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Red Tape Binds Builders, Commissioner Says

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By MIKE SALINERO

msalinero@tampatrib.com

Published: February 26, 2009

TAMPA - As the local economy continues to lose steam, Hillsborough County commissioners are pushing county officials to cut red tape so hundreds of building permits can move forward.

Commissioner Jim Norman, citing the severity of the economic downturn, challenged county planning and building officials to instill their employees with a "sense of urgency" in approving development projects.

"We can't just do business like we've always done it," Norman said recently. "We've got to keep people working."

County officials concede the development approval process can be grindingly slow. Subdivision approvals can take a year or two. What is not clear, however, is whether greasing the wheels of that process can improve the housing market.

The problems are severe. The county issued just 103 single-family building permits in January, said Peter Aluotto, director of the Planning and Growth Management Department. Just three years ago, January permits totaled 556.

A county audit in 2008 gave Aluotto credit for removing some of the logjams that had delayed development approvals before he took the director's job in February 2007.

The process is still imperfect, Aluotto said, but that's not the reason building is at a near standstill. He points out that builders failed to pick up 250 single-family home permits in January. Countywide, there are 37,000 approved single-family lots sitting empty.

"The problem obviously is the economy," Aluotto said. "When we were booming, I didn't hear anybody complaining about regulations."

Fort Lonesome Bottleneck
In January 2006, when the housing market was still strong, developer Robert Kirkland decided to build a 30-home subdivision in the Fort Lonesome area in southeast Hillsborough County. It took Kirkland nearly a year to get the property rezoned and an additional 15 months for preliminary, construction plan and plat approval.

Meanwhile, the housing market crashed. Kirkland still wants to build, but he hasn't gotten final plat approval. He's negotiating with the county about a requirement to put net barricades around trees to protect them during construction. Kirkland put cows on the land to get a lower property tax rate, and he's afraid they will tear up the netting while he tries to sell lots.

"I can't build a home until I have platted lots," Kirkland said. "It's really got me bottlenecked."

Robert Starr, Kirkland's engineer, said the project was delayed while he tried to get exceptions to county subdivision regulations requiring bike paths, 97-foot-wide rights of way for streets and 5-foot-wide paved shoulders along the roads.

Starr argued that the requirements were excessive for a low-density subdivision in a rural area. After six months of negotiations, the county denied the request.

Kirkland also had to get approval from state agencies, including the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The wildlife department is requiring him to move gopher tortoises, a threatened species, off the 80-acre subdivision site at a cost of $150,000, Kirkland said.

"Given market conditions, Kirkland would want to build more affordable homes than more expensive homes," Starr said. "But that's hard to do with what he's having to pay for infrastructure and moving tortoises and everything else he's supposed to do."

Mall On Hold

Kirkland's case is not unique. All developments must comply with state and county environmental and growth management regulations. Developers often have to get approval from five or six agencies for one project.

For example, if a development adds significant traffic to an area, state law requires the developer to pay for improvements such as widening a road to mitigate the congestion. Developers often try to negotiate the extent of the mitigation, which takes time.

Norman, in his appeals to streamline the process, said excessive regulation delayed the opening of Southshore Commons, a 1-million-square-foot shopping center at Big Bend Road and Interstate 75 in south Hillsborough. Norman said it took two years for the shopping center developers to get approval from regulatory agencies

"We finally signed off and approved it," Norman said. "But by the time we did, all the key tenants pulled out because of bank finances, so the mall didn't go forward."

Actually, approval for the Commons took one year, said Jay Miller, vice president for mixed-used development at Equity Inc., the developer. Miller said additional requests from regulatory agencies, including the state Department of Transportation, added four months to the approval process.

The four anchor tenants are still committed to locating in the shopping center, Miller said, but have asked that the opening be delayed from fall 2010 to spring 2011.

"None of us have control over the economy," Miller said. "It's hard to say if those four months were crucial."

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303.

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