Home building and construction is to Florida as opium production is to Afghanistan ... by gimleteye

Opium production is 60 percent of the economy of Afghanistan. It is not far from the same percentage as home building and construction contributes to Florida. We're quick to condemn opium production but loathe to level the same dependencies caused by the muscular supply chain that is responsible for the housing market bubble and collapse.

In The Palm Beach Post today, "Crist signs bill loosening controls on growth", Palm Beach County Commissioner Karen Marcus is quoted, ""I don't think the legislature has any idea what they have just done to the people of Florida." I disagree. The legislature, lead by the real estate development lobby, knew exactly what it was doing in passing "The Growth Anywhere Act".

It used the economic crisis to secure a free pass from regulation that it blames for the worst housing market collapse since the Depression. Its creator, Republican State Senator Michael Bennett is a real estate developer. But it takes many hands to gather opium, and so it did too for the legislation he promoted and that Gov. Crist signed into law.

Democrats deserve their share of blame for pushing Florida into the dreamy reverie that insta-grow suburbs would be self-sustaining under any conditions. From Lawton Chiles to Bob Graham, land development was mother's milk of political power.

That said, it was no accident that the perfection of the supply chain and scalable model of unsustainable growth in Florida occurred under the watch of Florida's Republican-led state government. Miami-based builder trade associations pushed Jeb Bush forward in 1998 using the fig leaf of limited government and a paternalistic trust in corporate responsibility that neatly meshed the aspirations of family-owned builders to the needs of large corporations that required scalability of insta-grow suburbs to maintain quarterly profits for Wall Street and shareholders.

It never occurs to them, that the suburban model is over. Done. Finished.

The Florida legislature that passed this bill and Gov. Charlie Crist know perfectly well what they did: they took out an important middle man who they had tried to eliminate for years: the Florida Department of Community Affairs and its authority to review Developments of Regional Impact.

In recent years, as a result of selective discrimination by real-estate dominated legislators, the agency has been cut to a bare bones staff of professional planners. DCA is charged with managing growth although one would be hard pressed to say what growth in Florida has been managed. From time to time DCA gets its day in court-- as in recent votes from Miami-Dade County Commissioners to move the Urban Development Boundary. But when local governments send, or "transmit"-- development applications to Tallahassee for DCA review, lobbyists and legislators (often, its just a revolving door) take turns whacking the heads off DCA when its senior staff pop up to object.

Gov. Crist signed the ridiculously named "Community Investment Act" into law earlier this week; a political calculation to avoid being boxed in, by the more conservative and developer-friendly former Speaker of the House, Jeb Bush stand-in Marco Rubio.

In 2010, Florida voters may have a chance to express their opinion of state leadership. It is called Florida Hometown Democracy; a citizen's initiative to change the Florida Constitution by referendum requiring that changes to local comprehensive growth plans be subject to popular vote.



Crist signs bill loosening controls on growth

By PAUL QUINLAN

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, June 01, 2009

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Charlie Crist bucked environmental groups and local governments Monday by signing a bill that development interests say will discourage urban sprawl and jump-start Florida's stalled building industry.

Opponents said the new law will accomplish the opposite - encouraging sprawl and sticking taxpayers with the costs of easing traffic created by a new development.

"I think that it's going to backfire," said Joanne Davis, community planner with the growth-watchdog group 1000 Friends of Florida, which twice e-mailed supporters Monday to call Crist's office and urge his veto.

"In order to help the developers help themselves, the taxpayers are going to have to bear the burden of the cost, which - well, I can't afford it," she said. "I don't know who else can."

Palm Beach County Commissioner Karen Marcus said, "I don't think the legislature has any idea what they have just done to the people of Florida."

Existing growth laws required developers to pay for the roads needed to handle the traffic their projects would generate. But the new law eliminates that requirement, known as "concurrency," in the state's urban areas, including Palm Beach and seven other counties.

Supporters said it will revive the idled housing industry and steer building toward urban areas.

"Not only will this bill help jump-start our economy, it actually provides for greater protections for our state's most sensitive areas and will help to limit sprawl," said Mark Wilson, president and CEO of the Florida Chamber of Commerce. "This is the type of legislation our state needs if we are going to prepare for the 7 million additional residents expected in this state by 2030."

Opponents such as Audubon of Florida lobbied against language inserted at the last minute that eased the hurdles for creating and extending "urban service areas" into rural counties. That allowed traffic rules and the review process for large developments to be circumvented.

The bill also extends the expiration date of existing development permits by two years. Business groups say this will allow developers to wait out the recession.

"We need to put people back to work," said Brian Paul, CEO of the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches.

Paul and others have said the bill ensures local governments could not abuse their power to block projects.

But Florida Association of Counties President Rodney Long said his group feared the bill would strip local governments of the one tool that lets them regulate growth and maintain quality standards.

"With limited funds for transportation improvements, concurrency has been the one tool a community can use to ensure that growth and transportation are in sync," Long said. "By taking this away in such large areas, the people of our state will inevitably suffer."