Subdivisions

Mayor Rob Marlowe

Fifty years ago, Pasco County had a handful of small towns and lots of farm and ranch land.  Dade City, Zephyrhills, and New Port Richey in particular had “traditional” downtowns with street grids and residential areas tucked right next to the downtown areas.

That design began to change in the early 60’s with the development of subdivisions that typically only had one or two ways in or out, generally via the “main drag”, aka US 19 or whatever the closest main highway might be.  They also had absolutely no commercial space.  If you lived in a subdivision, you had to drive to go anywhere, including to work.

Nobody seemed to care.  It didn’t take long to get to interesting places.  My dad bought a car at Bert Smith Oldsmobile back in the 60’s.  It was less than 30 minutes from here to the dealership in St. Petersburg.  You could shoot out 54 and down Gunn Highway and be in Tampa in nothing flat as well.

There were less than 37,000 people in the whole county!  In 2015, we are closing in on half a million residents with well over half of them somewhere close to the US 19 corridor.  Subdivisions sprouted along US 19, SR 52 and SR 54.  All three roads have now been repeatedly widened to ever more lanes with projections of SR 54 in particular needing as many as 20 lanes in the foreseeable future!   The suburban sprawl now extends from the coast to Zephyrhills with the few remaining empty areas already slated for more subdivisions.

Many of the working age folks living in these subdivisions head south toward Tampa to work.  You only have to spend one or two rush hours on the Veterans “Expressway” to appreciate how bad that commute is for these folks.

The worse it gets, the more I think Rush had it right:

“Sprawling on the fringes of the city
Geometric order an insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown”

It is interesting that at least some folks, especially the millennials, have decided “enough is enough”.   They aren’t looking for life working in an urban core with an hour plus commute each way.  They are looking for places where they can earn a decent living, live in a nice home or apartment, and walk or bike to work, to shop, to dine, or for entertainment.  Many of them are looking to create their own businesses rather than working for some big company.  Hmmm.

New Port Richey has available office and store front space in both the historic downtown and the Marine District.  Both are an easy bike ride from each other and both have plenty of homes available within easy walking distance.  For someone who wants to keep that walk to a minimum, there are upstairs spaces downtown now that would make perfect apartments and Main Street Landing will be bringing more such apartments to the mix once it opens.  At least one developer looking at the old Baptist Church property has similar plans for apartments over professional office space.

I live right at one mile from my office.  I generally drive because I often need to make business calls by car.  Bicycling isn’t out of the question if my schedule looks open.

We have a downtown that includes offices and shops, bars and restaurants, theatres, and a park that hosts special events and concerts on a regular basis.

The world has changed quite a bit in the last quarter century.  The Internet means that quite a few folks don’t HAVE to commute to go to work in some big office building.  I’m writing this at home and I’ll put the final touches on my company’s monthly newsletter from here this evening as well.

Tech startups in particular often just need space where they can get together and brainstorm.  We saw this in action when three tech companies got their start in the New Port Richey Business Incubator and then moved across the alley into their own space.

Can someone remind me again why someone would want to set up their business in Tampa and fight the traffic daily just so that they could live in a Pasco County bedroom community?

C.T. Bowen with the Tampa Bay Times wrote an opinion piece last week about how Pasco County was giving the green light to yet another subdivision, but this one would be different:  It will have apartments upstairs over commercial space, sidewalks, shops, and entertainment all within easy walking distance.  The “New and Improved” subdivision slated to go up on the corner of Little and 54 in a few years sounds a lot like what New Port Richey already is.

It is interesting to me that we appear to have come full circle since the 60’s.  The developers who created the urban sprawl that defines most of West Pasco and the 54/56 corridor now realize that what they REALLY should have been doing is building real towns instead of bedroom communities.

We’ve got some work to do for New Port Richey to take advantage of this trend.  Fortunately, most of it is either in process or we can do it if we put our minds to it.

We need to make New Port Richey more bike friendly and walkable.  That means more multi-use paths, more sidewalks, and more bike routes designated on quiet streets.  We have one such trail slated for construction this fall and another one in design phase.

I DO believe that we need to be shouting from the rooftops why New Port Richey is a great place to live and work…that and running full page ads next winter up north when folks up there are up to their eyebrows in snow…

Rob Marlowe, Mayor