Tag: S.R. 54

It’s Been A Busy Nine Months Since Pasco County Commissioner Seth Weightman Took Office In November 2022 

When Pasco County native Seth Weightman took over from Mike Moore as the county commissioner for District 2 at the end of November 2022, some people in our area knew his name — Weightman Middle School on Wells Rd. was named for his great uncle, Thomas E. Weightman — but few knew much else about him.

But, that hasn’t stopped the former Board member for the Southwest Florida Water Management District (aka “Swiftmud”) from jumping in with both feet to tackle the issues that are top-of-mind for his family and — as important to him — the families of his constituents.

“It’s been a super-busy nine months,” Weightman told me in his first full-length interview with any local member of the media, “but I am proud of what we already have accomplished and I’m going to keep pushing for the people of District 2 (which includes much, but not all, of Wesley Chapel) and all of Pasco County.

During my interview with Commissioner Weightman and his legislative aide Andy Taylor (who also was Moore’s assistant) at Weightman’s Board of County Commissioners office in Dade City, I let them lead the way in terms of subject matter.

I asked him to list the accomplishments he’s proudest of so far in his nearly nine months in office. Here’s a list (that we hope to update soon) of many of them:

Sidewalks For Denham Oaks   

Although I was looking for projects that directly affect Wesley Chapel, Weightman said that his proudest accomplishment to date was bringing in $1.5 million from the state to build and improve sidewalks for nearby Denham Oaks Elementary and Pine View Elementary and Middle Schools.

“Although I originally asked for $2 million,” he said, “I was proud that in my first attempt to procure money from the state for my district, I was the only Pasco commissioner whose budget request was approved by the legislature.”

He added that Denham Oaks, where kids from southern Wesley Chapel went to school until Sand Pine Elementary opened, was originally a school for the deaf and hard of hearing and still has programs to help hearing-impaired children. “We asked the (Pasco) School District where the greatest needs were” he said, “and these were the schools they came up with.”

He said the sidewalk issue was made loud and clear to him during the county’s budget process for Fiscal Year 2024 because of the statute that ended the courtesy buses for kids who live within a two-mile radius of their schools. 

“Sidewalks are never an easy issue,” he said, “because in some cases, a developer, homeowners association or CDD has to pay for them — because there are liabilities associated with sidewalks — but sometimes, the county and/or the state have to step in. But, I plan to continue to work on getting funds for improved sidewalks for our area’s schools, so this was a great first-year success for me.”

Widening Of Old Pasco Rd.   

When Commissioner Moore left office, Weightman said, the 99-acre parcel on Old Pasco Rd. now know as the “Rooker Site” was just getting started. Today, that acreage, located south of Overpass Rd., is home to the first 187,000 sq. ft. of a planned 800,000-sq.-ft. Class A warehouse/industrial space (as we reported in our June issue).

“We have a great partnership with Rooker Properties (which bought the land from the county),” Weightman said, “but the segment of Old Pasco Rd. from north of Deedra Dr. to south of Overpass Rd. was supposed to be widened before Rooker received its Certificate of Occupancy for the (warehouse). For whatever reason, the county fumbled the ball on that, but I felt there was a commitment made, not just to Rooker, but to all of the residents who travel Old Pasco Rd. to Cypress Creek Middle and High School (north of Overpass Rd.).”

He added, “This was definitely a failure on the county’s part, but once we saw what happened, we were able to get the Request for Proposals (RFP) done and the bids were received by July 10. The county’s procurement staff is going through those now and our Board of (County) Commissioners (BCC) will vote on the selected bid within the next two months, with construction set to begin shortly after.” He also noted that no right of way needed to be purchased for that project.

Widening Of WC Blvd.   

“When I was on the governing board of Swiftmud,” Weightman said, “we were negotiating with the county and the property owners on the east side of Wesley Chapel Blvd.(from where S.R. 56 meets S.R. 54 to Old Pasco Rd.) for stormwater relief. That deal is now put together, so we’re working on finalizing stormwater right of way. Once the county has those, we’re going to move forward on getting the expansion of Wesley Chapel Blvd. done.”

He said that until that expansion plan is in place, he doesn’t know if the plan will include additional traffic signals but notes that he expects to advertise for construction bids by September or October of this year, “so construction should begin by early 2024.” 

But, because Wesley Chapel Blvd. is a two-lane road, he said, “To quote State Rep. Randy Maggard, ‘The good news for area residents is that there will be road construction. The bad news (at least for a while) will also be that there will be road construction.’”

S.R. 54 Traffic Issues  

While the freshman commissioner says he was happy to vote for the redevelopment of the Saddlebrook property on S.R. 54 (see pg. 10), there’s no doubt that, with all the growth in that area the last few years, and with more still to come, the traffic signal situation on 54 from Curley Rd. to the new Wiregrass Ranch Blvd. “is a mess. So, we met with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) secretary in Tampa (since that portion of 54 is a state road) to discuss the traffic light cycles, the timing of them, to make them more fluid and safer.”

He added that, “We’re hoping that when Wiregrass Ranch Blvd. officially opens (which we reported last issue was supposed to already have happened by now, but hadn’t yet at our press time), that will alleviate some of the problems in that portion of 54, but we owe it to the folks who travel that segment of that road every day to figure out a good light timing pattern for them.”

County Aquatics Facility   

“Currently, the only county-owned pool in District 2 is at the Land O’Lakes Rec Center,” Weightman said, “but being part of Florida’s Sports Coast, and with all the new families moving in — many of whom aren’t originally from Florida, so they’re not as used to being around water — we’re trying to find a site east of Land O’Lakes for a true, full aquatics center, with swimming and diving. This would be not only for swim meets, but also for learn-to-swim programs for children and adults — for safety as much as for recreation.”

He noted that the BCC had a workshop on the idea in January, “and there was consensus on having a county aquatics facility.” And, while there wasn’t a location for it yet, “There is a 300-acre ‘superpark’ site — which would be the largest park in the county — in the Villages at Pasadena Hills, which was one possibility mentioned. I selfishly want to see this aquatics facility built in my district, preferably in Wesley Chapel, but Pasadena Hills is just outside of my district.”

He admitted that the facility is “a want, not a need, but maybe because of my age demographic — I have a family with young kids — I am excited about this and will be trying to navigate where we can land with it. This would be a great ‘big picture’ item for Pasco County.”

He added that he encourages his constituents, “If you see a park need, please let us know because that’s a fun part of this job. As the Sports Coast, we want our residents to have opportunities to have fun and be active.”

Fighting Sex Traffickers   

“There’s a big group of people in Wesley Chapel, including the Wesley Chapel Rotary Club, that is really focused on sex trafficking issues,” Weightman said. “It wasn’t long ago that we had one of the strip clubs on U.S. 19 caught having an underage girl that was basically fostered by her family and was being trafficked through there.”

He said that, “If we believe we’re a premiere county, when we look at quality of life issues, something’s not right when we hope families will want to live here but we have this type of underworld environment.”

He added that he understands that although “adult entertainment” businesses have a right to operate, because most of their employees are independent contractors, there are very limited rules as to how to keep tabs on these “employees.”

“The county started down a path of creating its own ordinance to tighten the reporting rules on these businesses, but it wasn’t successful,” Weightman said. “So, we spoke with Rep. Maggard and the legislature wrote up a bill to add reporting rules to these adult businesses — with the age, who you’re working for, etc. (The businesses) have to comply and submit their info to a state database. So, while Pasco wasn’t successful on our level, it’s another example of working with our state government, and the governor signed it into law, to add some teeth and say to these establishments, ‘Hey, we’re watching you. When you’re in this kind of tough business, you need to be more transparent with what you’ve got going on.’

Taylor added, “Even if we were successful on a county level, the penalties we could impose would have been extremely limited. We were concerned about going through this whole process and probably getting sued as soon as it passed, and that it wouldn’t have much ‘teeth’ anyway. By the legislature doing it, the state has much more (enforcement) authority and, at some point, it becomes a felony if the businesses don’t comply. By the state taking the action, it has a lot more teeth to it.”

Weightman added, “The state came in big with this and it felt good to me having some small piece of making that happen. But now, our state attorney has much more ability to make things much more uncomfortable for these businesses. So, I’m pretty proud of that work, too.” 

On Taxes & Fire Stations   

“We recently sent the TRIM (Truth in Millage) notices out to property owners and the Board voted that the county’s operating millage would be held flat,” Weightman said. “Staff recommended back in May to not increase the MSTU (Municipal Service Taxing Unit) for fire services. Then, at 6 p.m. the night before the vote, staff proposed increasing the MSTU millage from 1.8 to 2.3 mils for 2024, a 27% tax increase, and that’s roughly $24 million for just FY 2024 — and staff wanted to base this on a five-year plan. It was like, surprise, there was no notice to the public, no notice to us.”

He added, “I’m pretty conservative when it comes to money. We’re battling 40-year-high inflation, housing prices through the roof, interest rates through the roof and we’re going to hit people with taxes they didn’t know about, regardless of what entity (the money is) for? The process was not managed as it should be, transparently, in my opinion. So, we called it out. The School Board passed its referendum last August, and that 1 mil is on top of what the county may or may not do in terms of its taxes.”

With the county’s fiscal year beginning October 1, the vote on the taxes will be held in September and, Weightman said, “We’re going to do a little investigation into what the proposed taxes could mean for our District. Two additional fire stations are planned for our area, but they’re staff-ranked based on the pot of money available to fund them. With as many folks as there are moving here, everybody says, ‘I need it now,’ but I rely on the fire chief, the experts, who tell us that while it’s tough here for response times, we still have to spend those millions of dollars where they say we need them first.”

Weightman also noted that Pasco’s new Fire Chief Anthony (Tony) Perez, who lives in District 2, just took over on Aug. 1, “But, he has fantastic energy, so I’m excited to see what he will do about fire services in not just my district, but the entire county.”

“Eatertainment”

“Whenever a big project comes in, and someone spreads all of these plans out on this table,” Weightman said, “my two questions are, ‘What are these people going to do for work?’ and ‘What are they going to do for fun?’ I get asked these questions by residents daily. If we’re going to build these projects, some of which are bigger than the incorporated cities we have here, why don’t we have a Disney-style downtown with food, drink and green spaces? Most folks don’t just want chain restaurants, they want places where you have the right space for a boutique-style diner, wine bar or whatever.”

“So now,” he laughed, “Other Board members are now asking when these large projects come in, where’s Weightman’s ‘Eatertainment’ going to be? Mixed-use projects, like out in front of Saddlebrook, where’s your fun things for folks to do?”

In fact, even though Avalon Park Wesley Chapel’s downtown was approved before he took office, Weightman said, “I think Avalon Park is on to something there. Having these places within these communities keeps people off the roads. The models for us here in Pasco are to look at downtown New Port Richey, downtown Zephyrhills or downtown Dade City. People will come to them, they’ll create jobs, moms and dads can meet folks, and someone can live their American dream — it’s a way to build a sense of community.”

And, even though change is inevitable, Weightman said that he hears many long-time Pasco residents complaining that the county, “isn’t what it used to be because of all these new folks. So, I say we need these types of downtown areas to build those communities. And I think we’re gaining traction on it, so we’ll see.” 

‘Live Local’ Challenges   

“There are challenges everywhere,” Weightman admitted. “There’s a new law out there called the ‘Live Local Act,’ which is the state’s way of trying to find more people an affordable way to live. But, buried deep inside of this bill, it preempts cities and counties from saying ‘No’ to multi-family apartments on any commercially- or light industrial-zoned properties.”

He added, “I hit this thing head-on right out of the gate, to protect our job-creating sites. We now have six projects in the pipeline, over 1,000 units, on C2 (business and office) commercially-zoned properties throughout the county. One problem with this is that we weren’t planning for hundreds of residential units to come in; we were planning for jobs to come in.”

He also said that the bigger, compounding issue with this law is if at least 40% of the units in these properties are “affordable” housing, “they’re tax-exempt until 2059, but we still have to provide services to them. We have to figure out how to get fire service to them, etc.” The law was unanimously passed by the Florida House and Senate and signed by the governor.

“In Pasco, we value our jobs, and to be a thriving county, we need a balanced county. We’re very housing-rich and jobs poor. The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council has a chart that shows this, and it’s not just us — it’s also Hernando, Citrus, your growing kind of traditionally rural counties. In order to stop just being ‘bedroom’ communities, you really have to focus on the rezonings and protect these sites, to allow jobs to come in. Now, at all of our properties that have commercial and industrial zonings, the developers could sell those sites to an affordable housing developer and the cities and counties can’t do anything to stop it.”

He said he started working with our state legislature, “because I didn’t believe that they meant for this to happen, but somehow, some way, it got passed, and this language affecting our job-creating sites made it into this bill. It might work for Orlando or for Tampa, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all, as it could really damage Pasco.”

He said that the county already has six sites that are being affected by this, “One of the six sites is close to my district, on S.R. 54. Two of the six did not disclose the parcel ID or say where they’re wanting to (put this affordable housing) just yet. But, they will ultimately have to come in with a site plan, so that’s when we’ll find out.”

So now, when people are coming to look at commercially-zoned sites in Wesley Chapel, Weightman’s first question is, “What’s your intention? Because we know that it’s in the back of their minds when they negotiate with the county that they could always just cut a deal with a Live Local apartment developer and there’s nothing that we can do about it.”

He adds that, “It’s important to be vocal about it and I’m not afraid to ask the question. We recently had one developer come in who wouldn’t agree to put a deed restriction that would have not allowed for residential zoning on their property, so Weightman told the developer, “When it comes for a vote to approve your site plan, you might not get my vote to approve it.”

He added, “We’ve been trying to educate the planning commission to ask these developers in advance to agree to this type of deed restriction. People in our area need to know about this. What you might think is a Publix or Amazon could very quickly not be that. They could put up Live Local apartment units — with no caps. They can do whatever the highest density that’s allowed in that jurisdiction and whatever the highest height a building can be in that jurisdiction.”

‘Build-To-Rent’ Issues   

“Build-to-Rent” is another recent development that Weightman said is exploding.

“Investors are buying 60 acres at a time and they’re building these build-to-rent houses because they’re tied to single-family.”

Here’s how he says it works:

“You’re looking to buy a house in Wesley Chapel, they’re like $600-800,000. You’re making a big investment, and you don’t realize that tied to the neighborhood are build-to-rent units that look like houses, but are actually deconstructed apartments. Their rules are multi-family and we have hundreds of these units all over the place.”

He noted that build-to-rent “homes” do not have to adhere to single-family home architectural design standards, “Plus, the product’s not platted, so you can’t sell it off as a single-family-home product. It looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, but it’s not.”

He also admitted that, “It’s kind of a donut hole within our code. My fear was that you come in and make a big investment in your home and you don’t realize that right next to you, there are hundreds of units that are rentals. They don’t have the same driveway or landscaping standards, etc.”

He notes that in Quail Hollow, where the golf course and clubhouse were razed, the new Siena Cove neighborhood is build-to-rent, but the Villages of Quail Hollow directly behind it is single family. “My concern,” he said, “is to protect the investment of the property owners who aren’t renting, to ensure that their property doesn’t decline.”

Weightman has begun working with the staff, the development community, all of the stakeholders, to address build-to-rent regulations. “We’re very early in the process, we just have our first memorandum that addressed this,” he said. “We started working on it in January, and our regulation now is, if you’re going to do build to rent, the product is platted, so it can be sold off individually. It’s not just sold as one big apartment complex. They’ll be platted and their architectural design standards are that they have to match the single-family-home product.”

He said he also is looking into the different styles of build to rent. He said there’s one going on Old Pasco Rd. that’s going to be build-to-rent “horizontal apartments,” which is another style. 

“There are a few different versions of this product out there,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out how these types of products fit into our code and the quality and value standards of our communities.”

Taylor noted that the first policy memo, “was sent out in April, but because there are so many different styles of this, we’re working on additional ones. But, the first piece, the build-to-rent products that have driveways, was approved in April by the Board.” 

To which Weightman added, “That was a good win for us to start addressing this product. It was our initiative and we got it pushed through and we’re excited to be able to start addressing build-to-rent products to be up to our quality and value standards.”

On Preserving Pasco 

Weightman said he’s also, “big on preserving big environmental spaces. And, the county has the Environmental Lands Acquisition & Management Program (ELAMP) to do just that. Within our district, there are sites that we’re taking a hard look at. And for me, if we’re successful in capturing these sites for water control, keeping our wildlife corridors open, that’d be a huge win.”

He added, however, that he doesn’t take “pulling properties off the tax roles lightly, either, so if we’re successful in preserving these lands for perpetuity, everything that goes into preserving a piece of historical Florida and Pasco County, I hope to be successful in doing that.” 

He also noted that there aren’t many such sites in Dist. 2, “but there’s more than one and we’re in the very early stages of conversation on one of them. We’re involving Swiftmud because there’s always a water component to it. I think residents old and new will be able to appreciate if we’re able to do that for recreation and water quality — everything that folks like.”

In Closing…

“I’m only nine months in,” Weightman concluded, “but I am trying to bring a different way of thinking, such as, ‘What is quality of life?’ We’ve been busy. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished in a short amount of time. We’ve hit the ground running and I’m excited to see how we can round out the year.”

He added, “We know what we have here in Pasco County; everybody wants a piece of us. We’re the fifth fastest-growing county in the entire country. We know we have something special. It’s time that we recognize that and know that we have a (great county) here that I intend to continue to work hard to try to make better.”

To contact District 2 Pasco Commissioner Seth Weightman, email him at SWeightman@mypasco.net.