INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — The County Commission Tuesday approved an updated five-year Capital Improvement Plan, including a $5.5 million recreation center at the South County Regional Park and four playing fields.
Community Development Director Bob Keating detailed updates to the $226 million plan, accompanied by county Budget Director Jason Brown.
“Jason is here because (County Administrator) Joe (Baird) doesn’t like planning fooling around with budgets without adult supervision,” Keating joked.
The plan, which was approved unanimously, includes $5.5 million to build a 40,000-square-foot recreation center with four adjacent playing fields at South County Regional Park.
Baird said the recreation center will serve youth and senior citizens with indoor volleyball and basketball courts and rooms for arts, crafts and educational programs. There will be a stage for presentations and performances.
“We are having trouble running all of our recreational programs for seniors and children,” Baird said when explaining the need for the facility, which will be funded by a mix of impact fees and optional sales tax money and should be complete within two years.
Baird said some $100,000 in additional annual operating costs incurred by opening the center will be offset by partnerships with non-profits using the facility.
The updated plan also includes a proposal to increase the local gasoline tax by six cents a gallon in fiscal 2014-15, which would bump up revenue by $6 million in the final two years of the plan.
One citizen objected to increasing taxes in an economic downturn, but commissioners said they were not voting to increase the tax at this time.
Instead, they approved a plan that projects an increase in the gas tax and includes projects that use funds raised by the projected increase, but Commissioner Peter O’Bryan said the proposed increase has been in the CIP each time he has voted on it during the past five years but has never actually been enacted.
“You want to keep your options open when doing long-range planning,” Commissioner Wheeler added.
The majority of money allocated in the CIP will be spent on road and other transportation improvements, including continued widening of Oslo Road and widening County Road 510, a major project now in the planning phase that will cost more than $50 million.
