Planning staff: County growth slowed since 2020; redevelopment producing much new multifamily

Yasar Gonzalez, planning commission staff, told commissioners at the Jan. 13 meeting that five data trends deserve attention for 2025, and warned the county is not growing as fast as it did before 2020.

"We're not growing fastest since 2020," Gonzalez said, and pointed planning commissioners to multiple datasets used in the briefing, including projections from the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida (BEBR).

The presentation's nut graf: the county remains in a growth phase, but the rate and composition of that growth have changed in ways that matter for housing, infrastructure and redevelopment decisions.

Gonzalez said BEBR projections put a 2025 population estimate at about 1.593 million, but he told commissioners he expects the county will fall "just slightly shorter" than that forecast. He summarized recent annual net in‑migration as roughly 31,000 new residents per year before 2020 and about 20,000 per year since 2020, and said that difference explains much of the slower growth picture.

On…