Pasco planners present Resilient Pasco findings: West Market area shows concentrated tidal vulnerability; RSAP to be finalized in April

Pasco County staff and consultants presented a countywide vulnerability assessment and a draft Resilience and Sustainability Action Plan (RSAP) to the Local Planning Agency, identifying concentrated tidal and storm-surge vulnerability in the West Market area and setting an action-oriented implementation roadmap.

Amanda Hill of the county's Planning, Development and Economic Growth department told the commission that the project received a state planning grant administered by the Department of Commerce and that project work began in September 2023. She said the living shorelines plan and a countywide vulnerability assessment were completed in 2024 and the RSAP is expected to finish in April 2025.

Sean Le Havre, the consultant project manager, summarized technical findings: he said less than 5% of Pasco County overall is exposed to tidal flooding and storm surge under present conditions, but in the West Market area "between 16 to 55%" of the area was exposed across scenarios. He told commissioners the statutory driver for the assessment was the Resilient Florida program and Florida Statutes section 380.093, which requires flood vulnerability assessments if a local government wants to remain eligible for certain state infrastructure funding.

The RSAP organizes implementation around five themes: protecting neighborhoods; adaptable and transparent government; responsible resource management; healthy and connected communities; and targeted economic and cultural development. Le Havre said the plan contains 32 goals and 93 action items and assigns likely "department champions," relative costs and timeframes so the county can prioritize actions over 5-, 10- and 20-year horizons.

Staff emphasized community engagement during RSAP development: the team held multiple public events and met with emergency management, business and special-interest stakeholders. Amanda Hill said mapping products and a geodatabase produced for the project will be distributed to county departments and the stormwater master-plan project manager has the mapping. She added the county intends to request adoption of the RSAP by resolution at the Board of County Commissioners meeting on April 22 and that the Office of Strategy and Sustainability will lead implementation.

Why it matters: the vulnerability assessment's detailed mapping and the RSAP's prioritized actions give Pasco a structured path to seek state and federal resilience funding and to align resilience actions with the Pasco 2050 comprehensive plan update and the county's stormwater master plan.

Ending: the Local Planning Agency heard the presentation as informational; staff said they will bring policy integrations to the comprehensive plan update and will forward the RSAP to the Office of Strategy and Sustainability for implementation and continued public outreach.