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| CITY OF TITUSVILLE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN Table of Contents* Map Map Series:
*Updated through Ordinance #50-2002, September 23, 2003
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| Planning - Comprehensive Plan The Comprehensive Plan is designed to help explain the Florida Growth Management Act and how the Act is being implemented in the City. The Growth Management Act requires that the City obtain prior state concurrence and approval on all Comprehensive Plan Amendments and the Plan. The Act required the preparation and adoption of a Comprehensive Plan with a future land use element that is to guide the pattern and density of growth. The State will now evaluate all Comprehensive Plan Amendments and approve only those they find to be consistent with the City, State and Regional plans. Florida’s Growth Management Act People from around the world are attracted to Florida for fun, sun, surf and theme parks by the millions each year. In addition to the large tourist population, on average, up to 900 people a day cross the state line with the intention of making Florida their home. With this flow of retirees, singles and families comes a need for housing, jobs, schools, drinking water, power and a seemingly endless demand for roads, roads and more roads! The gap between infrastructure needs and the state and local funds available to build them, in a state which promoted its low tax rates, has continued to widen. The 1985 Growth Management Act created a mechanism whereby local governments could require the developers of shopping centers, office buildings and residential subdivisions and structures to provide for the added infrastructure demands through impact fees and required donations of land and facilities. As a basis for calculating impact fees, local governments were required to prepare and adopt a Future Land Use Map (FLUM), to designate roadways by classification, document their existing level-of-service (LOS), and adopt a desired LOS for each roadway or roadway section. Comprehensive Plan Elements The Comprehensive Plan (Comp Plan) is comprised of nine elements: Land Use, Coastal Zone Management, Conservation, Capital Improvements, Intergovernmental Coordination, Infrastructure, Traffic, Recreation and Open Space and Housing. Together, these elements set the parameters within which the City will control its growth and development. The Florida Department of Community Affairs (DCA) reviewed and approved Titusville’s Comprehensive Plan, finding it to be consistent between the various elements and in harmony with the adopted state and regional plans. The City is allowed to submit two amendments to the Comp Plan each year. Change of Land Use The Future Land Use Map (FLUM) divides the City into twelve different land use categories. Within these land use categories, a number of distinct Zoning Districts are allowed. A request to change Zoning Districts to another District that is consistent with the existing Land Use category (see Zoning & Rezoning Handbook) can be approved by City Council by majority vote, subsequent to a Public Hearing on the requested change. Any desired Zoning request that is inconsistent with the existing Land Use necessitates a Land Use change to a compatible category and hence, a Comprehensive Plan Amendment (CPA). Paying for Growth The rapid growth of population created an expanding demand for public services and the low tax rates failed to provide the funds for their provision. The Growth Management Act forced communities to prioritize which roads, which sewer lines and which other services they could reasonably expect to upgrade/extend in the next five years and to prepare a Capital Improvement Program (CIP) to schedule each element thereof. The FLUM set the pattern and density of development. The CIP set the limits of the planned public improvements and any services required beyond these plans had to be the responsibility of the private developer. Capital Improvements Each year the City prepares and adopts an operating and a capital budget. The operating budget pays for staff expenses, the lights in City Hall, patching potholes, mailing water bills and the various other day-to-day expenses associated with the delivery of local public services. The capital budget pays for the type of investment that will provide service for more than the current year. Capital items include fire trucks, police stations, road segments, sewer lines, water towers, parks and similar long-term investments. All the improvements within the Capital Improvement Element (CIE) are programmed for the next five years and aggregated into the Capital Improvement Program. The State reviews the CIE in light of identified deficiencies in the Level of Service to assure that existing development and planned development are being provided with services consistent with the adopted Comprehensive Plan. Impact Fees The Comp Plan and FLUM set out where the City can accommodate current development. All new developments, including single-family homes, represent additional demands on public services. Therefore, these infrastructure users are charged for their demand on the public systems (i.e., roads, parks, fire and police protection) in the form of impact fees. Impact fees are also charged when a new business moves into an existing building and increases the intensity of the site’s use. Additions and expansions of non-residential properties in excess of 500 square feet are assessed impact fees as well. On 1-10-95, City Council suspended the collection of impact fees until 1-31-02. Annexations Increasing the City’s jurisdiction adds to the needed public services and therefore requires an amendment to the City’s Comp Plan. The Comp Plan amendment process has a multilevel review and approval requirement. First, the City must review the annexation request, then DCA in Tallahassee reviews the request for compliance with the City’s adopted Comp Plan and approves the expanded boundaries at the State level. All annexations, no matter how small, must be processed as a Comp Plan Amendment. When an annexation petition is filed, it must contain a specific Land Use and Zoning District request. DCA will approve only those requests that they find to be "consistent" with the approved Comp Plan, capable of providing public services "concurrent" with the demand on said services and represent a "compact" development pattern which will not unnecessarily contribute to urban sprawl. Concurrency Concurrency has become the Growth Management buzzword in Florida. The public’s concern with maintaining their quality of life demands that services expand in stride with population growth. The State’s bottom line requirement for concurrency is that all public facilities serving the development must be in place and available before an Occupancy Permit may be issued. The logic behind this is a home is "unlivable" if it doesn’t have water available, is not extended to police and fire service and does not have adequate roadways and recreational areas. Compactness Leap-frog development patterns not only contribute to sprawl, but create pockets of unused and unusable land (too small to farm or provide habitat) and holds the value of all land down by creating an oversupply of readily buildable lots. Therefore, the compactness test encourages cities to maximize each foot of water pipe, each mile of roadway and preserve outlying areas in their natural state or for agricultural use while vacant sites with roads, water and sewer service already available are developed first. Comprehensive Plan Amendment Property owners who would like to annex into the City and owners who would like their Land Use classification changed to accommodate desired zoning district(s) need to have a CPA approved. To apply for a CPA the applicant must supply the following information: CPA Checklist
CPA Approval Process
Small Scale Amendments (SSA) For sites of 10 acres or less and meeting certain criteria, the SSA procedure is available. This process does not require the DCA to issue an ORC Report and is effective 30 days after City Council adoption, provided there are no challenges from affected parties. The City can submit SSAs provided that the yearly total does not:
EDITION |
| Pursuant to Florida Statutes, all correspondence with the City is an open public record. |
