Growing into a distributed model

This is story about a community. The City of North Port, Fla., was born in the mid-1950s when General Development Corp. (GDC) took an interest in an area of land in southwestern Sarasota County known as the Charlotte Springs section of Port Charlotte. GDC platted, and subsequently sold individual lots — nearly 85,000 for residential development, which was later reduced to approximately 74,000 to incorporate larger tracts for residential and commercial land uses. To support their Florida developments with water and wastewater, GDC created General Development Utilities Inc. (GDU) as a wholly owned subsidiary of GDC. In 1992, the city the acquired the utility systems from GDC.When the city was incorporated in 1959, it had a population of 23. After 20 years GDC had amassed nearly 44,515 hectares (ha) (110,000 ac) in Charlotte, DeSoto, and Sarasota counties, of which nearly half made up the City of North Port. The city has continued to grow in size and population.North Port consistently has been ranked as one of the top 20 fastest-growing cities in the U.S. and has a current population of approximately 66,300 people. Its buildout population has been estimated at 268,000 people — that’s more than four times the current population. Therefore, managing this utility’s growth continues to be a daily challenge.These challenges include valuing the benefits and costs of a regional and decentralized approach to managing their utility system and growth. However, the city is rising to the challenge and is well-positioned for the future.