Commissioners back framework for structured growth overlay, ask for revised language before Planning Board

Okeechobee County staff and consultant presented proposed amendments to the county comprehensive plan that would create a structured growth overlay and retool existing industrial overlays into “economic opportunity center” overlays.

Planner Royce (consultant/staff presenter) walked the board through multiple elements: expanding industrial overlays into economic opportunity center overlays to favor employment‑generating uses while allowing up to 50% non‑workplace uses in the overlay; a structured growth overlay covering much of the south and northwest areas of the county; a compact community option with up to four dwelling units per acre in areas served by public sewer or enhanced package treatment designed to connect to a regional plant; and a reclassification of agricultural future‑land‑use areas to rural estate with a higher base density when developed as a rural community.

“Our rural community actually reclassifies all the land in the agricultural future land use as rural estate,” Royce said, describing provisions that would permit developers to propose clustered rural communities with minimum sizes and set‑asides for nonresidential uses and parks. Royce also said staff had done an inventory showing roughly 166,000 acres in the structured growth overlay, meaning 20% of that overlay would allow development under the proposed compact/rural community rules without immediate plan amendments.

Commissioners focused on the language requiring that a percentage of a new community reserve land for commercial or civic uses. Several commissioners indicated that mandatory commercial set‑asides could be inappropriate for scattered large‑lot subdivisions and asked that commercial requirements be optional rather than mandatory. "Make it an option, not mandatory," Chair Hazely said when discussing that provision.

Commissioner Burrows pressed staff to be sure the outcome would not tie up acreage by rezoning large parcels that then never develop; Royce replied that the planned‑development approach allows the county to add timing and phasing conditions to avoid long‑term land banking.

Staff said they would remove the mandatory commercial requirement, finalize the policy wording, and return with formal amendment text before the planning board public hearing. Staff set a planning‑board hearing for December 9 and told the board they would return with updated text ahead of that date for review.

If adopted through the required state transmittal and review process, the amendments would change how the county manages density and mix of uses in areas the board identified for growth. Staff emphasized that the land‑development code and planned‑development processes would implement the finer details if the board adopts policy direction.