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School Board Debates Its Role In Development

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By RONNIE BLAIR, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 16, 2008

LAND O' LAKES - The Pasco County School District eventually may need to beef up its staff once school concurrency goes into effect and the school board takes a more active role in the permitting process for housing developments, district officials said Tuesday.

"There is an expense here that's not obvious," said Dennis Alfonso, the school board attorney, said at a board workshop. "There is a hidden cost."

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.

David Tucker, a Tallahassee-based lawyer working as a legal consultant for the school board on the concurrency issue, said typically the county commission has jurisdiction over land-use issues while school construction is the school board's responsibility.

With school concurrency, though, the school board must choose whether it wants simply to provide advice to the county commission or be the decider when it comes to concurrency issues.

Details are still being worked out in an interlocal agreement with the county commission, but at this point it appears the Pasco board plans to be the decider.

"We're in a better position to do it and will have more data," board member Allen Altman said.

That added responsibility, though, means the board would need to set up policies and procedures for handling development requests. Superintendent Heather Fiorentino said the new responsibility also would require more staff.

The deadline for Pasco's concurrency plan to reach the Department of Community Affairs for review in Tallahassee is Feb. 1, but it's unclear when the plan actually would take effect because DCA must first approve it.
Assistant Superintendent Ray Gadd said the district should be prepared to put its plan into effect by July 1, though.

Crowded schools in and of themselves aren't going to put a halt to housing construction, even with school concurrency in force.

"It's difficult to flat out deny a development for school concurrency," Tucker said.

For the purposes of concurrency, a county is divided into service areas. Available school capacity is determined by an average of the schools within the service area. It's not based on how crowded the school closest to the planned development is.

Pasco plans two service areas each for elementary schools, middle schools and high schools.

If there's no available capacity within a service area, capacity can be borrowed from an adjacent service area where it is available, allowing the developer to still build the homes.

"That obviously creates its own practical problems," Tucker said.

For example, students might have to be bused to less crowded schools. Right now, the prevailing view seems to be that the students can't face more than a 50-minute bus ride, Tucker said.

If capacity still is not available, the developer could negotiate with the school district. In exchange for board approval, the developer might give the district money or land, build a new school or add a classroom wing to an existing school, depending on what kind of agreement is reached with the school district.

Many houses built during the next few years won't be affected by concurrency. About 60,000 planned housing units in Pasco are exempt from school concurrency because their developers filed their Development of Regional Impact plans before a May 2005 deadline, Gadd said.

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

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