By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

            Levy County stands at a crossroads.

            It must decide what the county will look like years from now when it could be carpeted with residential subdivisions from end to end, or look much like it does today as a rural agriculture-based county.

            Or something in between.

            It’s a choice the county commission must make using input from Levy County residents. The board is in the process of updating the Levy County Comprehensive Plan. The plan guides all growth in the unincorporated, rural areas of the county.

            The Levy County Commission Tuesday took the advice of the Levy County Planning Commission and its chairman, Tom Harper, and agreed to hire a consultant to study the impacts resulting from changes to the Comprehensive plan. The analysis would include research on Levy County’s environment, its watershed, its economy, its tax revenue base, its farmlands, forest lands, the cost of government, and how land use regulations can be used to manage growth in a way that preserves what is best about the county rather than ruining it through mismanaged growth policies.

            It would be easy to go on with life in Levy County as though the future will take care of itself, but the reality is thousands of people will move to Levy County in the next decade or more looking for a place to settle with their families. Where will they live? Will the economic and population growth gradually erode the open green spaces, forests, and farmlands, or impact water supplies, roads, and the quality of life? What will Levy County look like in 7 years, or in 20 to 40 years? What are the impacts from specific changes to the Comprehensive Plan?

            The county began updating the Comprehensive Plan on Dec. 31, 2022. The first step was adding changes to the plan required by the state. The next phase is to make changes based on how the county commission wants to amend the powerful planning document. Harper wants to analyze the impacts of all changes to the Comprehensive Plan.

             “We could perform all the tasks required to update the Comprehensive Plan and yet not have analyzed the impacts that those changes would bring. Your planning arm requests that we not choose that path,” Harper wrote in a Feb. 7 letter to the county commission. “We ask the BoCC to allow us to add a person to analyze the impacts of the new Comprehensive Plan alongside the changes being contemplated.”

            The county commission agreed to Harper’s request. Staff will prepare a request for bids or possibly a request for the qualifications of bidders before the commission decides who to hire.

            The Comprehensive Plan is updated every 7 years.

            Harper said the person hired to analyze the impacts of changes to the plan should tap into the financial and cost data available through the Levy County Clerk’s Office, property values through Property Appraiser, and tax revenue from Tax Collector. He said the study should include information on the aquifer, rainfall, rivers, and streams gathered from the Suwannee River Water Management District and Southwest Florida Water Management District. He said the study should collect information from the Levy County School Board on the cost of education.

            Should Levy County be allowed to become a developed county much like Sumter and Citrus Counties to the south?

            Harper said one fact is known.

            “The cost of government is higher in developed counties,” he said.

            The current model in Levy County is for the most intense growth to occur in and around cities.

            “That’s what the data says. It has worked for us – the cost of government, the quality of life,” Harper said. “We know that model works and we can look at counties that went the other way and you can see what their situation is. It has to be Levy County. You can’t just say we’re going to look like Sumter County. That was what the letter was about. Put as much data and analysis as you can and make it Levy-focused.”

            Harper, who is a large farm owner between Chiefland and Bronson, said he will abide by whatever decisions are made regarding the comprehensive plan. He said there is much to consider. He is well aware that farmers in Levy County want to control their own destiny when it comes to making decisions on whether to continue farming or sell their property.

            Much of the county’s farmland and forestland remains intact. The county also has huge tracts of conservation land purchased years ago by the state and federal governments including Goethe State Forest, Devils Hammock, Andrews Wildlife Management Area, the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge, Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge, Waccasassa Bay State Preserve, and more.

            But will those conservation areas become green islands in a vast sea of subdivisions filled with quarter-acre lots? Or will the county be peppered with subdivisions containing quarter-acre lots, or 10-acre lots, spread across what was once farmlands and wild forests? What would be the impacts of the residential growth added to areas that are currently natural surfaces? What types of costs would be associated with providing law enforcement, road maintenance, educational services, fire protection, and other public services to the new residents? Will the additional tax base pay for the cost of growth?

            What are the answers?

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Board of County Commission Regular Meeting February 7, 2023; Posted February 7, 2023