Charlotte County, Florida

(2021 Profile Update)

Charlotte County, population 188,910 (2019), lies on Florida’s Gulf Coast between Tampa and Fort Myers. The West region of the County includes miles of mangrove shoreline along the edges of the Myakka River and Charlotte Harbor as well as the barrier islands of Manasota Key and Gasparilla Island. The interior of Charlotte County is primarily composed of small lakes, swampland, and agricultural land. Punta Gorda, population 19,571 (2019), is the only incorporated city but many developed subdivisions are located throughout the unincorporated portion of the county. The majority of the land in the West and Mid regions of the County along with some coastal areas of the South/East region were subdivided beginning in the 1880s. Much of these platted lands remain vacant and the County is forced to retro-plan for services, infrastructure, and growth management. Due to the prolific subdivision of land, the County contains tens of thousands of units of potential residential density in the form of existing vacant lots with single-family and multi-family zoning designations.  

In 1988, the County adopted a Comprehensive Plan that called for the preservation of natural, historical, archeological, and cultural resources.  To accomplish that goal, the County created land-use restrictions that the County acknowledged could be burdensome to landowners.  To help alleviate this burden, the County adopted an ordinance in 1994 which allowed development rights to be severed from restricted properties and transferred to more suitable areas. TDR ordinance amendments adopted in 2001 allowed receiving zone developers to make a payment-in-lieu-of-transfer into a County Land Acquisition Trust Fund.  Another amendment in 2004, changed the name of the program to Transfers of Density Units (TDU). The TDU provisions were amended again in 2018 and as of 2021 appear in Section 3-9-150 of the zoning code.

The 2018 amendment reiterated that the program aims to redirect development away from sending areas with environmentally sensitive, historic, agricultural, and archeological resources. Properties qualify for the sending zone (SZ) designation by having at least one of 12 criteria, including coastal high hazard areas (CHHA), prime aquifer recharge areas, public water system protection areas, critical wildlife corridors, and managed neighborhoods, the county’s term for undeveloped or underdeveloped platted lands, often containing or adjacent to sensitive environmental resources, that the county comprehensive plan has designated by map and where further development is discouraged;

The code has several rules governing how much density must be or can be eliminated from sending sites. Within many resource categories, the county allows or requires retention of one unit of density under various conditions. For example, development potential must be completely eliminated from sending parcels within managed neighborhoods, however, one unit of density must be retained for parcels designated as managed neighborhoods if they have public water or sewer service.

Generally, preservation is accomplished by covenant. However, owners may propose that the county purchase or assume ownership of a sending site by donation. If the county agrees to this proposal, the sending site owner does not have to execute a covenant. Otherwise, the sending site property owner must submit a covenant that protects and maintains resources important to the county. Covenants must include a management plan when sending sites that contain environmental-sensitive, historic, archeological, agricultural, or wildlife corridor resources. Management plans are not required for substandard parcels in the CHHA. In the SZ, the transferable density is the base density.

To qualify as a receiving zone (RZ), properties must be located within the urban service area and within any of seven mapped land use classifications: emerging neighborhood, maturing neighborhood, economic center, economic corridor, redevelopment area, revitalizing neighborhood, and rural settlement overlay. Outside the urban service area, the RZ can also be used in places designated as rural community mixed-use. However, approval of an RZ is expressly prohibited on land with seven characteristics included managed neighborhoods, resource conservation/preservation areas, barrier islands (unless the transfer is between properties of the same island), and properties with the resources that would likely qualify the property as a sending site.

The code is particularly specific about transfers involving land in the coastal high hazard area (CHHA). Generally, receiving sites in the CHHA can only receive density from sending sites in the CHHA that are more vulnerable to flooding than the receiving site. However, exceptions to this general rule apply in some areas.

Charlotte County allows developers the option of transferring actual density units or contributing to the county’s Land Acquisition Trust Fund (LATF). The per-unit price under the LATF option is determined at the time the county board approves the TDU application. Upon approval of the TDU, the applicant can choose to pay the LATF per-unit price established when the TDU application was approved. Alternatively, the applicant can pay later according to a process that requires payment in an amount that reflects the cost of land acquisition at the time payment is made. Payments to the LATF occur prior to preliminary plat approval or, if plat approval is not needed, prior to building permit issuance. The LATF option is not available for applications to transfer density onto receiving sites in a tropical storm surge or category 1 hurricane storm surge zone as well as receiving zones in two other locations.  

Appendix A, a study of 1,577 density bonus units granted between 2003 and 2005, suggests that the developers of larger projects prefer to acquire actual TDUs while the builders of smaller projects tend to use the LATF option. Specifically, only three of the nine developments in this study used LATF, paying $3,700 each in lieu of acquiring four actual TDUs (Williams 2005).

As of 2014, Charlotte County had approved 52 TDU applications, severed 14,368 TDUs and protected 1,818 acres. Considering the high number of TDUs, the protected acreage may seem relatively small. However, many of these TDUs represent the protection of tiny lots in antiquated subdivisions created by land schemes in the 1950s and 1960s (Linkous & Chapin 2014).

References

Linkous, E. & T. Chapin. 2014. TDR Performance in Florida. Journal of the American Planning Association. Volume 80. 2014. Issue 3.

Williams, I. 2005. Correspondence with author.

Appendix A

Transfer of Development Rights Summary Table

Name & Year

Units

Transferred

Acreage in

Conservation

Easement

Region

of

RZ

Region

of

SZ

Sending Zone Criteria

$ Paid

by

Applicant

 Biscayne Trust2003

528

197

Mid South/East

Wetlands and endangered species
habitat  (also substandard, platted lots)

 N/A

Lago del Sol  

2003

102

25

Mid Mid

Endangered species habitat
for Scrub jays (also
substandard, platted lots)

 N/A

 Fitzsimmons2003

2

N/A

Utilized
LATF

West N/A

N/A

$7,400

LeMain  

2003

1

N/A

Utilized
LATF

West N/A

N/A

$3,700

 Pawlikowski2003

1

N/A

Utilized
LATF

West N/A

N/A

 $3,700

 KB HomesCreekside  

2004

193

30.8

South/East Mid

Endangered species habitat for Scrub jays (also substandard, platted lots)

 N/A

 

 Southwest FloridaLand 6 LLC  

2005

45

2.3

Mid South/East

Endangered species habitat for Scrub jays & substandard, platted lots located outside the Urban Service Area

NA

 RealMark Tucker’sGrade  

2005

650

38

South/East East

Substandard, platted lots located outside the Urban Service Area

 N/A

 

 KB Homes
Tuscany Isles2005 

55

12.6

South/East Mid

Endangered species habitat for Scrub jays (also substandard, platted lots)

N/A

Totals

1,577

326.4

     

$14,800

An application in the pipeline is depicted in the chart below.

Transfer of Density Units Summary Table

Name & Year

Units

Transferred

Acreage in

Conservation

Easement

Region

of

RZ

Region

of

SZ

Sending Zone Criteria

$ Paid

by

Applicant

Verde Park
2005

 3,583

 245.5

Easement allows
retention of
6 units
for future
development
and
continuation
of bona fide
agricultural uses

No RZ, Certification of Transferable Density Units only

South/East

substandard, platted lots located outside the Urban Service Area

 N/A