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Local Planning Agency approves amendments tightening rural lifestyle eligibility; vote 3‑1
Summary
The Local Planning Agency approved a text amendment to the county’s rural lifestyle future land use designation, narrowing locational criteria and adding language intended to protect three existing rural lifestyle properties; the motion passed 3‑1 with Member Hartman opposed.
The Martin County Local Planning Agency voted 3‑1 April 3 to approve text amendments to the Comprehensive Growth Management Plan’s “rural lifestyle” future land use designation, changes staff said are intended to narrow where the designation can be applied and to clarify the status of three existing rural lifestyle properties.
Clyde Doolin, the county’s comprehensive planning administrator, presented the proposed NPH‑3 text amendment (CPA 24‑26). Doolin said the Board of County Commissioners initiated the change to revise locational criteria for rural lifestyle parcels outside the primary urban service district. The edits shown in staff materials would remove references that allow rural lifestyle designations adjacent to secondary or freestanding urban service districts in some circumstances and instead limit certain exceptions to properties adjacent to the primary urban service district.
As presented, the amendment would require a 1,000‑acre minimum for some rural lifestyle projects adjacent to the primary urban service district and would limit the 3,000‑acre/6,000‑foot adjacency option so it could apply only in relation to the primary urban service district (the freestanding urban service district would be struck from that provision). Doolin said other rural lifestyle requirements remain unchanged, including the option to cluster units and the off‑site perpetual conservation easement when density exceeds one unit per 20 acres.
Doolin and staff also recommended adding two additional paragraphs to preserve the status of the three properties that already hold the rural lifestyle designation (referred to in the record as 3 Lakes, the Ranch and the Discovery property). The proposed insertion would state that parcels with an existing rural lifestyle designation on the day of adoption would remain legally conforming, and it would allow those existing rural lifestyle PUDs to seek limited expansions under clarified rules—language staff said is intended to minimize litigation risk and protect vested rights.
Agency members and staff discussed which properties around several freestanding and secondary urban service districts would be affected by the change; staff repeatedly characterized the overall number of parcels that would lose eligibility as small and said many adjacent properties are agricultural holdings unlikely to seek rural lifestyle conversions. Staff mapped four freestanding urban service districts (Gateway, 7 J’s, AgTech and Martin Commerce Park) and identified specific adjacent parcels that could be affected if the freestanding adjacency language were removed.
County growth management director Paul Schilling and County Attorney Sarah Woods explained aspects of utility capacity and cost: staff noted development agreements and PUD provisions require property owners to bear the infrastructure costs to bring utilities to rural lifestyle sites and that utilities operate as enterprise funds that charge for capacity. Public comment included a presentation by Morris Crady, representing 3 Lakes Golf Club LLC, who said his client might seek a PUD amendment to expand an existing rural lifestyle project and supported the staff language that would preserve existing rural lifestyle rights.
Member Moore moved to approve the staff‑recommended text amendments, including the additional protective language for existing rural lifestyle properties; Member Brown seconded. The motion passed 3‑1, with Member Hartman recorded in opposition.
