From Rural To Urban

Highlands County Administrator Mike Wright said he has no doubts that this county will progressively turn from a rural to an urban county.

The state's Department of Community Affairs, which regulates growth, though, has raised major objections about the county's planning for future growth.

In a 20-page Objections, Recommendations and Comments letter, known as an ORC report, DCA said the county's comprehensive plan has insufficient data and analysis to support three pending comp plan amendments for:

•AntlanticBlue's proposal to develop a stand-alone community for up to 125,000 people on its 65,000-acre Blue Head Ranch, off State Road 70, west of US 27; and

•Two other comprehensive plan amendments that would allow development of up to 8,943 housing units on 3,125 acres in the areas north and south of Lake Placid.

"It's routine to get an ORC report on comp plan amendments," Wright said. "However, the challenges we have on this particular report are pretty significant."

DCA said the county's comprehensive plan projects future needs for growth out only to the year 2010, while planning out to 2030 is needed to justify the AtlanticBlue and Lake Placid land-use changes.

In particular, the ORC report called the county's population projections "flawed and not based on professionally acceptable methodology and assumptions."

The report also said county planning documents don't have enough data and analysis on how both proposals would meet state standards for environmental suitability, land use need, controlling urban sprawl, water supply, and providing the necessary infrastructure for growth.

"This is going to be a major undertaking," Wright said about answering DCA's objections. "I'm working with our staff on how to address (the objections), and I'm working with the developers as well."

The county's planning staff will need some outside help to upgrade the county's comprehensive plan, Wright said, and he hopes to know how that can be accomplished and financed in the near future.

"The developers have a role, we have a role, and what I'm doing between now and the first of the year is putting in place all those things we need to deal with growth," he said.

That task, he said, amounts to "getting ready and saying, What do we need to do? How long is it going to take? How much is it going to cost? How are we going to pay for it?"

Updating the comprehensive plan to 2030 and meeting state standards would be a turning point for Highlands County, Wright said.

"What the state of Florida has said to us, in a nutshell, is, 'OK, you want to be an urban county ... Now, what we want you to tell us is, how are you going to deal with water and transportation and the environment and utilities," he said. "Tell us how you are going to do it.

"And," he added, "those are not unreasonable questions."

Wright said answering the ORC objections may entail hiring consultants, but he's also looking into the possibility of working with other government agencies, including the urban planning departments at the University of Florida and the University of South Florida.

The ORC report states that both the Blue Head Ranch project and the Lake Placid North and South plans are "not adequately supported by data and analysis" showing compliance with the state's goal of discouraging urban sprawl.

"I think we can make a compelling case" for both the Blue Head and Lake Placid land-use changes, Wright said. The state's goal of restricting development to areas around current municipalities "is not black and white and it's not etched in stone," he said.

Lisa Jensen, chief operating officer of AtlanticBlue, said DCA's report was not unexpected and she believes the objections can be resolved if the county upgrades its planning work.

"We were not surprised by it, nor do we see it negatively," Jensen said about the ORC report.

"I feel optimistic," she added, "that our application will be judged on its merits. And we believe it to be one of the most progressive and innovative entitlement plans moving forward today."

Ray Royce, chairman of the Lake Placid Growth Management Committee, said the Lake Placid plans should be acceptable because all property owners within the proposed growth areas have agreed to annex into the town when development starts.

"I think it's reasonable because we're going to have protocols in place that there will have to be concurrency for all infrastructure," he said. The comp plan amendments will have policies and procedures guaranteeing that building won't outstrip water supply, utilities and road capacity, he said.

"This is the norm," he said about the state's ORC report. "It seems like here recently, to get through the DCA it takes months if not years to finally convince DCA that we're doing the appropriate thing."

The county commissioners were scheduled to vote Dec. 23 on adopting the comp plan amendments for Blue Head and Lake Placid North and South and sending them to the DCA. Due to the need to answer DCA's objections, that vote is now likely to be postponed until the Jan. 20 meeting, county Planner Don Hanna said.

"That will give us more time to figure out which way we are going to go" on answering the ORC report, he said.