ST. CLOUD, Fla. — Osceola County Community Development officials are considering rezoning roughly 19 acres of agricultural land and rural development land to a low density residential district in St. Cloud to prepare for future population growth.

What You Need To Know

  • Osceola County Community Development officials are considering rezoning roughly 19 acres of agricultural land and rural development land to a low density residential district in St. Cloud to prepare for future population growth

  • Several residents of the rural land oppose the rezoning, saying they want to see farmland and their current community preserved, rather than developed into neighborhoods

  • Tuesday's meeting was the first step in the process to rezone this property

  • County officials said this rezoning would abide by the urban growth boundary, which is set in place in Osceola County to balance both development and land conservation

According to the Development Review Committee’s agenda, this rezoning would impact property located north of Pine Tree Drive, south of Cypress Drive, east of Tucker Avenue, and west of Hickory Tree Road.

The plan would allow developers to build small homes and communities in the area. However, some residents say they want to see farmland and their current community preserved, rather than developed into neighborhoods.

Richard Ginsberg and his wife moved to the more rural side of St. Cloud a year and a half ago for a change in pace in their lives and to be closer to family.

“The change for us, or for me especially, was the lack of people in the area, which I thought was wonderful," Ginsberg said.

He was one of a few residents that spoke out at a meeting Tuesday against the rezoning proposal.

One of the main concerns brought to the table is the impact new developments will have on traffic and roadways for commuters who live in St. Cloud.

“I spoke to several people that commute into Orlando to work, and they said five years ago, six years ago, to get to my house to the turnpike was 10, 12 minutes. Now it’s 45, 50 minutes,” Ginsberg said. “That’s a big increase in commute time. Adding these extra homes is going to just make it worse.”

Another concern is land conservation.

“Why go into an existing community and say, ‘Oh, these people have too much land, let’s take it away from them? Well, not take it away, but let’s put a lot of houses there. They have too much space. We’ll give them less,’” Ginsberg said.

County development administrator Raymond Stangle says finding sites for future use is necessary to abide by Florida law, as Osceola County must update their Comprehensive Plan periodically to manage growth.

“The legislature has indicated that we can’t stop development,” said Strangle.

Strangle also said this rezoning would abide by the urban growth boundary, which is set in place in by Osceola County to balance both development and land conservation.

“We have a lot of conservation areas that the county has purchased land,” he said. “We’ve purchased around 3,500 acres of land in the county with our SAVE program that was recently approved by the voters ... So, we have a long-term relationship with our citizens where we do conserve lands throughout the county.”

Tuesday’s meeting was not the final determination of whether the area in St. Cloud will become developed or not.

“The goal is for the board to bring all the zoning laws that are in this in this future land use category into compliance with that future land use by 2045,” Strangle said. “It doesn’t have to be today, but we want a planned progression to get to these densities by no later than 2045.”

Ginsberg said he and other residents in opposition of these changes hope to continue speaking out during the next stages of this rezoning proposal.