Florida State Legislators (just like some Hillsborough County Commissioners) are working to “streamline” — i.e. deregulate — the development industry. State lawmakers want to make it cheaper & easier for developers to build more subdivisions and strip malls, apparently ignorant of the widely reported fact that Florida has 300,000 vacant homes for sale — a housing glut that is slashing property values for all of us and contributing to the economic crisis. The Times reports:
Florida legislative leaders want to make it easier to get permits to destroy wetlands, tap the water supply and wipe out endangered species habitat, all in the interest of building houses, stores and offices. They say streamlining the permitting process will get the economy moving again.
Affecting several counties & cities, including all the urban & rural areas in Hillsborough County, Senate Bill 360, (euphemistically named the “Community Renewal Act”) would:
Transportation Concurrency requires developers to ensure that there is adequate capacity on the roads to accommodate the traffic generated by their developments. If the local roads are already full of traffic, then concurrency requires developers to provide the additional capacity needed for their projects by paying for measures like road-widening or turn lanes and traffic lights. Without concurrency, they wouldn’t pay, so WE would have to pay to bail ourselves out of the traffic-jam-hell their development creates, while they pocket all the profits without any responsibility.
Some argue that eliminating transportation concurrency would reduce sprawl by making it easier for developers to build in the urban area where concurrency requirements are most burdensome because the roads have already reached capacity. Of course, this would allow development to overwhelm those already-full roads with additional traffic, condemning the urban areas to traffic nightmares, which is not an acceptable trade-off even if it could prevent sprawl. However, it cannot prevent sprawl. With or without concurrency, developers will always prefer to build in the rural area because rural land is cheaper, and available in large “clean & green” parcels. The only way to prevent sprawl is for local leaders to stop approving it.
Another bill, Senate Bill 630, would put a moratorium on impact fees — the fees developers pay to partially defray the costs of infrastructure required to support their projects. Even with those fees in place, each new house costs us taxpayers $13,515 for roads, schools and other infrastructure. Without impact fees, our costs would roughly double, while developers would be able to make more money selling cheaper housing, further lowering our home values — enriching developers at our expense.
Meanwhile, developers’ lobbyist Frank Matthews is up to his old tricks, pushing also for the elimination of local environmental protections like our EPC provides. (Sticks readers may remember Matthews’ role in our local battle over wetland regulations.)
Let’s pay attention to which of our elected officials are pushing to shift more of the costs of development from developers to taxpayers, while paving the way for more sprawl that will only destroy more natural resources and worsen our housing glut.
Both bill 360 & 630 were introduced by Sen. Mike Bennett, of Bradenton. These bills are barreling through committees which include all four Hillsborough Senators: Ronda Storms & Arthenia Joyner have both voted “yes” to 360 in committees; Victor Crist, Charlie Justice, and Ronda Storms will soon review 630 in committees. All our lawmakers will eventually weigh in on all this so tell your representatives what you think now. The Lt. Gov. sidestepped Wayne Garcia’s questioning on this topic, so we had better help educate him and our Governor as well.
I’ve drafted a sample letter with contact information you can use to send your thoughts to Tallahassee. You can also ask your county commissioners to lobby the state against deregulation, and let them know we don’t want county growth controls & environmental protections weakened either. 1000 Friends of Florida has posted an informative alert calling on citizens to oppose SB 360.
Unless we can persuade our legislators to work for the public good, we might as well skip these middle-men and pay developers directly. Hey, maybe we could just pay developers NOT to ruin our communities, our economy and our environment.
Instead of passing all this legislation to toss out our development controls, which will end up costing us all a fortune anyway, it might actually be better for each taxpayer to just write a check directly to every Florida developer, bypassing the part where they destroy our natural resources and dump a bunch of cheap housing in our neighborhoods that (if it ever sells) would only clog our roads with too much traffic until we handed over the money to pay for more road lanes.
FL Cracker
1 year ago
amh: Well…now you’ve known one who does (refer to themselves as such). All my cracker kin did and do. Surely you don’t think I’m a YANKEE posing as a cracker DO YOU??
about “illude” – I never said it is not a word. I just inferred it was not the word you meant to use or should have used in that instance. You should have used “allude” — as you must admit. Webster’s Third New International (otherwise known fondly as The Big Dic) defines allude: “1. to have or make indirect reference to, as in passing or by suggestion: refer indirectly – used with ‘to’ blah blah blah”
Good grief, talk about pedantic. My bad.
I’ve strayed far from the main subject of this blog. so…DAMN ALL DEVELOPERS ANYWAY!
Back on track now.
Is that grass growing in Hillsborough County’s reservoir? | The Political Whore
1 year ago
[...] UP! The conversation that nobody really wants to have is that while local and state politicians are scrambling to weaken rules for building and raping the environment all in the name of economic development (think developer [...]
Ron
1 year ago
…nad with the help of the likes of Mr. Norman, Rep. Trudi Williams, et al, the door is kinda wide open for that. Where are the “watchers at the gate”, so to speak, that make sure the Comp Plan isn’t shredded to pieces with so many amendments? A part of me almost wishes we could do something sort of “Draconian” and limit amendments, or, in the name of “streamlining” as the other side wants, tell them “no, no more amendments, we have to move this along in the name of efficiency. No more amendments to this-period!”
Anonymous
1 year ago
A new blog:
“Developers lobby to dispute county impact fees”
http://alexpickett.com/2009/03/13/developers-lobby-to-dispute-county-impact-fees/
Ty
1 year ago
Support Florida Hometown Democracy.
amh
1 year ago
Ty,
Why?
jamie
1 year ago
I am grateful for your notification and have forwarded the information to almost everyone I know. (see below) I have never done this for any other bill but feel this bill affects so many aspects of our lives.
I would like to comment that we may get a better response if the ability to send the letter was easier. Some of the other organizations that solicit letters have a format in which you need supply your name, address and zip and then it is forwarded without the need to paruse through pages of websites. In addition, this letter is usually immediately after the goal of the letter making it unnecessary to read through the webpage before being able to find the letter. I find that many are willing to cooperate but tend to delete emails that have a lot of information before their input is solicited.
Good Luck with your work.
Jamie
http://sticksoffire.com/2009/02/20/state-moving-to-deregulate-development/
Dear Friends,
Please consider taking a look at the attached website and send the prewritten letter as directed.
There is a bill that is being pushed through that threatens to reduce the quality of our lives here in Florida, but particularly on Central Florida’ Coast. We have already seen how over development has resulted increased congestion, depleted our water resources, destroyed the homes of wildlife, increased crime and has mostly resulted in a hideous landscapes.
There are currently so many unoccupied residences in the state (mainly due to over development) the idea of continuing to build anything but public support structures is absurd.
We can generate jobs by building schools, public transportation, developing respectful means of energy, protecting our wildlife and healthcare.
Let us demonstrate that as human we can be respectful stewards of our home and let us leave something beautiful for future generations.
Thank you,
Jamie
Mariella
1 year ago
Jamie, you make some good points about citizen involvement strategies, which I have been wrestling with for some time.
One of these days I may set up the sort of web infrastructure you suggest for easy one-click letters. I don’t see that being utilized at the very local level by any groups except R-LAND, and it would be very useful for U-CAN, Sierra, C4RG and other groups I work with.
Addressing mass mailings to state legislators is particularly cumbersome since many legislators only care about their own constituents, so you have to help citizens find their own representatives in order to address their letters to their legislators.
amh
1 year ago
Mariella,
Some might say that thoughtless form input from individuals not aware enough to know who they voted for is part of our problem. Well funded right and left fringe groups using one click spamming software seems to encourage people to be less informed.
Jamie’s process of actually picking up a pen is a thought provoking process which may result in some new ideas and solutions. We will all be better off if more people form and voice informed solution oriented ideas. One click ratification of right and left fringe group spam is not effective communication, if you believe otherwise you are deluding yourself.
Mariella
1 year ago
amh: The sample letters I provide in action alerts like this are my own letters which I personally wrote and signed — not “fringe group spam.” If others want to craft their own letters, I hope they may find mine helpful as inspiration. Those who agree with my position need not start over with a blank page in order to make their voices heard — there’s no reason they shouldn’t simply sign & send a copy of the same letter. Unfortunately, our legislators are not reading our e-mails so much as they are counting them. If you believe otherwise, you are deluding yourself.
Ron
1 year ago
Mariella-
I just read where OUR Senate agreed to pass (I think it’s called)SB 360, the one that makes it easier to develop in rural areas without DRI’s, without concurency worries, etc. Or, am I imagining this? If so somebody wake me up, I’m having a nightmare. I am trying not to blow a gasket here. This bill is wrong at anytime, period. But my God, right now with almost Phase 4 water restrictions, 300,000 homes lying dormant and rotting across Florida, and we give these developers more leeway? More water which we have very little of, to pour foundations for who knows how many developemnts/homes no one will buy?
What do we need to focus on doing next-besides throwing these busm out?
Ron
1 year ago
Mariella-
I just read where OUR Senate agreed to pass (I think it’s called)SB 360, the one that makes it easier to develop in rural areas without DRI’s, without concurency worries, etc. Or, am I imagining this? If so somebody wake me up, I’m having a nightmare. I am trying not to blow a gasket here. This bill is wrong at anytime, period. But my God, right now with almost Phase 4 water restrictions, 300,000 homes lying dormant and rotting across Florida, and we give these developers more leeway? More water which we have very little of, to pour foundations for who knows how many developments/homes no one will buy?
What do we need to focus on doing next-besides throwing these bums out?
Ron
1 year ago
So sorry for the double-posting error
Mariella
1 year ago
Ron: Yesterday, SB 360 passed out of one committee. It still has a few steps to go before becoming law. There are several terrible proposals for deregulating development floating around Tallahassee right now. I think the most effective things we can do is (1) press our state legislators — particularly our Hillsborough County Delegation — to fight ANY attempt to weaken growth management and environmental protections, and (2) press our County Commissioners to lobby against those state proposals AND to stand against any similar deregulation within the county, and (3) ask the Governor to stand against deregulation and veto any such legislation that gets to his desk.
You’re absolutely right about our next move: educate ourselves about which of our lawmakers votes for deregulation, and vote those bums out of office.