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School Board OKs Pact With County On Housing Issue

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By RONNIE BLAIR, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 20, 2008

LAND O' LAKES - The Pasco County School Board gave approval Tuesday to an interlocal agreement with the county commission that includes a school concurrency plan.

School concurrency ties the approval of housing developments to whether schools have the capacity to handle the growth. The Legislature approved a bill in 2005 that requires every county in Florida to develop a concurrency plan.

The process that led to Tuesday evening's vote involved numerous meetings and sometimes heated discussions between the school district staff and county staff.

"This has been a huge undertaking, no doubt," said Dennis Alfonso, the school board's attorney.

It's not over, either. The county commission still must give its approval to the agreement. Then the plan must be submitted to the state Department of Community Affairs for review.

"DCA is basically going to pick it apart," Alfonso said. "We are not out of the woods."

The county and the school district disagreed on some issues covered in the agreement.

One of the most contentious was over which of them pays for road improvements when a new school brings additional traffic to an area.

The district maintained that the county was responsible for roads or other infrastructure not on the school site. The county argued the district should pay for those improvements.

In the agreement that now goes before the county, the two sides essentially agree to disagree. The pact says the county and school board "acknowledge that there are conflicting and undefined requirements" in state law as to where the responsibility lies.

"Section 4 is the punt section," Alfonso said.

The Hillsborough County School Board has gone to court with the Hillsborough County Commission over the same issue, and the Pasco board is hoping that court case will clarify the discrepancies in state law.

In other action Tuesday, the board approved attendance boundaries for Crews Lake Middle and Veterans Elementary, two schools scheduled to open in August.
Crews Lake Middle, under construction in Shady Hills, affects attendance boundaries for River Ridge, Bayonet Point, Hudson and Pine View middle schools.

Veterans Elementary, under construction in Wesley Chapel, affects boundaries for Quail Hollow and Seven Oaks elementary schools.

Committees made up of district administrators, principals and parents set the proposed boundaries.

The board held its first public hearing and vote Feb. 5; Tuesday's was the second and final vote.

Parents who live in the Pasco Trails neighborhood just north of State Road 52 and east of U.S. 41 had asked that their community remain zoned for Pine View Middle instead of having their children moved to Crews Lake.

The board made no changes in the boundaries as recommended by the committee, though.

Parents who prefer that their children remain in their old schools can apply for school choice, which allows students to attend a school they aren't zoned for. The deadline for school choice applications is March 7.

Reporter Ronnie Blair can be reached at (813) 948-4218 or rblair@tampatrib.com.

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