you get Council District 7.

There are actually seven council districts in Tampa, but only four, these four, four, five, six, and seven are tied to a geography.

The other three are at large districts.

So these are the alternative.

Voila, we have the status quo at 8.36%.

It's red.

Oh, no good.

So we have the alternative one, two, three, and four.

Notice that all of them are less than five.

So the numbers to take here are again all the attendances are less than five.

And notice that the council districts have a around 100,000 uh, you know, people.

So every time I say, oh, we're moving 5,000 people here, 7,000 people here, is a percentage point or two for those of you that are keeping keeping uh math at home.

So the first alternative, yes.

We move in three precincts.

151, 169, and 342.

Uh 151 is moving from council district six to council district four, 169 from 5 to 6, and 342 from 7 to 5.

Now again, we're going to incorporate some of the feedback that we've heard uh here.

Uh there's been a strong opposition in moving any precinct out of council district five by uh the residents of that of that council district.

Uh uh it is the least populous district right now, so they feel that if they move anybody out of that district, like in this case, you know, uh uh 169 uh uh um out of out of there, that that will be harmful to them in terms of the cohesiveness of the African community community or the community for district council district five as a whole.

Now, this also Beula uh Baptist, which is an institute, says the name says institutional, it's been a pillar of that community for a long time.

We and I did my own you know verification of the of the claim.

We went back to 2007 and 20 years ago, and they were still there in the council district.

So it's always being a part.

Blake High School Beulah Baptists are part of that district.

So as we consider alternative one, something to be to be cognizant about.

It is this alternative though has the lowest range.

So this is this brings us once we do all these three moves, we get to 1.9.

We go from 8.36 to 1.9, so it has the lowest range.

So this is a close-up, and you can see that the the the three prisons that are moving there.

Uh 151, 169, and 342 up there uh to the top.

This is what the map looks like.

Again, you've been sent that uh uh this this presentation, so that's what we're going to be quickly over there.

This is alternative two, the simplest alternative, the cleanest alternative in terms of like one move and you're done.

345 moving from council district seven to council district five.

And um again, from the most populous council district seven, according to census data to council district five, the least populous, again, according to census data.

So uh the issue with this is only you only make one move, you are have a larger difference.

So it's uh it's around 4%, you know, 3.9%.

Uh uh, so that's the only difference with that.

That that is that is the you know, notice it is over there between uh, you know, uh, you know, um in that area where you have you know Bongaville, Bush Boulevard, you know, and such.

So so this is just a close-up, and here is what it looks like.

Again, this is the simplest alternative, alternative two.

Alternative three.

It moved three precincts, uh 249, 250, and 320.

Now, 249 to 50, as we explained uh in the in back in January, they got to move together uh from seven to six because they are the 40 sales neighborhood.

That's another neighborhood that have always been opposed to any kind of move.

They are very happy where they are, they say in Council District 7, they don't want to be moved.

Councilman Vier also made a vocal uh you know uh opposition to this move as well.

Uh just you know, just letting everybody know about the feedback that we receive from stakeholders and the public.

And of course, 320, which is added to council district five.

So this one again, uh 3.78 uh the range, um, and it gives you the information there.

So this is what happened as you can see.

249 and 250 have to come together because if you take 249 and 250 looks like a little finger coming in there, it won't look right, so you need to bring them together.

So it's and also again, they always come up.

Foreign sales always comes up during this process because where the location is, you know, it will be an it's an obvious choice to offer them up.

So something to think about.

This is the cloak, this is what it looks like far.

Lastly, alternative four.

Potential moving precincts are three, one for seven, and three forty-five.

Yes, you've heard right.

345 is from alternative two and it's also here.

But what we don't hear is that we to 345, we added two more precincts to bring that range down a lot, and it does a lot.

So 141 goes from six to four, two oh seven goes from five to council district five to council district six, and three forty-five, which we've seen in alternative two from council district seven to council district five.

When you do that, you come to what the second lowest range at 1.95.

So that is what it is.

Uh okay, so this is what it looks like there.

Again, this alternative is opposed because again, it takes a precinct away from council district five.

So a lot of people are not happy with this alternative either.

So any questions about the alternative right now.

Okay, yes, sir.

Uh the three moves differ a little bit by the percentage, the the range.

The tightest range was the first alternative.

Is that also in your opinion, likely to be the one that lasts the longest?

We before you have to do another change.

We have to come back every four years regardless, sir.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

So uh the comprehensive outreach strategy.

We have been really uh diligent per usual, but this time we've been not only diligent but successful in our uh our outreach strategy.

Letters to stakeholders, there's been interviews.

Some people have seen uh you know, some uh reportage on TV with you know, yours truly, you know, talking about the issue.

We're very careful to message, make sure that this has nothing to do with any national trends, you know.

This is something that we do every four years.

We also mentioned that again, Council District 5 for the first time ever is not majority African American, so we wanted to message that, make sure that everybody knew what was happening.

It's nothing that we did, it's what's happening, was there, and every alternative that we that we that we put in there does not really help or affect that either.

So just letting you know, uh we send 3,000 emails.

We were spamming for democracy.

Now spamming is being very hard, so we had to be careful with that because we don't want to shut down the whole agency because we are spanning a lot of a lot of people.

But we send voters that are you know, emails to voters at least once, twice, letting them know this is the project that's happening.

These are voters that are directly affected, leaving in those precincts.

So we we don't we did not want to like you know, uh raise anybody that was not affected directly, uh, you know, uh alarm them or anything like that.

We have received the things paid off 80 completed service.

We're very happy about that.

Alternative two and three constantly rank higher and we'll show you more details later.

Host it four open houses, again, nearly 80 participants, social media posts and ads, and again, uh legal newspaper as some of you have seen that uh uh some you know some of the reportage that we and also legal newspapers.

So these are the results for the preference form.

Now, as some of you are new here, just like to remind you these are non-binding on us and non-binding on you.

That means that you just take this as a mate as a as a decision point in your matrix, it's not determining.

So the resource are not driving what you're doing, you're gonna come from your with your own criteria.

But it's something to think about what were people, what the when we talk to people out there and we put to people online, what were they liking?

They like alternative two.

Remember, that's the simplest one.

345 coming from seven to five.

And again, it's very simple.

It leaves a bit of a large, you know, uh uh um um uh you know range, but the again we're gonna come back for years and we're gonna do it again.

So so and then alternative three is the second, the second uh uh um um most favorite again.

That will be the fourth hill one.

And alternative one is the third one.

That's again that's the lead the lowest alternative.

Any questions about the public rankings and uh you know it's not binding.

Remember, it's just we don't want to discount, it's a great effort, but at the same time we don't want to sway you, it's not a popularity contest, it's not an election.

Yes.

Let's let's hold off on the questions and follow the procedure of the public hearing.

So get through and then we'll hear from the public because we did have someone sign up.

So I want to be sure that you know everybody speaks in their proper turn and gets their time.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you for reminding me of that.

The uh once again, um virtual open houses.

We have two more virtual open houses.

We have one tomorrow.

Yay, we have one Monday on the 23rd.

We have 19 people for the tomorrow one.

So let's hope we hope that everybody is in the place they gotta be.

We'll figure it out soon enough.

Uh uh, but again, we're happy to people come in, they don't have to be there two hours, they can be there one minute or 120 minutes.

So it depends on what they used to come in to ask questions and see some things now.

If they have if tomorrow people want to see a presentation, we will have a slide that prepare for them as well.

But again, it's just an open house for us questions.

Key days, yes.

In a month from now, second and final public hearing action item, definitely an actual expectative.

So we appreciate you being here for that for that, having a quote for that the meeting.

Uh by April 1st, after your approval, and we have a resolution on everything that you have to sign.

I think we do it the same date or the day later or something like that.

Uh uh, it's you know, um, we will forward that to Super Sorrow Elections, they will do a proclamation, and then we go back before September 3rd to the City of Tampa and let them know as an information on this is what happens.

This is it.

Uh um I'm done.

This is like once again, Yasura Gonzalez, Tampa region to 2026.

This QR code takes you to the webpage.

Do fill out the the if you're watching at home either tonight or later, uh, you know, the preference form.

It will be open through the 25th of February.

So so happy to receive any feedback.

Yes.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, we will kick it over to the public now.

We had one person sign up in the public comment for this.

I presume your Hope K.

All right.

You got three minutes.

All right, good evening.

Um, my name is Hope Carissa, and I am uh raised in Tampa, uh, grew up in Temple Terrace.

So I'm very familiar with this area.

Graduated from USF.

I'm currently a resident of Sulfur Springs um community, and also the president of the Silver Springs Neighborhood Association.

I'm here to get your support in going with alternative two, um, which is moving precinct uh 345 from district seven to district five.

I believe that this is a fair, transparent and respectful representation of the community, and it also keeps our neighbors intact.

We are allowed to keep continuing to share schools, services, local ties, and cultures.

Splitting us up across the district will weaken our voice.

So I respectfully urge you to adopt alternative two.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Mr.

Gonzalez, you're back on the hot seat.

You have any response or comments you want to add to that?

I just got to give you the option.

Oh, no, no response.

Uh we that's the most bought alternative.

Uh and again it's the cleanest alternative in terms of them, the least complicated and the least affected number of people.

So um, you know, it's it's definitely a better detective alternative, but just like the other side of the technical.

Now, questions to the commissioners.

Commissioner Bowden, I think you had something.

Um public uh complaints.

What about this move?

I mean, what was the response?

No, this one we haven't received one specific to this one.

This one, uh, alternative two, you move only one precinct to from the from Council District 7, which is the most popular, to the five, which is the least populous.

Actually, uh it has to council district five, which is which is what people want.

Either you add something to it, they don't want anything taken away from it.

Okay, thanks.

Commissioner Singh, awesome.

Uh Ms.

Hope, just want to say thank you for serving your community by being an association president.

I know it's uh sometimes a thankless job, so thank you for showing up and showing up for your community.

The one question I did have was um your statement today was that from you as an individual, or is you on behalf of the Silver Springs Homeworks Association?

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right.

I only had one question.

It was along the lines of Commissioner Bowden's.

So alternative two, there was no outcry from District Seven, no long history with that church or anything.

That's clean and good together.

There's no church church of that we that we go for perfect.

All right.

I know they don't want three.

Um well because they voted, and I assuming that they want they either either they s obviously with it one or two will be something or four.

Something where they don't that's because they that's the only one that they that they are faked about everything else, yes.

Okay.

Thanks.

All right.

Any other questions, comments from the commissioners?

I don't think there's any action to be had.

So if that's it, I will go ahead and close the public comment on this, and we'll thank you for the information, Mr.

Gonzalez, and look forward to see you coming back again.

And at 925 p.m., this meetings adjourned.

Good night, everyone.

Boom, boom.