In Hillsborough County, developers are whining over the use of logic and common sense to steer new growth. With the lowest school impact fee in the state ($196) and pro-developer commissioners running the show at the BOCC, these guys are used to getting whatever they want and getting it cheap, and the idea that some sort of infrastructure needs to either be in place or at least planned and payed for is really irking them.
Recently, staff at the county management office have begun recommending against zoning changes that would allow unfettered growth in areas that do not have adequate classroom space to handle an influx of new students. This is a huge change for builders that are used to having their sprawling projects rubber-stamped by the likes of Mark Sharpe and Brian Blair, 2 commissioners who relied heavily on funding from developers to get themselves elected.
Threats of lawsuits are being bandied about, and because it wouldn’t be Tampa or Hillsborough County without some serious conflicts of interest, School Board member Carolyn Bricklemyer’s husband is a partner in a law firm that is in the thick of the battle, on the side of the developers. One project, in Apollo Beach, represented by Bricklemyer, Smolker & Bolves, has already had its denial overturned.
The school board claims that it has a funding shortage and is being squeezed by the class size amendment. Both of these statements are probably true, however a simple change in the impact fees charged to developers would provide money for new construction and allow Hillsborough to reach the class size goals mandated by law. (Other simple fixes, such as using Community Investment Tax money for school construction instead of building a boondoggle of a sports palace are apparently not under consideration.)
But developers don’t want to have to pay for the very infrastructure that they are creating the need for, and county commissioners don’t want to piss off their sugar daddies by actually charging them a fair amount to do business in the county, so look for a ”compromise” in this case which lets the builders off scot-free while forcing kids into double sessions and long county-funded school bus commutes.
This is not a new problem, but don’t expect a real fix anytime soon.
Overcrowding in Hillsborough schools is so dire that county growth management officials recently recommended denial of four new subdivisions, the first time they have done so because of a classroom shortage.
Yet this week, when a school district planner learned of that recommendation, based on his findings that there weren’t enough area classrooms, he told county staff it was “premature” to delay projects because of overcrowding.
Why is the same district that says school overcrowding is at crisis levels questioning the county’s first-ever attempt to ease congestion through zoning?
The school planner, John Bowers, said there are no regulations or policies the district could use to tell rejected developers what they can do to improve the situation in neighborhoods with crowded schools.
“It’s not a system we have in place at this time,” he said.
School officials have known about the growing classroom deficit for at least three years. During this period, more than 35,000 housing permits have been approved in Hillsborough County.
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