Opponents of Amendment 4 always bring up the saga of St. Pete Beach where a slightly similar measure was adopted but it was not successful. Here is the truth to dispel the misleading story:By Harry Metz, Former St. Pete Beach City Commissioner and resident of St. Pete Beach for 56 years:
The developer and developer-allied opponents of Amendment 4 (Florida Hometown Democracy) have been misrepresenting what actually happened in St. Pete Beach. Their claims incorrectly link Amendment 4 on the November 2010 ballot with the turmoil in my city over the past three years. I offer this factual report so that any future reference to St. Pete Beach will be accurate. Their primary misrepresentation is that the litigation in St. Pete Beach has something to do with Florida Hometown Democracy’s Amendment 4. Actually, if we had had Amendment 4 in place, none of the conflict would have taken place.
The developer and developer-allied opponents of Amendment 4 (Florida Hometown Democracy) have been misrepresenting what actually happened in St. Pete Beach. Their claims incorrectly link Amendment 4 on the November 2010 ballot with the turmoil in my city over the past three years. I offer this factual report so that any future reference to St. Pete Beach will be accurate.
Their primary misrepresentation is that the litigation in St. Pete Beach has something to do with Florida Hometown Democracy’s Amendment 4. Actually, if we had had Amendment 4 in place, none of the conflict would have taken place. (Hit read more)
The St. Pete Beach litigation is all about developers who wanted to build 15-story hotels on our waterfront and triple the population density of our small island community. Many residents strongly oppose this. The litigation that resulted dealt with the developers’ attempt to submit their own comprehensive land-use plan to the voters without complying with the Florida Growth Management Act. It had nothing to do with Hometown Democracy.
The developer-controlled St. Pete Beach city commission miss-used the City’s ordinance-initiative process to submit changes to our city’s land-use plan in a public referendum without going through the Growth Management requirements. The developer-controlled city commission ignored state law.
Entire areas of St. Pete Beach were rezoned by these developer initiatives. The individuals whose property was rezoned had no public notice, nor were they able to voice any objection at public hearings prior to the vote, as required by the Growth Management Act. Had the Hometown Democracy amendment been in place, this could not have happened.
The citizens naturally sued.
In the first lawsuit, the court ruled that Florida’s Growth Management Act procedures must be followed, and that the commission could not use the ordinance-initiative provision to change the land-use plan. But the city and the developers ignored the court’s order. A motion for contempt was filed as a result. None of this had anything to do with Amendment 4.
The second lawsuit against the city asserted that the ballot language for these ordinances misrepresented them, with the intention of deceiving the voters. For example, in one ballot summary, there was a statement that the ordinance would implement “green initiatives,” when in fact there was not one word about green initiatives in the body of the ordinance. Another proposed ordinance increased allowable building height from 50 to 164 feet, which was not even mentioned in the ballot summary, nor was there any mention of the tripling of density that the initiatives would achieve. Much of the legal expense incurred by the city relates to the ballot language case. Again, nothing to do with Amendment 4.
Until now, almost all that has been written in an attempt to tie litigation in St. Pete Beach to Florida Hometown Democracy has been ginned up by developers who, as we well know, will use any artifice to attain their goals.
Much of the misleading information was supported by Ward Friszolowski, a former St. Pete Beach mayor. Currently executive VP of an architectural and planning firm, he has a vested interest in defeating Amendment 4, which gives a community’s voters veto power over inappropriate development.
6 comments:
The precedent to be worried about in the St. Pete Beach example is the second lawsuit, which related to whether the ballot summary was accurate.
Assuming that Amendment 4 passes, each change to a comprehensive plan will need to be separately voted on and given a ballot summary. Regardless of who wins, someone is going to challenge the ballot summary as not reflecting the meaning of the amendment.
Those kind of lawsuits are the natural result of adding so many issues to ballots, especially issues that often cannot easily be reduced to a short summary.
The other kind of problem we can expect are situations where the electorate rejects changes to comprehensive plans that are mandated by state law. We will end up with DCA suing local governments for failing to make changes required by law. Given the scope of Amendment 4, this may be more common than expected.
Again, the Supreme Court of Florida has already decided that the Amendment will apply to all changes to comprehensive plans, no matter how technical or routine.
Maybe comprehensive plans won't be changed so frequently. The Ear could be done more often to accomodate technical changes. The ear's used to be every 5 years. They could return to that.
Remember, if Commissioner Souto can understand a comp plan change, anyone can.
Thanks Mr Metz
Speaking of the EAR, there will be a Public Hearing on August 2 - 9:30 AM - County Commission Chambers. The EAR draft will be posted soon to the P&Z page on MiamiDade.Gov - anyone interested in the future planning of this County should attend - a lot of Land Use Lawyers do, so the public should come out in force. This is your turn to speak out and give input on our CDMP "check up".
There's alot to sort out when considering Amendemnt 4. It is not a simple issue. I've been following it for a few years now and I find it interesting that hte proponents such as Mr. Metz once heralded St. Pete Beach as proof that Amendment 4 could work and now that it has been a disaster they are trying to distance themselves from it. Hmm.
I think Lee Allen hit the nail on the head. One thing is for certain with Amendment 4 - LAWSUITS. In fact, the main proponents of Amendmnt 4 are special interest lawyers who have spent their lives suing. You can't take a lengthy and complex comprehensive plan change and condense it into 75 words or less. People will disagree and they will sue.
I don't want our city budgets to be siphoned off as stimulus for these attorneys.
you realize that LEE ALLEN and this last poster cruise the internet to trash Amendment 4. Pay them no mind. It is scare tactics. Lee Allen always appears when we write about Amendment 4.
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