New Townhome Community In Epperson May Get An Elam Rd. Entrance After All

Residents of Abby Brooks Circle (ABC) in the Epperson II CDD met with Pasco Planning Dept. director David Engel (blue suit) and Development Services director David Allen (gray suit) during the May 6 Board of County Commissioners meeting to discuss alternatives to using ABC as the only access point to a new townhome community in the Epperson North CDD.  

Even though the county attorney’s office told Pasco County’s Board of County Commissioners (BCC) on May 6 that there was nothing they could do about Metro Development Group’s plan to put the only entrance to a new townhome community —  located in the Epperson North Community Development District (CDD), through a quiet Epperson II CDD community along Abby Brooks Cir. (ABC) — the residents who live on ABC have been encouraged by the possibility that a possible solution appears to be on the horizon.

As of today, the efforts of ABC residents Candice and Mark Alfieri, Danielle Polovich, Alexandra Lewis, Erin Totaro, the Epperson II CDD Board and many of the 120 total affected families on ABC and Lily Arbor Way — who met twice the week before the May 6 BCC meeting to put together a strategy to protect their quiet neighborhood full of children — seem to have been fruitful, as a Metro spokesperson told the Neighborhood News that the details of an agreement for a possible second entrance to the JK2 townhome community off Elam Rd. is in the works, but is not yet finalized, and released only the following statement:

“Metro has heard the concerns raised by residents regarding access for the Epperson North townhome community, and we want to assure you we are working with local officials to devise the best possible plan for everyone involved. We ask for your patience as we navigate a solution. Metro prioritizes resident safety and neighborhood connectivity. We’re committed to thoughtful planning and collaboration to ensure the long-term success of the Epperson community.”

Abby Brooks Circle (ABC) resident Alexandra Lewis was one of nearly two dozen residents living on ABC in the Epperson II CDD who asked the Pasco Board of County Commissioners for help regarding an approved entrance through their quiet street for a new townhome community in the Epperson North CDD.  

The current plan — which was approved administratively by the county staff using the State of Florida’s new Land Use Equivalency Matrix, without a BCC vote — has Elam Rd. as an emergency-only entrance to the townhome development. 

In other words, the townhome site, which was originally donated to the Pasco County School District for an elementary school, did not need a BCC vote to be rezoned for JK2’s 186 planned townhomes after the School District gave the site back to Metro and said it didn’t plan to build a school on it.

County attorney Jeffrey Steinsnyder told the commissioners on May 6 that there was nothing they could do to change the development plan, but commissioners Jack Mariano, Kathryn Starkey and Lisa Yeager all said that they supported the efforts of the two dozen ABC residents who spoke or planned to speak at that meeting. 

Representatives of the ABC group then met with Pasco Planning Dept. director David Engel and Development Services Dept. director David Allen while the May 6 BCC meeting was still taking place to see if, in reality, anything could be done to keep ABC from being the townhome community’s only (or main) entrance.

A week or so later, even though the future townhome residents currently are still planned to also have access through ABC, the main entrance to the JK2 community could now be shifted to Elam Rd., which is much more capable than ABC of handling the additional (estimated) 1,000 or more trips per day the 186 townhomes are expected to generate. 

Look for another online update as soon as any agreement is finalized, as well as a fully updated story in the June 10 edition of Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News.


Pasco Seeking Park Site In Connected City; Plus, Epperson II Townhome Concerns 

Although the meeting happened a little more than a month ago as you’re receiving this issue, there were two important new pieces of information that came out of the presentations about the 7,800-acre “Connected City” (CC) development made to the Pasco Board of County Commissioners (BCC) by Metro Development Group principal Kartik Goyani and the county staff on Apr. 9. 

The first had to do with the number of single-family entitlements still available in CC. William Vermillion of Pasco’s Planning & Economic Growth department, who oversees MPUDs in Pasco, said that a recent study by the county found that there are still 44% of the single-family detached home entitlements left in CC. 

“Even though you were told a couple of years ago that there were no more single-family (SF) entitlements left,” Vermillion said, “there actually are still about 4,400 remaining [of the 10,583 SF homes originally approved for CC]. We also have about 50% of the multi-family, which includes townhomes and garden-style homes for the higher density areas. We also still have roughly 37% of our commercial left and 75% of the office. And, we have roughly 26% of the land remaining.” 

Dist. 2 Comm. Seth Weightman told me after that meeting that although he was shocked the staff had been giving the commissioners the wrong figure for so long, he didn’t believe the “mistake was intentional on anyone’s part. We’ve had a lot of turnover in our staff.” 

But, had Comm. Weightman known there were still SF entitlements available, would he still have voted to allow other developers within CC to convert their plans from SF to multi-family (MF)? 

“No, I would not have voted to convert them [to MF] had I known the correct figures,” he said, adding that he remembered that one of the conversions he reluctantly voted for, “felt like chewing on a mouthful of sandspurs.” 

The Bigger Issue: Parks 

As for CC’s current Park Service Areas, Vermillion said on Apr. 9 that if you combine “all of the parks in [CC], there are 115 acres of neighborhood parks already built, not inclusive of the planned VOPH (the adjacent Villages of Pasadena Hills development) Superpark or the Wesley Chapel District Park” (neither of which are in CC). 

But, Weightman noted that the 240-acre (previously reported as 300-acre) VOPH Superpark, “isn’t going to be as ‘super’ as we anticipated. We’re going to fall short on a few areas of uses, and, with the age of the people moving to the area growing younger, I really feel we need to revisit the diverting of [CC] funds to the VOPH Superpark.” 

He added, “With the [WC] District Park already at capacity, we need to find a way to have a similar style park within [CC] and whether we reallocate funds from the shortfall that the Superpark is going to have, or we restructure the way that funding mechanism works, I think it needs to be done because [CC] is here today. The youth and their parents are demanding that we have field space now for a variety of sports. The people are here now, so the 40 acres we have in the site we [Pasco] already owns [in CC]…that footprint needs to be doubled and we need to figure out the funding between VOPH and [CC] because something needs to happen sooner than later in the [CC} corridor.” 

Pasco Parks Dept. director Keith Wiley then responded that Comm. Weightman was correct. 

“And, the question is,” Wiley said, “Where should we locate the other park facilities in [CC]? We’d have to ‘swap’ projects in order to have a district park, since a community park doesn’t really get it done. We’d have to decide which of the 21 capital projects identified need to be removed.” 

Board chair & Dist. 3 Comm. Kathryn Starkey said she would like Wiley to look into using the site Pasco owns near the future CC Town Center Hub, either for a land swap or to build a District Park on property that had originally been slated for a utilities maintenance area. 

Wiley added, however, that the county’s Master Parks Plan was done more than a decade ago and could be updated, “rather quickly” to see if there are locations within CC that could accommodate a District Park. At our press time, we had not heard if that update had been completed. 

Dist. 1 Comm. Ron Oakley, whose district includes CC, cautioned, however, that the entire county needs more ball fields, not just the [CC], “and we can’t build more parks without having the money to maintain them.” 

Epperson Ranch II CDD Issues 

On May 1, I attended a meeting of the Epperson Ranch II Community Development District (CDD) Board of Supervisors, which is, “the only CDD in Epperson that has no parks and no amenities whatsoever,” said CDD Board chairman Joseph Murphy (as well as several of the 50 or so Epperson II residents in attendance during the three-hour meeting). 

“And the site in Epperson II that previously was designated as a school site has been rezoned for 186 townhomes and the one entrance and exit for that townhome community is now Abby Brooks Circle (see map), which is a quiet, residential neighborhood that can’t handle the 400 additional vehicles per day from those townhomes. The entrance to that townhome community should be off Elam Rd., which is already a main road through Epperson, and which was designated as the entrance to the school site. But, when the property was converted to townhomes, the Board of County Commissioners agreed to change that to only allow emergency vehicles to access the townhome community using Elam Rd.” 

The Epperson II residents who spoke at that CDD meeting all voiced their displeasure, concern and fear for the safety of their children if the townhome community was able to proceed with the plan to use Abby Brooks Cir. as its only ingress and egress point. Although the next BCC meeting was on May 6, two days after we went to press with this issue, the residents shared with me a resolution drafted by the CDD’s new lawyer, Jere Earlywine of Kutak Rock, which was sent to every commissioner on May 2, asking that the BCC reconsider its decision to not allow regular vehicular access to Elam Rd. and to commission a new traffic study — since the previous study was conducted in 2015, when the townhome site was still a school site. 

The CDD resolution says, “…In order to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the [Epperson II] District and its residents, guests, and constituents, the Board hereby declares its objection to the proposed change of roadway configuration for the Former School Parcel, specifically as it relates to authorizing a single point of ingress and egress to and from the Former School Parcel, and without a primary access from the Former School Parcel to and from Elam Road. The Board hereby directs District Staff to transmit this Resolution to Pasco County, Florida, and respectfully requests that Pasco County take all appropriate action to rectify the improper change of roadway configuration for the Former School Parcel, to conduct and/ or re-conduct a traffic study in order to determine the impact of the anticipated traffic on the existing roadways and residents of Epperson Ranch II CDD, and to modify and/or revoke any development approvals related thereto.” 

The only Epperson II CDD supervisor to vote against drafting and sending the resolution to the BCC was Mike Lawson, who also is the only CDD supervisor who works for Metro. Lawson is the director of operations for the CC developer. 

The BCC didn’t have anything about Epperson II on its May 6 agenda, so no action could be taken, but the residents of Epperson II, particularly those who live on Abby Brook Cir., were planning to show up at that meeting in force to again express their concern, this time to the county commissioners. 

We’ll keep you posted.

Commissioners Get ‘Connected City’ Updates

Editor’s Note – The original version of this story appeared in our Apr. 15 Wesley Chapel issue, which went to press before Metro Development Group and the Pasco County Planning Department staff held a presentation for the Pasco Board of County Commissioners (BCC) at the BCC’s regular meeting on Apr. 9.

The purpose of that presentation was to update the commissioners on the progress of both the 7,800-acre Connected City (CC) development — which Metro calls “The First Smart Gigabit Community in the U.S.” — and the adjacent Villages of Pasadena Hills (VOPH) planning area.

And, despite what some critics are claiming, Metro principal Kartik Goyani says that CC, which was approved as a Pilot Program for the entire state and by Pasco in 2015 and began development with Metro’s Epperson community in 2017 — is only in year eight of a 50-year plan and, in his estimation, the CC development is proceeding according to plan.

Goyani provided an overview of the overall CC project — how it came to be, Metro’s part in it and the progress of the project itself — for the commissioners.

“I’m here to represent everyone who’s part of the Connected City planning area,” Goyani said as he began his presentation. “Your staff  said to me, ‘Why did we even create the [CC]? Well, that was 10 years back, so maybe it’s time to go back and see what was the goal and was it a good idea all along? I don’t have all the answers, so I’m going to do my best to walk you through the journey we went on…and the thinking behind it.” He also said that the need for the presentation to the BCC started, “with the chatter online” (more on this below).

How It All Got Started

Goyani first showed the boundaries of the Connected City planning area (see map).  The orange lines on the map, which Metro provided to me for my original version of this story, indicate the boundaries of what is called CC, of which only the western boundary follows a specific roadway — I-75.

The northern boundary extends to a little north of S.R. 52 in San Antonio, with several important commercial developments and yet another (as yet unnanounced) AdventHealth hospital to be located in this northernmost section. (Note-Goyani told me when I interviewed him for the original version of this story that AdventHealth has owned that property since 2019 or 2020.) 

“But, it wasn’t the S.R. 52 we drive on today,” Goyani told the commissioners. “It wasn’t the four-lane divided highway. It was two lanes, undivided and it kind of jogged, [and that part is now] C.R. 52.” 

Curley Rd. forms most of the CC’s eastern border, although a portion of it extends east of Curley — between Elam Rd. to the north and just north of the eastern portion of Overpass Rd. to the south. It is worth noting that the Watergrass community, which includes property both north and south of that eastern extension of Overpass Rd., is not part of CC.

And, speaking of Overpass Rd., everything north of it from I-75 to the entrance of Epperson is within the CC boundary, but that boundary also extends south of Overpass to include all of the Epperson development, but not the pre-existing Palm Cove or Bridgewater communities.

Goyani also reminded the commissioners that there was no exit off I-75 at Overpass Rd. when CC first started and Curley Rd. was just two lanes. “And, at that time, the discussion kept coming up, mostly led by the then-county administrator (Michele Baker), based on an Urban Land Institute (ULI) study that the county had commissioned during the last downturn in 2008, which was, ‘We need jobs in Pasco County,’ which at that time, was a bedroom community (for Tampa), with ULI estimates of 70,000 cars heading south every day — and something needed to change.”

He added, however, “There was only one problem at that time. We only owned 900 acres in Epperson (with 3,000 residences), and 2,000 acres in Mirada (with 4,500 residences), which is only about 40% of the land and 20% of the planned residences in [CC}. And, just to set the stage — we had our entitlements and approvals already. We could have just built a regular community, with the cookie-cutter housing which none of you like. Or, we could change.”

He then noted that the “Connected City” name is just a placeholder, but the idea was, “Why don’t we create a new town from the internet up that becomes an economic engine that attracts the jobs and gets the healthcare and the fiber connectivity. And, the $14 billion [transportation] funding shortfall that everyone is talking about…maybe ask those private guys to pay up a little bit more than what they were paying in impact fees. Great idea, but no one is going to come to this area unless we put it on the national and international map.”

And, Goyani said, “Everyone we met with said, ‘Why do something only for two projects — meaning the land we had?’ Let’s do something bigger, which is what led to creating this 7,800-acre ‘Special Planning Area.’ The county had laid the foundation for this type of area, having already approved a long-term plan for [VOPH} to the east of [CC].”

In other words, Goyani said that although Metro’s intent, when the CC pilot program was approved by the state in 2015, was to have the CC connected by both high-speed internet and walkways and multimodal transportation opportunities, the developer’s primary focus was the internet.

“From a fundamental standpoint,” he said, “counties and developers usually focus on the physical infrastructure — roads, water lines, waste water, electrical, because you can’t have a community without those — but no one else was working on the digital infrastructure. That’s how this story ended up evolving.”

As for CC’s physical infrastructure, Goyani said that when CC began development, no other developers were interested in improving S.R. 52 or creating an Overpass Rd. interchange off I-75. “But, by bringing [CC] to Pasco, S.R. 52 is now vastly improved and the Overpass Rd. intersection is open, meaning that the physical infrastructure for [CC] is now in place. That is a big reason why we have been able to attract so many employment centers to this development.”

Regarding parks and trails, Goyani told the BCC, “I can only speak to the parks and trails that we do in our communities. But, we worked with [county] staff to create the 50-year master plan with the goal being that people [other developers in CC] are going to carry this thinking forward and hopefully make it better.”

And, although some current CC residents (see below) say it’s not enough, Goyani showed the BCC photos of golf carts, jogging paths and tot lots for kids. He also noted that the Wesley Chapel District Park already existed at that time just to the south of CC and the county had set aside land for its 300-acre “Superpark” in VOPH, just east of CC.

“The Board made the great decision at that time to take all of the funds for parks in [CC} and put it towards the Superpark to create a truly regional destination.”

He also said that the average home in CC pays $4,687 in additional impact fees for infrastructure, schools and technology, and those fees have raised “a total of more than $30 million in additional impact fees to date.”

The Commercial Pieces

Goyani also mentioned, both to me and at the Apr. 9 meeting, that, “Back when we first started planning [CC ] in 2013, we looked at the amount of new commercial construction for all of Pasco County and I believe the total amount from east to west at that time was only 300,000 sq. ft.

“So, as we started laying out the goals for our 50-year plan. Our goal was to see at least 3 million sq. ft. of commercial over the 50-year plan for the Connected City,” Goyani said. “But, as we started talking, we felt that was too small of a goal, so why not plan to do something — in one small area — that’s 50 times what the entire county does in one year? That’s how we ended up with a goal of 12.8 million square feet. “

He also said that last year, Metro commissioned a study by PFM Financial Advisors LLC out of Orlando, which showed that Pasco is now “the fastest growing commercial corridor in Florida. There is now 36+ million sq. ft. of non-residential uses in different stages, which is more than any other county in the state of Florida, and I’m like, ‘Wow, that is exciting. Maybe we’re onto something here. If I were to bet, I’d say we’re going to run out of commercial entitlements throughout the Connected City because I think more is still going to happen, based on the plans.”

Another major commercial project within CC is the Double Branch/Pasco Town Center, a 965-acre mixed-use project just east of I-75 at S.R. 52 that is already under development and will include up to 4.5 million sq. ft. of industrial space at its build-out. Phase 1 of that project, which is expected to begin delivering finished buildings later this year, includes three industrial buildings totalling nearly 500,000 sq. ft. There also are plans for 1 million sq. ft. of office space, a 1.6.-million-sq.-ft. distribution center and a 400,000-sq.-ft. “cross-dock facility,” which is a logistics hub designed for the rapid transfer of goods to minimize storage time. Double Branch is being developed by Columnar Investments, which also is planning to have 500,000 sq. ft. of retail uses, 3,500 residential units and 200 acres of parks and trails.

Some of the other privately owned portions of CC also have commercial entitlements (or are asking for them from the county), such as the Abbey Crossings/Park 52 Logistics piece that will bring 500,000 sq. ft. of light industrial uses to north of S.R. 52 and neighborhood commercial and a hotel to south of 52. 

Health Care & Education

I’ll admit that the non-residential CC numbers shocked me. They include not only the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital that just broke ground in the Wildcat-Bailes property in CC’s southwest corner (see separate story on pg. 8), but also the not-yet-announced AdventHealth hospital just north of S.R. 52, as well as a large BayCare medical office complex that will not only help staff the expandable BayCare Wesley Chapel Hospital a few miles south of CC, but also focus on wellness to help people in CC live healthier and longer.

Also located on the outskirts of CC is the Kirkland Ranch Academy of Innovation, which started in 2022 with a high school and now also has grades K-8. Two years earlier, Innovation Preparatory Academy (aka InPrep), a charter school, opened for the 2020-21 school year and Prodigy at Epperson Early Learning Center is now open south of the CC border just south of InPrep.

Goyani ended his presentation to the BCC citing the following figures: 

“The 2065 (50-year) goal for residences in CC was 37,345, with more than 19,000 (51%) already built. The non-residential goal was 12.8 million sq. ft., and nearly 12 million of that (93.5%) has already been approved. There also is another 1.7 million sq. ft. of commercial in areas adjacent to CC.” 

County Staff’s Presentation

The county’s presentation on Apr. 9 started with William Vermillion of the Planning & Economic Growth department. Vermillion, who oversees MPUDs in Pasco, said that a recent study by the county found that there are still 44% of the single-family detached home entitlements left in the Connected City. 

“Even though you were told a couple of years ago that there were no more single-family entitlements left,” Vermillion said, “there actually are still about 4,400 remaining [of the 10,583 SF homes originally approved for CC]. We also have about 50% of the multi-family, which includes townhomes and garden-style homes for the higher density areas. We also still have roughly 37% of our commercial left and 75% of the office. Industrial entitlements are shown as 0% remaining because of the Double Branch development, which originally opted out of [CC] because they wanted more industrial entitlements than what was originally contemplated. And, we have roughly 26% of the land remaining.” 

Dist. 2 Comm. Seth Weightman told me that although he was shocked the staff had been giving the commissioners the wrong figures, he didn’t believe the “mistake was intentional on anyone’s part. We’ve had a lot of turnover in our staff. But no, I would not have voted for the conversions from single-family to multi-family in Connected City had I known the correct figures.” He remembered saying that one of the conversions he voted for, “felt like chewing on a mouthful of sandspurs.”

Vermillion also showed an SPA (Special Planning Area) checklist for CC with green check marks next to the items that are proceeding according to the CC’s comprehensive plan and red dashes for those that aren’t, in each zone. 

“We can see that the North Innovation Zone is accomplishing what was set out in the comprehensive plan,” Vermillion said, “including commercial, retail and single-family detached, hotels, medical and civic uses.”

Moving on to the South Innovation SPA Zone, Vermillion said, “The dash mark next to the high-density multi-family in that zone is only speaking to the fact that the comprehensive plan for [CC] doesn’t directly prescribe what, in fact, high-density multi-family is. There is already multi-family approved in MPUDs within the South Innovation Zone. However, because the [CC] comprehensive plan doesn’t prescribe the density range for that high-density, we felt it was worth noting that to the Board.”

As for the Community Hub SPA zone, Vermillion said, “There are two red dash marks, the first being for cultural. It’s worth noting that, in both the Tall Timbers MPUD that’s going to be coming before you next month and in the Kenton Rd. MPUD, there are conditions of approval which encourage public art that can serve that focus that’s spoken to by the Community Hub. And, that dash by “Civic” uses, while there are no currently approved civic uses within the Community Hub zone, just to the south, within Watergrass, we did allocate a 7-acre library site which can accommodate those residents for that civic use.”

And finally, Vermillion said that in the two highest density and intensity SPA zones — the Business Core and Urban Core zones — the [CC] comp plan is being met and “Mr. Kartik did a great job of addressing all of the non-residential land uses within these two SPA zones.”

Vermillion also noted a county study from 2023 of the volume of traffic on S.R. 52. “That explosion happened once we finally started having development within [CC], post-Covid, from 2020 until now, but despite that spike, no road [in CC] exceeds the current [volume] threshold acceptable by the county. In other words, the infrastructure is keeping up with the number of entitlements that are being approved within [CC].”

As for CC’s current Park Service Areas, Vermillion said if you combine “all of the parks in [CC], there are 115 acres of neighborhood parks already built, not inclusive of the VOPH Superpark or the Wesley Chapel District Park.” 

But, Weightman noted that the 240-acre VOPH Superpark, “isn’t going to be as ‘super’ as we anticipated. We’re going to fall short on a few areas of uses, and, with the age of the people moving to the area growing younger, I really feel we need to revisit the diverting [of CC] funds to the VOPH Superpark. With the District Park already at capacity, we need to find a way to have a similar style park within [CC] and whether we reallocate funds from the shortfall that the Superpark is going to have, or we restructure the way that funding mechanism works, I think it needs to be done because [CC] is here today. The youth and their parents are demanding that we have field space now for a variety of sports. The people are here now, so the 40 acres we have in the site we [Pasco] already own…that footprint needs to be doubled and we need to figure out the funding between VOPH and CC because something needs to happen sooner than later in the [CC} corridor.”

Pasco Parks Dept director Keith Wiley then responded that Comm. Weightman was correct.

“And, the question is,” Wiley said, “Where should we locate the other park facilities in [CC]? We’d have to ‘swap’ projects in order to have a district park, since a community park doesn’t really get it done. We’d have to decide which of the 21 capital projects identified need to be removed.”

Board Chair & Dist. 3 Comm. Kathryn Starkey said she would like Wiley to look into using the site Pasco owns near the future Town Center Hub, either for a land swap or to build a District Park on property that had originally been slated for a utilities maintenance area.

Wiley added, however, that the county’s Master Parks Plan was done more than a decade ago and could be updated, “rather quickly” to see if there are locations within CC that could accommodate a District Park.  

Dist. 1 Comm. Ron Oakley, whose district includes CC, cautioned, however, that the entire county needs more ball fields, not just the [CC], “and we can’t build more parks without having the money to maintain them.”  

But, What About…

Prior to the Apr. 9 meeting, I also spoke with Realtor® and CC resident Michael Pultorak, whom we have featured in these pages before. Pultorak created the Facebook group known as the “Pasco Connected City Residents Group (PCCRG).” The group quickly built up to 1,600 members, as he and the group members have consistently appeared at Pasco BCC and Planning Commission meetings to ask questions and/or complain about the way CC is being developed, even though many of the concerns expressed have been about the development plans of some of the CC land owners other than Metro.

Pultorak has already met with four of the five commissioners to discuss his concerns, some of which below do also revolve around Metro’s portions of the development. And, some of these concerns were addressed on Apr. 9, but others were not:

• The open space & recreational areas detailed in the CC Master Plan have been moved to east of Handcart Rd. (outside of the CC boundaries) 

• The walking/jogging trails promised to Mirada and Epperson residents were not delivered and the trails were not in the engineering plans nor created in the execution of the development

• The innovative lagoons are private and for-profit amenities

• There are no promised cultural facilities or libraries of any kind yet planned in CC

• Stormwater concerns at the head of the Cypress Creek watershed with upcoming CC development applications

• King Lake (a 263-acre lake and the largest body of water in CC) flooding issues for current CC residents. (Note – Pultorak says that King Lake has been beyond flood stage since Metro began digging the nearby Epperson lagoon)

• Planned roadways within CC that topographical maps show will be under water

• No schools actually located within the CC boundaries (Goyani said that InPrep and Prodigy actually are within the CC boundaries)

• The large park planned to be within CC has been moved to the adjacent VOPH

• Multi-family apartments and townhomes being approved by the Pasco BCC that are in portions of CC that, according to the Master Plan approved by the state, should not be allowed

• The approved plan for the five Special Planning Area (SPA) Zones within CC has not been adhered to by Pasco, especially with regards to approvals for multi-family apartments

“We are not against responsible growth and development,” Pultorak said. “However, developers need to be held accountable to the residents of Pasco County to fulfill the promises they make before they take profits and move on or unexpectedly cause flooding of existing residents and communities. That’s why we formed this group.”

Where It Is Now

Many of the concerns outlined above were presented in our previous story about CC, when the Planning Commission first voted to send the Tall Timbers MPUD on to the BCC for final approval. After giving the nod to Tall Timbers 4-3 on Jan. 9, however, the Planning Commission then voted 6-1 at the same meeting to put a one-year moratorium on all future CC development agreements, site approvals, building permits and zoning changes. 

But, since the Planning Commission is only an advisory panel, the final say on both Tall Timbers and any possible CC moratorium still lies with the BCC. Those votes were originally supposed to be held at the BCC meeting on Feb. 11, but the discussions and votes have now been continued twice — first to Mar. 11 and now until the BCC meeting on Tuesday, May 6.

But, while Goyani still can’t speak to what the other CC land owners are doing, his primary response to most of the complaints is that, “We are only still in year eight of a 50-year plan. We knew before we started that it would be hard to make everyone happy with this unique development but we believe — and we are proud — that we are helping to put Pasco County on the map with [CC].”    

 ‘Connected City’ Developer Responds To Critics 

Metro Development Group Principal Kartik Goyani Says The Unique Community’s 50-Year Plan Is Right On Track In Year 8 

 With Wesley Chapel already growing by leaps and bounds, the area known as the Connected City (CC) — conceived by Metro Development Group as a partnership with Pasco County and approved by the State Legislature as a “special planning area” pilot program for the State of Florida — is something completely unique. 

Rather than just another collection of developers building nothing but more of the same subdivisions that Pasco seemingly will continue to approve until there is no more vacant land within the county’s nearly 750 total square miles, Metro Development principal Kartik Goyani says that, when it comes to CC, there is a 50-year plan in place to be more than just another series of individual developments of single-family homes, apartments and retail strip centers. 

Despite what some critics are claiming, Goyani says that CC, — aka the “First Smart Gigabit Community in the U.S.,” which was approved in 2015 and began development with Metro’s Epperson community in 2017 — is only in year eight of that 50-year plan and, in his estimation, the 7,800- acre CC development is indeed proceeding according to plan. 

Before we get into the discussion of what is or isn’t happening in CC, here are some geographical facts, many of which may not be 100% clear from the map (above), which was provided to us by Metro. 

The orange lines on the map indicate the boundaries of what is called CC, of which only the western boundary follows a specific roadway — I-75. 

The northern boundary extends to a little north of S.R. 52 in San Antonio, with several important commercial developments and yet another (as yet unnanounced) AdventHealth hospital to be located in this northernmost section. Goyani says AdventHealth has owned that property since 2019 or 2020. 

Curley Rd. forms most of the CC’s eastern border, although a portion of it extends east of Curley — between Elam Rd. to the north and just north of the eastern portion of Overpass Rd. to the south. It is worth noting that the Watergrass community, which includes property both north and south of that eastern extension of Overpass Rd., is not part of CC. 

And, speaking of Overpass Rd., everything north of it from I-75 to the entrance of Epperson is within the CC boundary, but that boundary also extends south of Overpass to include all of the Epperson development, but not the pre-existing Palm Cove or Bridgewater communities. 

How It All Got Started 

Of course, knowing the boundaries of CC doesn’t really give you any insight into why Metro Development decided to create a massive employment center where people could live, work and play in a portion of Pasco County that was super-rural, not even suburban, when Metro first proposed the idea of the CC to the county and the state in 2014. 

According to Goyani, it all started with internet speed. He says that before the Covid- 19 pandemic hit in 2020, the last economic slowdown was in 2008, but as business started to pick back up in 2009-10, Pasco County’s goal was to transform the county from a sleepy bedroom community, with thousands of residents leaving the county to work in Tampa, into a thriving self-sustaining economic center of its own. 

And, even though other developers may not have been thinking about how to plan for a better future, Goyani says, “We knew from our own experience during the 2008-09 downturn, that before the next downturn hits, we wanted to offer something that it seemed no one else was even interested in — faster internet. So, in 2014, we launched Ultrafi (Metro’s own bundled internet and cable service with ultra-fast internet speeds, up to 10 Gigabits per second) in our Park Creek community in Riverview and planned to include it in Epperson (the first development in CC).” 

He says that “everyone asked us ‘Why are you focusing on something that technology companies should do? No one’s asking us for faster internet, because they only have one connected device at home.” 

Goyani’s response is that, “We knew that to retrofit a community for faster internet would be very expensive. So, we laid fiber lines everywhere that could get insanely fast speeds at prices we all can afford. We talked to Google fiber (which wasn’t interested in Pasco County), AT&T, Verizon…and they all said no one wants faster speeds, so we did it ourselves.” 

He adds, “Could we use technology for the greater good? Could we create a new community from the internet up?” 

In other words, although Metro’s intent, when the CC pilot program was approved by the state in 2015, was to also have the CC connected by walkways and multimodal transportation opportunities, the developer’s primary focus was the internet. “From a fundamental standpoint,” he says, “counties and developers usually focus on the physical infrastructure — roads, water lines, waste water, electrical — because you can’t have a community without those, but no one else was working on the digital infrastructure. That’s how this story ended up evolving.” 

But, speaking of physical infrastructure, Goyani says that when CC began development, no other developers were interested in improving S.R. 52 or creating an Overpass Rd. interchange off I-75. 

“But, by bringing the CC to Pasco, S.R. 52 is now vastly improved and the Overpass Rd. intersection is open, meaning that the physical infrastructure for the CC is now in place. That is a big reason why we have been able to attract so many employment centers to this development.” 

He also notes that while most large-scale developments at that time were offering huge 10,000-20,000-sq.-ft. clubhouses or “amenity centers” that were intended to provide the community’s “social infrastructure,” Metro saw that during the last economic downturn, “people had to decide between being able to afford their mortgage or paying for the maintenance of a 20,000-sq.-ft. clubhouse for the use of the residents only. That just didn’t make sense to me.” 

Goyani says he wanted to create something that could benefit the entire region, “that’s why we put the first Metro Lagoon® in the U.S. in our Epperson community. Nobody was putting these lagoons in a community. We felt that connecting the digital, physical and social aspects — and the ‘Wow’ factor of the lagoons — would help put Pasco County on the map.” 

He also says that Metro didn’t even own all of Epperson. “We only own the southern half,” he says. “But we did own Mirada, where we put the second CC lagoon amenity (that is roughly twice the size of the lagoon in Epperson, and the largest such lagoon in the U.S.; photo above right).” He also said that the two lagoons in CC have attracted 1.2 million people combined since they opened. 

One of the problems for Goyani and Metro is that the 900-acre Epperson community, with roughly 3,000 residences at buildout, and the 2,000-acre Mirada development with 4,5000 residences, represent less than 40% of the 7,800 acres and only about 20% of the planned residences in the CC, so a lot of the CC plan approved by the state and county is not under Metro’s control. 

Commercial/Health Care 

Putting the number of residences aside, among the things Goyani is most proud of with the CC is the amount of new non-residential square footage that is planned, especially when it comes to health care. 

“Back when we started planning the CC,” Goyani says, “we looked at the amount of new commercial construction for all of Pasco County and I believe the total amount from east to west at that time was only 3000,000 sq. ft. So, as we started planning for the future, the county administrator told us that he wanted to see at least 3 million sq. ft. of commercial over the 50-year plan for the Connected City. Back then, I thought that was unreasonable, with only 300,000 sq. ft. under construction for the whole county, but I agreed that if we’re going to create an economic engine for Pasco, we have to look forward.” 

He adds, “We started talking to the stakeholders in the area and said, ‘This is a 50-year plan and we need to set up large areas where we can get people both living and working and over time, that 50-year goal went from 3 million sq. ft. to 12 million. And, if we could get that done by 2065, everyone would probably be happy, right? But, do you know how many sq. ft. of non-residential is already under development in CC? How does 8 million sq. ft. sound? And, it’s all already approved, having groundbreakings…with real dollars being spent, in 2025.” 

I’ll admit that number shocked me. It includes not only the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital that just broke ground in the Wildcat-Bailes property in CC’s southwest corner, but also the aforementioned, not-yet-announced AdventHealth hospital just north of S.R. 52, as well as a large BayCare medical office complex that will not only help staff the expandable BayCare Wesley Chapel Hospital a few miles south of CC, but also focus on wellness to help people live healthier and longer. 

Another major commercial project within the CC is the Double Branch/Pasco Town Center, a 965-acre mixed-use project just east of I-75 at S.R. 52 that is already under development that will include up to 4.5 million sq. ft. of industrial space at its build-out. Phase 1 of the project, which is expected to begin delivering finished buildings later this year, includes three industrial buildings totalling nearly 500,000 sq. ft. There also are plans for 1 million sq. ft. of office space, a 1.6.-million-sq.-ft. distribution center and a 400,000-sq.-ft. “cross-dock facility,” which is a logistics hub designed for the rapid transfer of goods to minimize storage time. Double Branch is being developed by Columnar Investments, which also is planning to have 500,000 sq. ft. of retail uses, 3,500 residential units and 200 acres of parks and trails. 

Some of the other privately owned portions of CC also have commercial entitlements (or are asking for them from the county), such as the Abbey Crossings/Park 52 Logistics piece that will bring 500,000 sq. ft. of light industrial uses to north of S.R. 52 and neighborhood commercial and a hotel to south of 52. 

Goyani says that, “Other smart people have seen what we’re doing within the CC boundary, so why not buy land outside of CC for less money and bet on the success of that project in the future? And people quickly gobbled up pieces of that land,” including Target, which bought a large chunk for a distribution center just north of CC. 

The Education Piece 

Also located on the outskirts of CC is the Kirkland Ranch Academy of Innovation (photo), which started in 2022 with a high school and now has grades K-8. Two years earlier, Innovation Preparatory Academy (aka InPrep), a charter school, opened for the 2020-21 school year and Prodigy at Epperson Early Learning Center is now open south of the CC border just south of InPrep. 

“None of the CC land owners were at the table telling the Pasco School District, ‘take my land for a school,’ or ‘take my land for a park,’ Goyani said. “In fact, I was told that those property owners all said ‘No’ and we had no control over that.” 

And, Goyani, who said he comes from a very poor family in India, is a big believer in education. His parents shipped him off to the U.S. with a $500 one-way ticket at age 21 to find a way to pay to get a Master’s degree, which he did, in Construction Management, in the School of Engineering, from prestigious Purdue University, even though, he claims, “I wasn’t really a smart kid. But, I am very passionate about education and my goal is to have one of the best universities in the country, either in CC or in [Metro’s other Pasco development in Land O’Lakes] Angeline (more on Angeline below).” 

Goyani also said that last year, Metro commissioned a study by PFM Financial Advisors LLC out of Orlando, which showed that Pasco County is now “the fastest growing commercial corridor in Florida. There is now 30-plus million sq. ft. of non-residential uses in different stages, which is more than any other county in the state of Florida, and I’m like, ‘Wow, that is exciting. Maybe we’re onto something here. If I were to bet, I’d say we’re going to run out of commercial entitlements throughout the Connected City because I think more is still going to happen, based on the plans.” 

A big part of that 30 million sq. ft. is Angeline, which Goyani says was created as our round two of turning Pasco into an economic engine, with the Moffitt Cancer Center owning 775 acres (to be called Speros FL), with plans to build 16 million sq. ft. of lab, medical offices manufacturing and clinical space that will be twice the size of downtown Tampa. “We also ave a working farm in Angeline that is open to the public, and plans for a 150-acre regional park,” Goyani says. “Instead of only developing for people living in a community, we open important elements of our projects to the public, to create a more regional impact. I don’t know any other developers who do that.” 

But, What About… 

Goyani also is aware that CC as a whole has its detractors, especially the Facebook group known as “Pasco Connected City Residents Group (PCCRG),” which was started by Realtor® and CC resident Michael Pultorak, whom we have featured in these pages before. Pultorak’s group quickly built up to 1,600 members, as he and the group members have consistently appeared at Pasco Board of County Commissioners (BCC) and Planning Commission meetings to ask questions and/or complain about the way CC is being developed, even though many of the concerns expressed have been about the development plans of some of the land owners other than Metro in CC. Pultorak has already met with four of the five Pasco commissioners to discuss his concerns, the first three of which below do also revolve around Metro’s portions of the development: 

• The open space & recreational areas detailed in the CC Master Plan have been moved to east of Handcart Rd. (outside of the CC boundaries) 

• The walking/jogging trails promised to Mirada and Epperson residents were not delivered and the trails were not placed in the engineering plans nor created in the execution of the development 

• The innovative lagoons are private and for-profit amenities 

But, Goyani says that between 2015, when the CC was approved by the state, through 2017, when Metro began building Epperson, there were more than a dozen public meetings held with stakeholders and local residents to discuss the CC plan — “Some had upwards of 300 people attending,” Goyani says — and any concerns about the CC plan was taken into account “to plan for a better future.” 

Other concerns of the PCCRG include: 

• There are no promised cultural facilities or libraries of any kind planned in CC 

• Stormwater concerns at the head of the Cypress Creek watershed with upcoming CC development applications 

• King Lake (a 263-acre lake and the largest body of water in CC) flooding issues for current CC residents. (Note – Pultorak says that King Lake has been beyond flood stage since Metro began digging the nearby Epperson lagoon) 

• Planned roadways within CC that topographical maps show will be under water 

• No schools actually located within the CC boundaries (Goyani says that InPrep and Prodigy actually are within the CC boundaries) 

• The large park planned to be within CC has been moved to the adjacent Villages of Pasadena Hills special planning area 

• Multi-family apartments and townhomes being approved by the Pasco BCC that are in portions of CC that, according to the Master Plan approved by the state, should not be allowed 

• The approved plan for the five Special Planning Area (SPA) Zones within CC has not been adhered to by Pasco, especially with regards to approvals for multi-family apartments 

“We are not against responsible growth & development,” Pultorak says. “However, developers need to be held accountable to the residents of Pasco County to fulfill the promises they make before they take profits and move on or, unexpectedly cause flooding of existing residents and communities. That’s why we formed this group.” 

Where We Are Now 

Many of the concerns outlined above were presented in our recent story (in our Jan. 21 edition) about CC, when the Planning Commission first voted to send the Tall Timbers MPUD on to the BOC for final approval. After giving the nod to Tall Timbers 4-3 on Jan. 9, however, the Planning Commission then voted 6-1 at the same meeting to put a one-year moratorium on all future CC development agreements, site approvals, building permits and zoning changes. 

But, since the Planning Commission is only an advisory panel, the final say on both Tall Timbers and any possible CC moratorium still lies with the BCC. Those votes were originally supposed to be held at the BOC meeting on Feb. 11, but the discussions and votes have now been continued twice — first to Mar. 11 and now until the BCC meeting on Tuesday, May 6. On Apr. 9, however, the county staff was set to provide the CC presentation requested since 2023 by Commissioners Seth Weightman and Board chair Kathryn Starkey. Unfortunately, that workshop took place after we went to press and was not open to public comment. We will update this story with any new information after we attend that meeting. 

Even if the BCC does vote for a CC moratorium, however, it would have pretty much nothing to do with Metro’s ongoing development of Epperson and Mirada, since those communities are both already fully approved with hundreds of residents already living in each and the two lagoons themselves already in place. 

And, while Goyani can’t speak to what the other CC land owners are doing, his primary response to most of the complaints is that, “We are only still in year eight of a 50-year plan. We knew before we started that it would be hard to make everyone happy with this unique development but we believe — and we are proud — that we are helping to put Pasco County on the map with CC.”