County Awards $250,000 Contract For Planning

The Highlands County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to award a $250,000 contract to the Central Florida Regional Planning Council.

This regional government agency will now take over the work of updating the county's comprehensive plan, which county Administrator Michael Wright calls "the blueprint for how the county will grow for the next 20 years."

The state Department of Community Affairs, which has to approve comprehensive plan amendments passed by the county commissioners, has called the county's plan inadequate.

Wright said the county's planning staff will soon be reduced from six to three people and does not have the manpower to update the plan so that it complies with state standards.

"Until we update the comprehensive plan, we're basically out of the comp plan amendment business," Wright said.

Because the county's plan is not in state compliance, three major amendments passed by the commissioners are stalled before the state DCA.

One amendment, requested by Atlantic Blue, would allow development of a stand-alone community for up to 125,000 people on the corporation's 65,000-acre Blue Head Ranch. Two other pending amendments would allow development of 8,943 housing units in the areas north and south of Lake Placid.

Preston Colby called the regional planning council contract "a joke" and "a scam" and asked why the landowners seeking the large-scale comprehensive plan amendments aren't paying for updating the county's plan.

"Why is the public paying for it?" he asked.

Bill Youngman raised the same question.

Referring to the land owners requesting large-scale comprehensive plan amendments, he said, "If they're the ones who need this done, so a couple contractors can make millions of dollars, let them do it."

Commissioner Don Bates said the county's comprehensive plan must be updated for all future growth, and the project is not being driven by the pending Lake Placid North and South growth plans and the Blue Head Ranch project.

The county's comprehensive plan expires in 2010, Bates said, while the state requires the plan to be updated for growth needs out to 2030.

Besides residential growth, an update of the comprehensive plan is needed for all future economic development projects, such as the planned biofuels plants, Commissioner Jeff Carlson said.