Pasco's largest city? It might be Wesley Chapel

A group that believes growth is moving past county services considers the creation of the county's seventh city.

By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 24, 2003
 

WESLEY CHAPEL - A group of Wesley Chapel residents, worried that increasing urbanization will leave them short of government services, is studying plans to make their community Pasco County's newest city in 2004.

Incorporation, which requires both an act of the state legislature and a successful referendum of prospective city residents, comes with tradeoffs:

The average property owner probably would have to pay hundreds of more dollars in taxes. On the other hand, Wesley Chapel could spend the money on itself without interference from county commissioners.

"We are quickly becoming a major urban area. It's a natural thing to look at whether you can become a city," said Dennis Smith, a Meadow Pointe neighborhood resident who sits on the local committee weighing incorporation. "If you're going to do it, now's the time to do it."

A mix of bedroom communities for Tampa, shopping strips and farm land destined for similar development, Wesley Chapel has borders that are only fuzzily defined. The committee hopes to change that.

Cutting the widest swath possible, the group's tentative boundaries run from Cypress Creek Road on the west to Morris Bridge Road on the east and County Line Road on the south to a line between State Roads 54 and 52.

The boundaries encompass territory the post office labels Land O'Lakes and Zephyrhills. Among the large neighborhoods in the city would be Meadow Pointe, Northwood, New River, Seven Oaks and Saddlebrook.

The 2000 U.S. Census counted 15,089 residents within those boundaries, but housing growth has pumped up the population by thousands in the past three years.

At least 10,000 new homes are on the books, as is a regional shopping mall proposed for Interstate 75 and State Road 56, rivaling the biggest in the Tampa Bay area.

The past couple of years, as housing growth outstripped services, some Wesley Chapel residents have grumbled about the lack of libraries, sports fields, roads and other government goodies.

County commissioners proposed creating a special taxing district to pay for Wesley Chapel upgrades, but the proposal lies in limbo. Now the committee members want to take the community further along the road of self governance.

To hold a referendum on incorporation in November 2004, the committee has to prepare, by December, a detailed feasibility study that includes a community profile and a list of proposed city services.

The tentative taxing rate would be 3 mills, or $3 for every $1,000 of assessed property. For a home worth $150,000, minus the $25,000 homestead exemption, extra taxes would amount to $375 a year.

"It's not a small task. There's a lot of information we're going to have to get," Smith said. "Our goal is to submit this to the legislature by December."

Florida's 408 cities range in population from Islandia with five residents to Jacksonville with 770,000. Wesley Chapel would be Pasco's seventh city and its most populated.

The main reasons communities incorporate are the desire for local autonomy and the demand for government services that counties are unable or unwilling to provide, said Lynn Tipton of the Florida League of Cities.

A model of incorporation is Palm Coast, a community in Flagler County that became a city in 1999. Flagler had been hard pressed to provide even basic infrastructure such as water and sewer service to its new subdivisions.

Pasco has gotten a lot better about providing city-type services, as County Administrator John Gallagher takes pains to point out.

The county has bought land for a 140-acre park, complete with sports fields and swimming pool, in north Wesley Chapel. A new library, nestled among the Seven Oaks neighborhood north of SR 56, is coming soon.

New ordinances to improve the look of future shopping centers, including those regulating overly large signs, tree counts and landscaping, have been approved in the past two years.

"It's an issue if the citizens of the area really want another form of government to represent them," Gallagher said.

Even Dennis Smith isn't sure incorporation is right for his community. He differs from other committee members, such as local chamber of commerce director Russ Smith, who are more gung ho for incorporation.

"We have to weigh the advantages against the disadvantages," Smith said. "And of course the biggest disadvantage is you create a different bureaucracy that requires taxes to support it."

- James Thorner covers growth and development in Pasco County. He can be reached at 813 909-4613 or toll-free 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4613. His e-mail address is thorner@sptimes.com