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 building permits, Gonzalez said permits "peaked in 2019" but that the county has still issued more permits each year since 2019 than it did between 2014 and 2019. He warned that national and financial events — including the March 2023 banking stresses and rising interest rates — have affected development activity and could depress near‑term housing completions.

Gonzalez also described a method the commission staff used to test whether the county faces a new housing "crunch": comparing population growth estimates, a household‑size assumption, and new housing units added to the tax rolls. Using that method on available data, he said the county now appears to be adding roughly as many housing units as incoming households and that, "according to this methodology, no gap" currently appears. He qualified that result, saying it does not invalidate proprietary market reports that have argued for a tight supply in some submarkets.

On redevelopment, Gonzalez said staff analyzed a sample of 786 parcels (about 1,000 acres total) that existed in 2015 and had changed by 2023. From that sample, staff counted about 5,000 new residential units and roughly 4,700,000 square feet of additional commercial space created through redevelopment. He said much of the large multifamily construction is converting commercial properties, not vacant greenfield sites, because commercial parcels tend to be on arterial corridors near jobs and services.

Gonzalez highlighted jurisdictional variation: Plant City, he said, has continued to set permit records yearly and is "breaking records every year" despite high interest rates and labor constraints. He urged commissioners and other users of the data to use the planning commission's dashboards, which provide ZIP code and tract‑level permit and housing analytics.

Commissioner O'Brien asked whether staff included new plats and subdivisions in the growth calculations; Gonzalez replied the briefing's housing analysis used building permits and tax‑roll unit additions, not separate new‑plat counts, and reiterated that both permit flow and units added to the rolls are needed for a fuller picture.

Commissioner Kress asked about single‑family vs. multifamily trends; Gonzalez said countywide construction is still weighted toward single‑family housing, though recent redevelopment sites show a surge in multifamily on formerly commercial parcels.

The presentation was informational; no action was required. Gonzalez said the commission's dashboards and data clearinghouse are available for more granular queries by ZIP code, tract or patrol district.

Looking ahead, Gonzalez suggested the county may come in about 10,000 residents short of BEBR's most recent projection for 2025 if current trends hold, and he urged caution in interpreting long‑range forecasts and cohort assumptions.

Ending: The commission did not vote on the briefing. Staff said it will continue to refine its datasets and make interactive analytics available to commissioners and the public. The briefing materials remain part of the commission record and can be requested through planning commission staff.