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Pasco's Future Development Gets A Reality Check

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 2, 2007

NEW PORT RICHEY - The tools were children's playthings, but the job couldn't have been more grown-up: Mapping out how Pasco County can absorb more than 400,000 new residents between now and midcentury.

For about two hours earlier this week at Pasco-Hernando Community College, about four dozen people gathered around maps of Pasco discussing what the county's future might look like. They used Lego blocks to represent population density and ribbons to map out roads and transit corridors.

In the end, the organizers of Reality Check Tampa Bay hoped the exercise will help planners and elected officials throughout the region chart a future that can shepherd natural resources such as water while accommodating a projected doubling of the region's population to 6 million people. More than 800,000 of those people could live in Pasco, according to estimates by the University of Florida and U.S. Census Bureau.

When polled by event organizers, more than half of the workshop's participants said that amount of growth over the next five decades is too much growth for the region. They also expressed strong concerns that the region may not be able to provide enough water for all those new residents.

Kevin Wiatrowski

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