DADE CITY — Pasco County officials are concerned that bad blood with their neighbors to the north is going to cost them much more than Culvers ButterBurgers and frozen custard.

A development application for one of the restaurants on the Pasco side of County Line Road was rejected last week because there is no public sewer service available. That’s after the Hernando County Commission voted unanimously last month to end an agreement to provide sewer service to the Pasco side of the road.

The Culvers planned near Mariner Boulevard was the first application under that agreement, which was approved five years ago and meant to cover a 15-year period, Hernando’s Utility Director Gordon Onderdonk told commissioners. While Culvers is the first, several other developments also have begun to line up.

“Tell them to expand County Line Road first, then we’ll give them wastewater,” said Hernando Commission chairperson Steve Champion. For years Hernando commissioners have talked about the need to widen the entire length of County Line Road. More than a dozen years ago, the western stretch of the road was widened to six lanes, but the eastern stretch is still just two lanes.

Hernando commissioners say it was never a priority for Pasco, which has focused on other transportation needs and explosive growth to the south.

“We’re taking their crap at wholesale. Why don’t they keep their crap,” Champion said. “How does this benefit us?”

Hernando County Administrator Jeff Rogers said the agreement enabled Pasco to develop along County Line Road. There has been little development on Pasco’s northern border compared to the explosive growth in the southern part of the county.

“If anything,” Champion said, “they’re making our road worse and they’re not doing anything to help Hernando County.”

The Hernando commission decision came just before Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed a $50-million legislative allocation that would have finally paid for widening eastern County Line Road. This week Pasco commissioners talked about the need to mend fences with Hernando so that myriad other construction projects proposed for northern Pasco won’t be scuttled.

Attorney Barbara Wilhite last week pitched a 178-acre development known as Northridge on the south side of County Line Road to the Pasco County Planning Commission — also before the road funding was vetoed. She said her client’s proposal for 770 houses and 40,000 square feet of commercial space would match development on the Hernando side of the road.

When asked about how the development would handle utilities, she said Pasco would provide water and Hernando County sent a memo in February that it would provide sewer. She said during the hearing that she now understood that Hernando sewer service in Pasco County was again open for discussion.

Neighbors opposed the project saying a turn left onto County Line Road is difficult, if not impossible, already because the road is so busy. Planning commissioners and staff then discussed possible locations of traffic signals before the board voted to recommend that the County Commission approve the project.

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Other projects on the Pasco side of County Line Road also in the pipeline include another housing development next to Northridge. That, together with Hernando’s cancelation of the sewer agreement, sparked discussion among Pasco commissioners Tuesday.

Chairperson Kathryn Starkey said she thought it was time to try to extend an olive branch to Hernando. While hard feelings about County Line Road widening was the main topic, she said that Hernando officials also have differences with Pasco on other topics, but she offered no suggestion of how to pay for the road work.

Commissioner Jack Mariano said that it might be time for Pasco to begin developing its own wastewater treatment options in that part of the county. County staffers responded that they are not in the business of building speculative utility infrastructure.

That would raise costs for existing rate payers rather than allowing incoming developments to pay the expense. Building sewer transmission equipment from the nearest Pasco wastewater plant to the proposed Culvers site could cost $10 million to $15 million, staff said.

“It’s unfortunate” that Hernando withdrew from the sewer agreement, said Assistant County Administrator for Public Infrastructure Mike Carballa. “It will stifle development on the Pasco County side of County Line.”

Mariano said that section of north Pasco is an opportune location for future development, especially for commercial interests, and that maybe the county should consider spending some of the money it collects from its penny sales tax to bring utilities closer.

Carballa said he would bring some options back to the commission.

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