City planners making predictions, allocating land for Cape Coral’s continued growth

Cape Coral city planners will be focusing on the future, as more and more people move to the area, by pre-planning to make sure money is spent correctly ahead of time.

City planners study an area and forecast what that city will look like in a decade or two, allowing leaders to know when and where growth will occur. With that information, they are able to identify what areas may need a shopping center in 10 to 20 years and allocate the land for it now. By doing that, David Farmer, a project manager with  Metro Forecasting Models, says cities can maximize their return on investment of taxpayer dollars because they’re making sure to put the right things in the right places and at the right time.

“It’s better to buy that land, you know, at $100,000, or buy it and pay a million for the same piece of dirt?” Farmer said. “It’s better to acquire that now. You don’t want to acquire it 100 years in advance, that might be a waste of taxpayer dollars. But, certainly, if in the next 10 to 20 years you’re going to be needing that, that’s a great return on investment to buy those facilities or at least allocate the land for them.”

By using population forecasting, Farmer says he is able to predict the future demand for housing and commercial properties. In 2016, he says city planners used their interactive growth model to predict Cape Coral would have between 192,000 and 193,000 people in the year 2020—that’s only off the census by 0.6%.

“People are going to need something better than a two-lane road in order to get to work and school and all those sorts of things,” Farmer said. “Yes, we look at household sizes, and we look at the ratio of school-aged children to the regular population, to help us forecast the need for schools, parks, fire stations and those things that people need or desire in their everyday life.”