Another apartment? Who cares?

More apartments in Tampa? 

What's the big deal? Do we want more renters?

The way the Tribune stenographers take dictation from the urbanistas you'd think the only place people are moving are into apartments near downtown Tampa.

We'll check some public data sources to see what's really happening in Hillsborough County and city of Tampa.

First stop, lets check home sales in Hillsborough County.

Hillsborough County home sales (source: City Data)

How is Tampa doing?

Tampa home sales (source: Coy Data)

Be sure to note difference in the scale on the left y-axis. Eyeballing the charts, between 2009 and 3Q2014, Hillsborough County quarterly home sales have run between 28,000 and 40,000 units, and Tampa between 2,600 and 4,600.  Even subtracting the Tampa sales from the Hillsborough sales, Hillsborough is moving 7 - 8 times the housing sales as Tampa.

The vast majority of people are not settling down and buying homes in Tampa, but in the county.

Next stop, lets check building permits, starting with 1Q2015 numbers.

PERMITTED NEW HOUSING UNITS BY TYPE AND JURISDICTION
Hillsborough County
2014 Quarter 1 & 2015 Quarter 1
	Single-Family		Single-Family
	Detached		Attached		Apartment		Mobile Home		Total
Jurisdiction	2014Q1	2015Q1	2014Q1	2015Q1	2014Q1	2015Q1	2014Q1	2015Q1	2014Q1	2015Q1
Unincorporated County	675	865	114	157	400	551	5	5	1,194	1,578
Tampa	165	135	37	26	320	629	0	0	522	790
Plant City	23	19	0	18	0	0	0	0	23	37
Temple Terrace	1	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	2
County-wide	864	1,021	151	201	720	1,180	5	5	1,740	2,407

Note: Figures above represent all new construction excluding demolitions, remodeling, additions and any alterations to existing buildings.
Source: Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission.

Might as well check the Q42014 numbers while we're at it.

	PERMITTED HOUSING UNITS BY TYPE AND JURISDICTION
	Hillsborough County
	2013 Quarter 4 & 2014 Quarter 4
	Single-Family		Single-Family
	Detached		Attached		Apartment		Mobile Home		Total
Jurisdiction	2013Q4	2014Q4	2013Q4	2014Q4	2013Q4	2014Q4	2013Q4	2014Q4	2013Q4	2014Q4
Unincorporated County	581	686	68	116	551	16	7	10	1,207	828
Tampa	162	177	24	42	651	502	0	0	837	721
Plant City	10	24	0	0	0	0	0	0	10	24
Temple Terrace	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
County-wide	753	887	92	158	1,202	518	7	10	2,054	1,573

Note: Figures above represent all new construction including demolitions and excluding remodeling, additions and any alterations to existing buildings.
Source: Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission.

As the numbers above show, unincorporated Hillsborough County continues to be at least 5 times more single family development than Tampa.  Even adding in the apartment numbers, where Tampa somewhat closes the edge, the county is still leading the development over Tampa.

This is no surprise to anyone who's lived in the area for a while. This just confirms the existing trend, since practically all the growth in Hillsborough over the last 30 years has been in the unincorporated, not in the city of Tampa.  And the trend continues.

Is our future one of more apartments and renters, or do we want more homeowners? Why are the homeowners buying predominately in the county?

Another questions, while we're in the mood. Is anyone else concerned about the impact on our roads, water and sewer infrastructure when a neighborhood block is rezoned from 6 - 12 homes per acre to 200+ apartments?  Increased density on rezoned or infilled properties in the Tampa have significant impact on our infrastructure, just as single family homes in the suburbs.

Density begets congestion.  Been to South Howard lately? Do we really want more like that?

Is it too much, too painful to ask and confront this reality?

But the Tribune won't ask. They'll just continue to shake the pom-poms for the Tampa urbanist interests, while people in the real world make real world decisions on where they live, and the inconvenient truth is that it is in the suburbs.