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Cocoa council transmits routine comprehensive‑plan amendments to state, updates planning horizon to 2050
Summary
Consultants told the Cocoa City Council that the EAR‑based amendments mainly align local policies with state law (Chapter 163) and update the planning horizon to 2050; council unanimously approved transmittal to the Department of Commerce for coordinated review.
The Cocoa City Council unanimously voted to transmit Evaluation and Appraisal Report (EAR)‑based amendments to the city’s comprehensive plan to the state for coordinated review, staff and the city’s consultant said on Aug. 12.
Alexis Crespo of RVI, the city’s consultant, said the update was a statutory checkup required every seven years under Florida Statutes chapter 163. The package is largely housekeeping: correcting map and transportation data, updating the future land‑use map for recent annexations, acknowledging the state’s preemption of some residential design standards, and adding a policy for identifying subdivisions of 50 or more lots on septic that should be analyzed for sewer connections.
Crespo said Cocoa’s infrastructure capacity and land supply were adequate for projected growth through 2050, and that the changes were intended to keep the plan consistent with state law rather than to rewrite the document. "We established a new planning horizon of 2050," Crespo said, and noted the city’s projected population increase of roughly 24 percent over that period.
Council members asked about the population projection methodology; Crespo said the team relied on University of Florida/Bebr (Bieber) and cooperating centers to use a medium growth scenario. Staff will transmit the amendments and return after the state and reviewing agencies provide comments before final adoption.
The motion to transmit the EAR‑based amendments carried on a unanimous voice vote.
