Panel: Focus Projects in Growth Areas

BARTOW | Polk County's growth plan would be better if more money for fixing roads and other public facilities were steered to defined growth areas, if more emphasis were placed on water conservation and transit and if there were more joint city-county planning, county planners have said.

These and other recommendations are contained in a state-required report card on local growth plans that all cities and counties are required to complete every seven years.

The Polk County Planning Commission approved the staff recommendation Tuesday, forwarding it to the County Commission, which will consider it March 19.

State planners are scheduled to review the county's proposal and to send it back with comments by May. If there are no major objections, the County Commission will adopt the proposals in June.

Then the work begins.

County planners will have to draft formal growth-plan changes as well as any development regulations needed to implement the changes, said Ana Martinez-Hubert, who has been coordinating the effort.

She said the issues raised in the report are based on public meetings held last year to get resident input as well as county planners' analysis of the plan.

She said in addition to the change in policies the public meetings precipitated, the work will also include updating sections of the plan that refer to achieving goals by certain dates to guarantee the information is current.

Some of the other issues raised in the recommendations were:

The need to support transfer of development rights and the Polk County Rural Land Stewardship Program to preserve agricultural land from development.

Improving rural development policies to emphasize more preservation of natural areas.

Coordinating with transportation officials to support the extension of commuter rail into Polk County.

Promoting the creation of trails to connect parks, urban centers and environmental lands.

Studying areas to support economic development and higher-density development and the infrastructure to support it.

Working on ways to improve participation in the planning process among the public, including students.

No one from the public appeared to comment on the proposal, and commissioners had little to say other than praising staff for their work in completing the school concurrency section of the plan.

[ Tom Palmer can be reached at tom.palmer@theledger.com or 863-802-7535. Read more views on county government at http://county.theledger.com. ]