The City of Tavares, FL is holding workshops to develop objectives for a new 20 year Comprehensive Plan running from 2020 to 2040.
The ideas developed at these workshops will affect local Tavares residents, traffic, property values, availability of jobs, crowding of schools, etc.
This is the second workshop after a first one (we did not video that one) on May 7, 2019.
Our video of this July 9, 2019 meeting is HERE!
Tavares residents and future residents (living in unincorporated Lake County that will be annexed later by the city) should pay attention to this plan, and perhaps become active in City Council elections to ensure they are not run over with costly or objectionable, high-density development plans allowed by this future plan.
The purpose of this meeting is for the Committee to review and modify potential Plan objectives at this meeting, but more meetings and hearings will be held over a two year period. At some point, the plans will be finalized by the Committee and forwarded to the City Council for approval.
Also attached below is the Powerpoint used at the meeting by the hired consultants and facilitators, Kimley-Horn (Sarasota), as presented by Kelley Klepper.
Some of the ideas, with my opinions, include:
- Modify the plan to limit annexation or approving high-density projects in existing Lake County rural areas that are in the path of expected annexation.
- Further below are pictures of SOME of the ideas for the Comp Plan, excluding others left out by the facilitator.
- As pointed out by one of the attendees at the meeting (on the video), many of the meeting attendees were staff, landowners or those benefitting from development like Realtors. If actual, working residents don's show up at these meetings, you will get what they propose. The City needs to do a better job of getting real residents to show up, including representatives from the various HOA's and communities that will be affected.
- Environmental issues had more priority from the first meeting over traffic issues, so unless commuting workers show up to ensure traffic control is a priority, that may be downplayed.
- By allowing high density development, like apartments or narrow, small lots, more student stations will be required and local schools may not have funds to handle the capacity from growth.
- If high density residential development is given priority over industrial and job centers, the city will probably need to raise taxes because they lose money on every house built providing services vs revenue from commercial businesses and the taxes they generate.
- Many roads used by Tavares residents are County roads, and the County won't spend money to upgrade them when more residences are added. There was not much discussion on traffic issues or setting caps on development approval until roads are expanded first.
- If high density housing is allowed, more school student stations will be needed, possibly causing overcrowded schools and need to raise taxes to build more schools.
- Another factor limiting road improvements is that the County Commissioners constantly reduce needed impact fees to subsidize builders, and they don't allocate money from other funds, so road conditions will stay poor for many years. (My opinion.)
- Not ALL submitted ideas were added to the topic list by the facilitator. For instance, I suggested that Tavares NOT annex proposed developments in their "ISBA" growth area that are rural, but only provide requested water and sewer connections for fees, leaving the rural areas as unincorporated County with low density, so they are not confronted with high-density proposals. The facilitator refused to add that suggestion to the proposed objectives. Thus it is clear that rural property owners have targets on them to be annexed and taxed by the City. (I am not in that area, but a lot of rural property owners in the area south of Lake Dora will be affected if neighbors sell out to developers for high-density projects. )
Download Tavares_Advisory-Committee_Presentation_July-9
Conclusion: This will be a long process with several hearings for the public to hash out ideas, where different zoning areas like industrial, high-density housing, etc. will go. If you watch this video, they describe the results of the first meeting where about 50 people showed up. If you look at the "concerns", it is clear many people showed up who were more interested in the environment and water issues than traffic or maintaining rural lifestyles. The future plans will be dictated by those who SHOW UP at these meetings, and who is on the City Council when the final plan is approved. Do you want rampant annexation, high-density development without limits, job centers, rural areas or parks, or?
By the way, so far the City Council and staff refuse to budget for making videos of their City Council meetings, planning & zoning meetings and these types of meetings, so you may not always have transparency or ability to watch them online. (Another reason for new City Council members). Both City Council meetings and Planning & Zoning are during work hours, restricting attendance to mostly retirees.
Vance Jochim
Chief Fiscal Watchdog for FiscalRangers.com and our YouTube Channel "FiscalRangersFlorida" (where the videos are uploaded).
Here are pictures of SOME of the proposed objectives discussed at the workshop (not all were added to these lists, thus it was not a true brainstorming session where ALL ideas are captured for later discussion).
