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Big plans, small town Voters in Temple Terrace, a city of 22,000 northeast of Tampa, will vote Tuesday on whether to raise property taxes to support a massive redevelopment plan. The project has many worthy goals, but it is ambitious to the point of being unfocused. Solid urban planning, not nostalgia and hope, is needed to restore the city's small-town feel. Residents need to be realistic about how far they can turn back the clock, given the area's rapid growth and the difficulties cities face in reversing built-out commercial districts. If approved, Tuesday's referendum would authorize the city to raise up to $20-million to help convert a dying shopping center into a Main Street-style planned community of shops, offices, parks, housing and restaurants. While supporters are quick to insist that the public cost, which could reach $60-million, will not pay for homes or retail space, the distinction means little, for public seed money would get the project going, and the city's best argument for embracing it is the chance to capture higher property taxes. The central idea is solid: To replace a largely vacant shopping strip at the southeast corner of Bullard Parkway and 56th Street with a development that serves a niche market - condo living near the city center, with parks and shops within walking distance. But the plan is sprawling in size, complexity and cost. Many details look like little more than assumptions, including the amount and source of public money. Temple Terrace should bake this idea a little longer.
The project has grown into a wish list instead of focusing on what downtown
needs. However frustrating a near-empty shopping strip might be, the
city would make a mistake by prematurely committing money and land to
a fuzzy vision that does not address crime, housing or other effects
that growth is having on Temple Terrace.
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