Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Below is the text of email I received. The email was sent by Mariella Smith of Ruskin. She’s a community activist, and was involved in the planning process.

Here is the email:

ACTION:
Write or call your County Commissioners (contact information below) to remind them that they work for ALL voters
Attend the public hearing on our Hillsborough County Comprehensive Plan: April 19, 6:00 p.m., 2nd floor, County Center, 601 E. Kennedy

WHY:
Commissioners Disregarding Citizen Voice 3/14 - Snuck in Vote at Workshop (before notice or hearing) Against Citizens and For Developers

From: Mariella Smith insightgraphics@earthlink.net
Subject: Commissioners Sneak in a Vote Against Citizens to Please Developers

Wednesday’s Tribune editorial [see below] asked our commissioners to “pay attention to what voters say they want the region to look like 20 years from now” as they consider new policies proposed for the next update to our Comprehensive Plan — our county’s blueprint for growth. Instead, our commissioners listened to their developer cronies, and cavalierly tossed out much that the citizens had told them we wanted. What’s worse, they did it behind our backs, before our chance to speak at next month’s public hearing.

For three years, citizens have been participating in meetings with planners, in schools and civic centers all over the county, thoughtfully writing down our ideas and describing our vision for our communities — as if our ideas and our vision mattered. County planners worked hard to propose the changes the citizens asked for: smart growth policies that direct growth to the urban areas near transit corridors and discourage urban sprawl; better protections for our environment and our rural communities; green building and energy conservation; walkable, bikeable neighborhoods — and more.

All these proposals were supposed to be decided by our county commission at a public hearing on April 19. Published advance notice is supposed to allow citizens to plan to attend and speak to our leaders about these proposals when it comes time for the decisions to be made. But developers met privately with commissioners ahead of time and told them not to listen to the residents. In an appallingly arrogant move, the commissioners ripped out whole chapters from the citizens’ 3-year planning project, at a meeting with no public notice and no public comment, weeks before the public hearing.

Commissioners Hagan and Blair didn’t seem to know or care that all our community plans were in the “Livable Communities Element” as they moved to eliminate that whole 164-page section. A hasty amendment snatched our community plans from the fire, and the commissioners voted 5-2 to eliminate everything new, allowing developers to continue with the same old sprawl. In the same motion, they also eliminated the new Urban Service Area Tier System, which was an attempt to combat sprawl and focus development efficiently within the Urban Area. (Commissioners Sharpe and Ferlita voted against this high-handed tyranny.)

This is the second time in weeks the commissioners have misused a “workshop” to conduct business that is customarily reserved for public hearings. Developers lobbied behind the scenes to be allowed to speak at an earlier workshop on the proposal for bigger wetland buffer zones, even though the standard practice is that commissioners take public comment — and action — only at public hearings, not workshops. But sensing there will be huge public turnout supporting better wetland protections at the public hearing, developers naturally preferred to speak to the County Commissioners at a mid-afternoon workshop, which working citizens couldn’t have attended even if there had been proper notice published. (The public hearing is set for the evening.) Some citizens caught wind of this scheme ahead of time, and begged our commissioners to wait for the public hearing to listen to both sides, but we were ignored and the workshop was packed with the most influential members of the local development lobby who confidently arranged their schedules to attend, knowing their commissioners would bend the rules for them — and they were right.

We must remind our commissioners that they work for all the voters, not just the developers. Speak up. Write your commissioners or call them. They can only ignore us if we let them.

— Sent to you by Mariella Smith,

E-mail your County Commissioners:
Jim Norman normanj@hillsboroughcounty.org
Brian Blair blairb@hillsboroughcounty.org
Mark Sharpe sharpem@hillsboroughcounty.org
Rose Ferlita ferlitar@hillsboroughcounty.org
Al Higgenbotham higginbothama@hillsboroughcounty.org
Kevin White whitek@hillsboroughcounty.org
Ken Hagan hagank@hillsboroughcounty.org

Or call them: 272-5660

Or mail them: P.O. Box 1110, Tampa, FL 33601

Write the Tribune: tribletters@tampatrib.com

Attend the public hearing on our Comprehensive Plan: April 19, 6:00 p.m., 2nd floor, County Center, 601 E. Kennedy

We have to demand better growth management, and better protections of our wetlands, our natural resources, and our communities.

http://www.tbo. com/news/ opinion/editoria ls/MGBTMBJX8ZE. html
Growing Pains Unavoidable As County Enforces Urban Limits

Tampa Tribune Editorial, Published: Mar 14, 2007

Managing growth is becoming harder in Hillsborough County. A workshop today on changes to the county’s 20-year growth plan will raise controversial questions for commissioners. Their guiding principle should be the welfare of the all taxpayers, whose interests will be best served by less chaotic growth. That means holding the line on where rapid growth is allowed.

A proposal from the city-county planning commission would designate core areas for more intense growth while keeping large subdivisions out of remote farmland. Developers complain that the good sites within the longstanding growth boundaries have already been developed, and that adding densities there will be expensive and locally unpopular.

Yet a denser pattern of growth is what most residents said they wanted in a series of public meetings last year.

The new map attempts to make that vision a reality. It targets central areas for higher-density development than has been common in the unincorporated area. The original urban service district included so much undeveloped land that it hasn’t made a visible difference to the average person, but that’s about to change.

Now that the area designated for houses and stores is filling up, developers want to expand the boundaries and continue building on inexpensive land farther out. They correctly complain that inside the urban boundary, neighborhood activists fight against higher-density projects and often convince elected officials to lower the number of houses and apartments permitted for the site.

The stage is set for classic battle over whether growth will be seriously managed in Hillsborough. Pubic hearings on the plan update will be held next month.

Regulating growth creates a paradox. If you approach the problem from the viewpoint of a homebuilder or new home buyer, you’ll want lax rules that allow the lowest-priced houses regardless of long-term costs. If you’re a taxpaying homeowner, you’ll want efficient development that improves your community life, not degrades it with overcrowded schools and traffic jams. Both views are logical and yet not entirely compatible.

Commissioners must decide if Hillsborough is to grow efficiently at a higher initial cost or whether it continues its low-cost growth at a higher public price.

Many issues will arise in this debate.

Building codes and utilities may not allow higher densities in some of the designated high-density areas. The maps will need some adjustments and the county’s codes and fees need to change so that infill projects are easier to win approval and more affordable to build.

Some areas, such as Highway 60 in Brandon, are planned for higher densities because they are near designated transit corridors. Developers complain that the county’s bus system is inadequate and that high-capacity rail has not yet been approved, and might not be.

But unless the county begins focusing growth, transit will never be able to serve suburban areas efficiently.

Hillsborough still has plenty of room to grow. About 51,000 more housing units are approved just for the southern part of the county.

The new plan is much more than lines on a map. It pushes the county toward long overdue investments in transit, requires it to focus resources on where most people are going to live, and to pay attention to what voters say they want the region to look like 20 years from now.