When growth resumes  – as it eventually will – the pressure will be on to turn vacant land into residential or mixed-use developments.

Osceola County commissioners recently approved three master plans that set out how nearly 70 square miles of unincorporated land should be developed. Together, those three areas could eventually have 103,500 housing units. A state agency is now reviewing the plans for their compatibility with growth guidelines.

If commissioners hold true to one principle – that developments can only be approved if they improve the county’s jobs-to-residents ratio, not reduce it – then that development would be sustainable in terms of the local economy. County commissioners recently rejected a housing development within a rural enclave along Boggy Creek Road, with one of their reasons being the developer only offered houses and no jobs. As we said before, commissioners made the right choice in this case because approving the development would have contributed to urban sprawl.

With that said, we wonder whether county officials will have the wherewithal to build the transportation systems all these new people would need when they need it, not when congestion sets in. It’s easy to do a study and determine a road is needed or where it should go; it’s more difficult to fund it. We also hope that within these three master plans that land set aside for wildlife corridors and preserves will be enough to protect our native species for future generations.

Over the next several months, we’re going to see more development plans pushed forward as developers try to get their projects approved before Nov. 2 when voters statewide will be asked to approve or reject Amendment 4. We urge our commissioners to be just as firm on these proposals in terms of requiring jobs along with homes.

Amendment 4 would give voters the right to decide whether comprehensive land use plans should be changed. Currently, local governments make those decisions.

The Northeast District master plan, located east of East Lake Tohopekaliga, was one of those master plans that commissioners approved. This plan's approval included an expansion of the county’s urban growth boundary, which the county spent years determining.

Good or bad, that expanded growth boundary is the kind of change that local voters throughout the state rebelled against by signing petitions to put Amendment 4 on the ballot.