ZEPHYRHILLS, Fla. — On a pleasant Monday evening at Zephyr Park, Dustin McDonald’s two-year-old son, Harlon, couldn’t help but smile as he repeatedly glided down the playground’s slide.
“Dada!” he exclaimed as he ran toward his dad for a quick hug in between trips down the slide.
These are the moments his dad treasures. Nowadays, however, they’re a little harder to pull off because McDonald’s commute to and from Tampa is longer, more frustrating, and more congested.
“Especially with daylight saving,” he said. “It’s like a scramble to get through traffic to get to spend time with him before dark.”
McDonald lives in Zephyrhills, which he said was a quiet suburb when he moved there four years ago.
Now, it’s growing so fast that its resources and infrastructure are struggling to keep up.
“There’s a lot of one-laned roads,” said McDonald. “There’s a lot of outdated roads that could stand to be revamped.”
But it’s not just the roads. Back in the summer, city leaders put a moratorium on most new housing developments because they were on pace to use more water than they were permitted to pump. Since then, it has filed paperwork asking the Southwest Florida Water Management District to increase its water use permit.
Councilman Steve Spina pushed for the moratorium.
“My thought was with the moratorium, we can kind of catch our breath, look at what we’re asking for — what we need — and try to get everything in order, so we can resume as normal,” he said. “We’re dealing with an issue here in Zephyrhills, but it’s a Florida problem.”
On Monday, Spina and his colleagues on Zephyrhills City Council held a workshop focused on the city’s rapidly changing population density.
A consultant floated ideas on how the city can better balance growth and sustainability.
An action plan has yet to materialize, but Spina does have an idea: increasing Zephyrhills’ impact fees.
“Well, those are the fees we charge builders for new projects in town,” he explained. “And that’s so the new projects pay for themselves.”
Spina said the higher fees — which haven’t been increased in seven years — could help the city pay for wider roads, more public safety, and park improvements.
“I see it as ensuring that we get what the impact will be in terms of dollars so we can make the necessary improvements. If we have to add turn lanes, if we have to add traffic signals, if we have to hire three police officers and supply them with vehicles and all their equipment — we need to make sure that we’re getting what it costs us to do that from the new development,” Spina said.
Will the higher fees stop Zephyrhills’ growth? Spina doesn’t think so. He thinks the region will continue to transform over the next 20 years.
“We’ll have probably more than one source of water to serve the community, and I think that the little greenspace in between Wesley Chapel and Zephyrhills and Zephyrhills and Dade City will be gone — probably even Zephyrhills and Tampa,” Spina answered.
Leaders plan to discuss Zephyrhills’ density and growth more during a meeting at a later date. According to Spina, if his fellow council members are on board, an ordinance will eventually be drawn up to increase the impact fees.