PASCO COUNTY, Fl. – On Tuesday, Pasco Board of County Commissioners voted to approve the 180-day apartment moratorium.
On Tuesday Commissioner Mike Moore, “I feel today’s been talked about for not only a number of weeks number of months, but a number of years. We do need to analyze and look very closely at the impacts multi-family can have in that area when it comes to economic development when it comes to public safety.”
“So now we have an opportunity to sit back and let the team do their job and really dig in and see what impact these are going to continue to have, because we can’t just think about today, we think about five years from now, think about ten years from now, we think about 20 years from now. The impact these continuing will have on our area. I don’t need to beat a dead horse again, we have talked about this for a number of years with that. I’ll make a motion for approval,” said Moore.
The board voted unanimously, 5-0 vote, on this measure.
The first ordinance establishes a six-month moratorium “on the submission and acceptance of applications for conditional uses, rezonings, and comprehensive plan amendments proposing to increase multi-family entitlements” within a designated are of the County roughly bordered by State Road 52, US 41, State Road 54, and Bruce B. Downs
The stated objective of the ordinance is to provide County staff time to research and gather data that the Board of County Commissioners will use “to accurately calculate and determine the true potential for the over-saturation of multi-family dwelling units within the moratorium area.”
County staff were directed by the BOCC to gather the following information:
- the current quantity of multi-family dwelling unit and entitlements
- the current acreage of land zoned for multi-family dwelling unit uses, including that acreage having the potential for multi-family dwelling units upon approval of a conditional use
- the potential number of multi-family dwelling units available through existing land use equivalency matrices
The second ordinance amends the land development code to remove single-use multifamily from conditional uses within the C-2 General Commercial District and would be a permanent change that applies County-wide. Responding to Planning Commission concerns, County staff proposed that the ordinance incorporate three exceptions:
- Affordable Housing as defined in Section 420.0004 of Florida Statutes;
- Vertically integrated mixed use (ground floor commercial, office, or other non-residential use); or
- Located within the West Market Area as defined in the Comprehensive Plan.
Ultimately the Planning Commission adopted the ordinance with the exceptions proposed by County staff by unanimous vote.