What do you think of the proposals for 15,000 MORE HOUSES in Little Manatee South?

TELL THE COUNTY WHAT YOU THINK of their proposals for 15,000 MORE HOUSES in South County, with 30,000 MORE CARS on our roads! Please fill out the County survey linked below.

The Planning Commission is carrying out the County Commission’s directive to study expanding the Urban Service Area Boundary to allow tons of urban development to pave over the rural lands south of the Little Manatee River with costly urban sprawl. They’re proposing 3 Scenarios for how that development would look. But here’s the best option by far: throw out all 3 Scenarios, and STICK WITH THE CURRENT PLAN.

The survey starts with the Current Plan, which maintains agricultural uses and very low density rural development, and asks what you like and don’t like about it. This is your chance to tell them you like the Current Plan the best. After that the survey goes through their 3 Scenarios, each with nightmare visions of over-development, and asks what you like and don’t like about them. I told them I like nothing about their horrid scenarios, and I want to STICK WITH THE CURRENT PLAN.

Here’s why I want to STICK WITH THE CURRENT PLAN:

This is not the place for the dense development shown in their 3 Scenarios. The whole area is mostly floodplains, wetlands & wildlife habitat -- AND it’s almost all in Emergency Evacuation Zone A, the first told to evacuate in the event of an emergency. The dense development being proposed would be a whole new city! It would be much more housing than the city of Temple Terrace, closer to as much as Plant City, but in half the area of Plant City, so much more dense. This would be a radical alteration of this rural, flood-prone, environmentally sensitive area, and its wildlife habitat, and it would radically impact the quality of life in South County.

All this new development would bring tons of traffic to the area, and to the whole county, as thousands of new residents commute to jobs and services in the urban core.

It would also cost us taxpayers a LOT in building & maintaining new infrastructure including roads, water/sewer, schools, fire/rescue, sheriffs, etc. The County is billions of dollars behind in trying to build and maintain infrastructure inside the current Urban Service Area. We simply cannot afford to expand the Urban Service Area, and try to build more infrastructure farther out at this time.

The only reason for all of this is to make a certain billionaire developer richer at the expense of the environment, the local community, and the County taxpayers.

THE DEVELOPERS ARE WEIGHING IN. LET’S BE SURE THE COUNTY HEARS FROM US.

Take the survey by clicking the button at this page:
bit.ly/LMSUrbanSurvey 

The page has a contact form too, if you’d rather give them a piece of your mind that way. You can just tell them to STICK WITH THE CURRENT PLAN.

 This report has more details about the 3 Scenarios for Urban Sprawl:
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:eu:730e3d0e-f5a4-4538-8d62-d7617a7aca4c?viewer!megaVerb=group-discover

SAVE THE DATES for the next round of public meetings (all 3 will be the same):
⬥ 09/17/26 | 6:00 p.m. | Virtual Meeting | Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/gTS63CD_TDSxmK7EESzozA#/registration

⬥ 09/19/26 | 11:00 a.m. | South County Career Acceleration Academy | 2810 John Sherman Way | Ruskin

⬥ 09/22/26 | 6:00 p.m. | South County Career Acceleration Academy | 2810 John Sherman Way | Ruskin

Thank you, Mariella Smith, for this update!