By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
If you own land in rural Levy County, take note that the Levy County Commission is poised to adopt a document that could affect your property.
Most of the residential property in the unincorporated areas won’t be impacted by the county’s adoption of a zoning map, county planning officials say. The zoning will remain unchanged.
Some commercial properties will be impacted.
The draft zoning map atlas (the official name of the map) received tentative approval by the commission on Jan. 18 and is slated to get final approval on Feb. 8, assuming there’s no opposition.
County planning staff members hosted five public workshops on the draft zoning map in April of 2021 that were “very, very, very poorly attended,” according to Stacey Hectus, county planning and zoning director.
The highest attendance was in Cedar Key when 9 people showed up.
While it’s true that land zoning is extremely boring stuff unless your property or your neighbor’s property is being impacted by land-use changes, it’s best to at least take a look at the draft map and figure out if you like what you see.
The color-coded legend on the left side of the draft map accompanying this story will show you how your property would be zoned if the map is adopted on Feb. 8 by commissioners. If you have questions, you can contact Hectus at the Levy County Planning and Zoning office at the Levy County Government Center behind the Levy County Courthouse, or call the planning and zoning office at 352-486-5203. Hectus has a copy of the map in her office.
Hectus said there’s never been an adopted zoning map in county history. County Coordinator Wilbur Dean, who served as a county commissioner from 1992-2000, said there was a zoning map of sorts but it was incomplete and sections of it were never finished.
Without an adopted zoning map showing all the zoning designations of property in the unincorporated areas, the county was often forced to use its Comprehensive Plan and Future Land Use Maps (FLUM) to identify zoning on rural properties and that procedure frequently led to confusion.
“So many times, people would buy property and assume it is this, but never check with zoning,” said Commission Chairman Rock Meeks. “Then they would make a phone call and say, hey, the realtor just sold me two acres and I want to get a permit and found out they can’t get a permit. It’s non-performing.”
Meeks made the decision early on to push for adoption of a zoning map that would allow property owners to know the exact zoning of land they had owned or wanted to purchase and what they could do with their property.
Commissioner Matt Brooks thanked staff and Meeks for their diligent work in making the draft zoning map a reality.
“I know it was a painstaking undertaking to get it done and I thank staff and you, Commissioner Meeks, you pushed it, you were constantly pushing it,” Brooks said.
Hectus said when the county commission adopts the draft zoning map it will be uploaded to the Property Appraiser’s website along with the Levy County Comprehensive Plan to provide a one-stop information site for Levy County property owners.
“They can click on their property and get the future land use, their zoning, and all their property information in a one-stop-shop,” Hectus said. She has been working with interim Property Appraiser Randy Rutter on establishing an information link to the zoning map and comprehensive plan.
The North Central Florida Regional Planning Council has been assisting Hectus and county staff with developing the draft zoning map. The agency provided essential support services to the county.
“The adopted zoning map will fix many things that have plagued the planning and zoning staff, property owners, and other professionals such as developers, realtors, etc.,” Hectus said.
She said the adopted zoning map won’t mean everything is perfect.
“There are some things the map adoption will not fix. Parcels that want a zoning of C-3, C-4, or industrial will still have to rezone if they do not already have that designation,” Hectus said. “Staff is not perfect and could have missed something during the process. The map adoption will not fix any illegal division of land or non-conformities — areas like Rainbow Lakes Estates, Williston Highlands, Gemlands, Oak Ridge for example. Other areas that the adoption of this map will not fix are areas with a commercial FLU, but the owner wants to develop residentially as the neighborhood pattern has trended. We have language that will be added to our Comprehensive Plan to fix those instances. That request is at the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) being reviewed now.”
The adoption of the zoning map will require an entire examination of the entire Levy County Land Development Code, Hectus said. All these revisions will require public hearings.
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Board of County Regular Meeting January 4, 2022; Posted January 28, 2022
