St. Petersburg, FL. City of St. Petersburg Comprehensive Plan
Topics: Community Impact | Comprehensive Plans
Good example of a city’s comprehensive plan. The city’s land use goals are stated clearly, and refers protecting and enhancing neighborhoods, and to the “density and intensity” of development: “The land use plans shall direct and manage the type, distribution, density and intensity of development and redevelopment in order to:
1.Protect the public health, safety and general welfare
2.Protect and enhance the fabric and character of neighborhoods
3.Protect and enhance resources and amenities
4.Assure that services and facilities are provided at the adopted level of service concurrent with existing and future demand.
5.Attain the highest level of economic well-being possible for the city and its citizens.
This comprehensive plan also explains the key concept of “concurrence”, which says that development has to keep pace concurrently with the level of services that are available in a given area, such as roads, water and sewer capacity. A project, for example, that creates too much demand on the existing roadways could not be built until the road capacity was upgraded to handle the increased demand. The City may permit higher intensity uses outside of activity centers “only where available infrastructure exists and surrounding uses are compatible.” The Comp Plan also designates a series of “Activity Centers” to create a “compact urban development pattern.” To create this “desired development pattern,” the city creates for each part of town “density, intensity and impervious surface standards and regulations.” One of the city’s land use goals states, “Land use planning decisions shall weigh heavily the established character of predominately developed areas where changes of use or intensity of development are contemplated.” The Comp Plan also makes it very clear to developers: “The City has an adequate supply of commercial land use to meet existing and future needs. Future expansion of commercial uses shall be restricted to infilling into existing commercial areas and activity centers except where a need can be clearly identified.” Most importantly, in Land Use Objective 3, the Plan sets up a ratio of commercial acres needed based on population: “Additional commercial acreage is not required to serve the future needs of St. Petersburg. An oversupply exists based on the standard of 1 acre of commercial land for every 150 persons in the community.”
