Osceola County’s proposal to change its comprehensive plan to allow large-scale developments in rural areas is too vague and could result in urban sprawl, the Florida Department of Community Affairs said in a report released this week.

The county’s proposed new city overlay, approved by the County Commission in October, would allow for the development of cities on more than 500,000 acres of land located outside of the county’s urban growth boundary, the area to which county development is restricted. Each city under the plan would be required to have a minimum of 100,000 residential units.

The report objected to various segments of the plan, citing “inadequate data and analysis” and stating that the “policies fail to establish in sufficient detail the program and activities that will be conducted to achieve the goal of the new city overlay.”

Within the next two months, county and department officials will meet to review the amended plan, making sure it complies with state laws, county Smart Growth Director Jeff Jones said.

The state could ask the county to reduce the scope of the plan to 25,000 or 50,000 homes, Jones said, but that alternative wouldn’t be a functional one as far as the city overlay goes.

“That’s too small to be a self-sustaining unit outside the urban growth boundary,” Jones said. “If you reduce the size of the city, it’s not going to work for the county.”

The new city overlay outlines a growth strategy for the rural areas of Osceola County, and that in turn could be an economic advantage, he said. The plan also would allow a program whereby developers of the cities would have to buy development entitlements from nearby landowners – perhaps even across county lines – to prevent development outside the proposed city.

But the details of the program aren’t specific enough, and the county didn’t provide data and analysis to support it, according to the state. The county failed to identify the timing of the purchases of development rights, and the areas where the purchases could be made, the report stated.

What’s urban sprawl to the state isn’t urban sprawl to the county, Jones said. “Just having development out in the rural area is not urban sprawl, especially if that development is protecting the area from future development,” Jones said.

Instead of a new city overlay, the state recommended the county consider clustering existing rural densities that would create a “less disruptive settlement pattern” than the new city overlay.

If approved, the new city overlay would pave the way for Destiny, a proposed 41,300-acre development in Yeehaw Junction on the county’s southern edge. The project, founded by South Florida developer Anthony V. Pugliese III, would include its own electricity grid and a green technology research center. Developers are waiting for the county to get the green light from the state on the overlay idea to begin submitting plans for the project. It’s the only new city in the works that would be subject to the new city overlay.

The objections laid out by the state jeopardize the overall Destiny plan to create a new type of living environment, Destiny Chief Operating Officer Randy Johnson said. He called the state’s report unfair.

“Kicking the county in the shin because they haven’t come up with the details to follow isn’t DCA’s role,” Johnson said. “All they seem to do is criticize it.” The department’s objections to the plan signify the department’s old-fashioned approach to growth management, said Johnson, a former state representative from Celebration who left office due to term limits. He also said the county shouldn’t change the main details of its plan.

“We’ve got to move DCA out of the dark ages,” said Johnson, who also served as president of the Central Florida Sports Commission and once ran unsuccessfully for the state chief financial officer position.

The county will receive final approval or denial of its revised comprehensive plan amendment by August, Jones said.