Murdock Village Redevelopment Initiative

4. Beyond the Murdock Village redevelopment initiative, what actions has the County taken to address the excessive inventory of vacant platted lots in Charlotte County ?

In an effort to reduce the continuing impact of the excess of vacant platted lots, the County has undertaken several successful strategies. For instance, the County has acquired, with assistance from the State of Florida , large tracts of land (31,330 acres with the potential development of 21,250 residential units) for public ownership and use. As well, the County has sought to acquire property through tax deed acquisitions and or directly acquiring targeted land. Unfortunately, these activities require substantial funding which is not self-renewing or self-liquidating. The County has also developed the use of a transfer of development rights ordinance designed to shift density from outlying lots to better serve properties within the urban service area. It is through a combination of these strategies that the County struggles to overcome its legacy of thousands and thousands of under used and vacant residential lots.

Economic and real estate research indicates that there is an increasing demand for newer amenity-laden residential plats which comport with market needs and that infill of the existing platted subdivisions has slowed. Accordingly, market forces are shifting development to the margins of the County's urban service area away from the already platted urban infill areas that currently exist. This shift continues to indirectly support an underdeveloped and underutilized urban core of predominantly vacant residential lots while producing an increasing demand for new infrastructure and services to the remaining unplatted areas of the County.

The Murdock Village community redevelopment initiative presents a strategy to address surplus vacant platted lands in a manner designed to cause the cost of such redevelopment to be borne ultimately by the redeveloped area involved. The other strategies remaining available to the County all require significant one time use of precious fiscal resources (cash to purchase land) which must compete with numerous other demands on the County's available resources.

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Web Site of the Charlotte County Board of County Commissioners
Administrative Complex * 18500 Murdock Circle * Port Charlotte, Florida 33948 * 941.743.1200