Large Baum Wamama proposal seeks urban service area expansion and rezoning to Residential 4; staff notes wetlands and flood zones

Planning commission staff briefed commissioners on companion privately initiated amendments for roughly 470.9 acres at 16410 Baum Wamama Road that would change the future land use from Agriculture Rural 1-to-5 to Residential 4 and expand the urban service area to bring the parcels into county service boundaries.

Alexis Myers presented the large-scale plan amendment and the companion urban service area request. She said the site lies north of State Road 674 and east of Baum Wamama Road, within the South Shore Areawide Systems Community Plan boundary and in the rural area. "This is a privately initiated map amendment that is large in scale and approximately 470.9 acres," Myers said. Under the current AR 1-to-5 designation the site could be considered for about 94 dwelling units; changing to Residential 4 would increase that theoretical potential to approximately 1,883 dwelling units, staff noted. The companion urban service area expansion would require connection to water and sewer if approved.

Commissioners asked whether the theoretical unit counts accounted for wetlands, borrow pits and FEMA flood Zone AE designations shown on parcel mapping. Commissioner Bowles and others noted visible borrow pits and conservation lands on aerials and asked how many units could realistically be accommodated. Alexis Myers and other staff replied that plan amendments are high-level and that site-level considerations — wetland density-credit calculations, Environmental Protection Commission review, and rezoning/site-plan stages — determine the actual allowable yield. "We do look at things from a very high level when we're looking at a potential map amendment. So all those little nuances like the wetland density credit, comments from EPC, how many uplands you have... Those would be considered at the rezoning stage," Myers said.

The nut graf: the package would substantially increase the theoretical housing yield across a large rural tract, but staff and commissioners emphasized that environmental constraints and later procedural reviews will determine the final buildable units and that agency comments will be incorporated at public hearings.

Staff said the amendment will return for public hearing with agency comments in the packet; no formal action occurred at the briefing.