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INDIAN RIVER COUNTY Introduction Indian River County adopted its Urban Service Boundary(USB) in 1990, which is an area of the County that includes public facilities and services to accommodate suburban and urban growth, shown on Figure 1. The USB is outlined in Future Land Use Element Objective 2, within the County's Comprehensive Plan. Per Future Land Use Policy 2.2, the County is to encourage and direct growth into the USB (also known as the Urban Service Area) through zoning, subdivision, and land development regulations. These regulations shall promote efficient development by requiring utilization of the existing street system, extension of public facilities where necessary, connection to the centralized potable water and sanitary sewer systems where available, and incentives for mixed use projects. The USB provides another important function as the County's urban growth boundary. Properties inside the boundary are eligible for higher densities that are offered through the County's suburban and urban land future land use map designations. Properties that are outside of the USB are restricted to a maximum density of one dwelling unit per five acres. Indian River County has experienced significant population growth since the adoption of the USB in 1990. The population of the County has nearly doubled over that time frame, and population projections show that the County will continue to experience growth through 2050. Further, projections show that the unincorporated area accounts for 68% of the County's overall population, most of which is located within the USB. As local population and development pressures continue to grow, the County has decided to evaluate its existing USB to see if it should be expanded to accommodate future residents. ... The Urban Service Area is approximately 125,630 acres in size and includes all municipal areas within the County: Fellsmere, Indian River Shores, Orchid, Sebastian, and Vero Beach. The Study Area for the purposes of the analysis does not include incorporated areas, as those municipalities are subject to their own population projections and comprehensive plans. The Urban Service Area, apart from the portion which includes Fellsmere, is generally located east of Interstate 95 to the Atlantic Ocean. For purposes of this report, a 151,176 acre Study Area (shown in Figure 1) was selected to focus the analysis on the east side of the County. Of the total Study Area, approximately 42,659 acres are within unincorporated Indian River County and within the USB. The remainder of the Study Area is comprised of property that is within unincorporated Indian River County and outside of the USB (41,070 acres), property that is incorporated (40,460 acres), and property that does not have assigned parcels such as rivers and rights-of-way (26,987 acres). This report provides the existing context of the USB, including demographic, regulatory, and infrastructure information to better understand the Study Area. For the purposes of this analysis, the full Study Area was divided into three subareas when visualizing detailed geospatial data: the North, Central and South Study Areas. EXISTING CONDITIONS