Population Grows / number of officers shriks

Let me make sure I am getting this right.......we are losing officers left and right.....literally and we are NOT allowed to hire anyone to replace them....but.....................

Study reveals steady growth for Pinellas Park
By THOMAS MICHALSKI

Article published on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009

Robert Bray


PINELLAS PARK – A recent land use study shows that the population will grow to 57,077 by 2030 and that Pinellas Park will continue to deal with transportation, construction and similar problems that it has been wrestling with for decades.

The state-mandated study by the Local Government Comprehensive Planning and Land Development Regulation Act requires municipalities to submit future forecasts to the Florida Department of Community Affairs each decade.

Robert Bray, the city’s community planning director, said state law also requires that the comprehensive plan be periodically evaluated and updated.

The study sets goals and policies that guide the future development of the city and how properties might be used decades from now.

“Pinellas Park is located in the center of the most densely populated county in the state,” Bray said. “It is also the crossroads for major highways and even the CSX rail system.”

The city is 10,236 acres and approximately 16 square miles. The study reports that transportation corridors have created a thriving business and industrial base along with many residential developments that includes single family housing and multiple-unit dwellings.

The study shows that the first attempt to control development came in 1966 when the first comprehensive plan was developed. It was adopted by the City Council three years later.

Termed the Milo Smith Development Plan after the authors of the original report, the result included the eventual launching in 1975 of the city’s planning and zoning department. Also implemented was the Local Government Comprehensive Planning Act.

Bray said it all boils down to a plan to develop the city in a way that brings controlled growth. Prior to that controlled growth, the report said, development was haphazard and ineffective.

Population projections include future land use development and redevelopment. The study was fortified with data from the Shimbery Institute for Affordable Housing and other organizations that indicate a constituency of local growth.

In 1945, for example, the city’s population was 1,810. A decade later it was 6,890 and by 1965 16,560 people called Pinellas Park home. That figure jumped to 29,322 in 1975, to 36,930 in 1985, 44,140 in 1995 and 49,258 in 2005.

By 2010 Pinellas Park’s population is expected to reach 51,602, 51,629 by 2020 and 57,077 by 2030.

The study reports that the city’s expansion over the years was determined by the construction of major roads such as U.S. 19, Park Boulevard, 49th Street and 66th Street. Much of the development was realized along these roads with commercial buildings abutting the roads while residential areas sprouted up further away.

Also helping the city’s development are the two major airports, Tampa International and St. Petersburg Clearwater.

The city, like most others in the immediate Tampa Bay area, is built-out, meaning that future growth will depend mainly on redevelopment. Present buildings will be razed and replaced with new ones. There is very little vacant land that can be developed.

The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council reports that as of 2007, the most up-to-date statistics available, Pinellas Park’s land use consists of 12,847 single family parcels on approximately 2,285 acres of land. Additionally, there are 939 mobile homes on about 427 acres and 229 duplex and triplex units on about 47 acres. Added to that are 1,049 multi-family units such as apartment buildings on approximately 397 acres.

The rest of the city’s land is broken down as such; 741 commercial parcels on 1,032 acres; 713 industrial parcels on 1,386 acres and 265 public and semi-public parcels on 1,105 acres. The rest of the city’s land is dedicated to agriculture, recreation and open space, conservation, preservation and other use.

Future population projections forecast a greater need for all types of housing. It will take creative planning to shelter all those people, the study said.

"This town needs an enema!"

-Joker, c 1989

Thank you amendment one.....