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| County Commissioners Jose "Pepe" Diaz & Joe Martinez |
We have blogged at length about the UDB. Use our search feature to isolate posts related to UDB issues. (I am a founding member of Hold The Line, the group that organized nearly ten years ago to attempt to stop the repetitive incursions by developers against the line, separating areas served by county-funded (ie. taxpayer) infrastructure from areas where development is restricted-- mainly for environmental reasons.)
At yesterday's meeting, the Latin Builders Association, the South Florida Builders Association, and Jeffrey Bercow-- on behalf of developer clients-- all supported the plan to create a "working group". Before the meeting Diaz promised would be fair and balanced, "3 to 3", but his own arithmetic is indecipherable only to him. The builder lobbyists also all voiced doubt during their comments; "skepticism" that any agreement could be reached with environmentalists. They had obviously rehearsed their lines together.
The notion of a "working group" was first floated to me by Joe Martinez in the early 2000's when a whole raft of developer applications to move the UDB sought to catch the wave of the housing boom. Bercow and his cohorts (ie. Neisen Kasdin) made the rounds of downtown business groups with a powerpoint presentation predicting that skyrocketing demand for housing would never end. They derided professional county planning staff in public forums including the county commissioner chamber. In comparison to Hold The Line, they were given deference and "respect" by Martinez and Diaz and Barreiro and the rest of the Unreformable Majority. At the same time, Hold The Line members were attacked by commissioners themselves from the dais.
It was clear to Hold The Line ten years ago, and to conservationists twenty years ago, that big agriculture and developers (basically the same, since big ag obtains bank loans based on the developable value of its land) want one thing: to build whatever they want, whenever they want so long as it makes a profit. Since risk is involved in making a profit, the balance tips to speculation where the crucial factor involves the manipulation of public policy and decisions by elected officials.
So, why a "working group" now? Simple.
In the last session of the Florida legislature, Gov. Rick Scott let the lunatics loose in the asylum. They succeeded in eliminating state regulatory authority through the Florida Department of Community Affairs. (At the local level, the same has occurred: the Miami Dade Department of Environmental Regulatory Management -- DERM-- was also stripped like a stolen vehicle in a chop shop: all on the premise that environmental regulations and enforcement hurt "jobs".) Laws that provided an appeal process for changes to county development plans that were nominally supervised by DCA have vanished in the blur of the economic crash and the disappearing act of accountability. Nothing means anything.
Yesterday on the dais, Pepe Diaz summoned the bitter memory (in his mind, at least) of the 2009 application to move the Urban Development Boundary for a new Lowe's at the urban fringe. He decried the loss of a "free" high school a charter school operator had pledged to build. All because environmentalists wouldn't let Lowe's build "three hundred feet" into the Urban Development Boundary.
Environmental groups-- once the Unreformable Majority passed the Lowe's plan over the objections of a state review-- took the issue to state administrative court. After the kind of protracted and costly legal battle that characterized these conflicts, environmentalists won. And it is because environmentalists had an appeal process that could, on occasion, result in victory, the developer lobby was further inflamed to go after the state authority in the legislature. Because Gov. Scott was clueless about the long history of land use battles in Florida, he simply nodded his bald dome and handed the keys of the granary to the thieves. This is the "democracy" that Diaz is trying to summon like a magician waving a wand over a top hat.
Eliminating state authority for land use changes had the immediate effect of putting the county commission on the hot seat: voters will now get to see for themselves exactly who is responsible for the ongoing destruction of their quality of life, communities, and environment. The burden rests squarely on the shoulders of the county commission.
To create plausible deniability for the massacres to come, the builders and developers encouraged Diaz and Martinez to form a "working group" that they of course would control and devise "recommendations" to change the Urban Development Boundary policy in county law. They want to do whatever they want, whenever they want. (This notion of a "permanent" boundary is nonsense. It is "permanent" until the next generation of county commissions ascends the glorious dais.)
Yesterday, environmentalists who contributed to Hold The Line said they would respectfully decline to participate in what is bound to be a sham exercise.
They also raised the pointedly relevant observation: prior county commissions have already spent tens of millions and thousands of county staff hours on studies and recommendations relative to the Urban Development Boundary. The last -- the South Miami Dade Watershed Study-- was the most comprehensive localized, science based analysis for water use planning and development ever undertaken in the United States. The builders killed the study because they didn't like the results. It was a shame. Years earlier, the county commission had buried the results of the Agriculture Retention Study, also involving the UDB, because they didn't like those results either. In response to the bad PR from killing the Watershed Study, the Unreformable Majority sought cover from the US EPA who was invited to review the UDB and because the EPA endorsed the UDB, that study was shelved, too.
So there you have it. The county commission just can't say, no. As far as the developer lobby goes, you can't paint stripes on that horse and fool anyone into believing it is a zebra. And, the "working group". Let's just say, that dog won't hunt.
15 comments:
But we keep voting for them...
Atty Stan Price has been working on this for years. He has wanted a "fair", easy way to move the UDB. I think his seeds have finally taken root.
There are more Miamians who want to protect the Everglades than those who do not. There are more Miamians who want infill than those who want sprawl. There are more Miamians who care about a clean, natural water supply than those who do not. The sprawl developers, land speculators, and the politicians who serve them do not represent the majority. Combine those Miamians with the hundreds of millions of people in Florida, the US and worldwide who care deeply about Everglades National Park, and it's no wonder the Everglades land speculators are using every trick in the book to counter an overwhelming tide.
I thought Price was still making his living off of Trinity Palmer?
I think the Diaz/Martinez bros. can't help but be so transparent, especially with all the builder's coming out to support this group of "fictional - let's talk" builder's groups.
I'm also going to demand the next time ANYONE either from the BCC or speaking to the BCC who say's "creates jobs", I want to know how many, where from, and a covenant "promising" the same and if they don't produce as advertised, they be placed in jail (joking about jail) each day for each fictional job NOT PRODUCED!
Developers should play by the rules, just like the rest of us.
There is nothing "fair" about asking taxpayers to pay for infrastructure and service costs to help developers who don't want to play within the lines.
The EPA study offered two alternatives: 1) maintain the current policy of accepting private applications to move the boundary every two years; or 2) transfer the responsibility for boundary amendments to the professional staff to make recommendations every 5-7 years.
The professional staff never presented the EPA study to the county commission. They did not want to risk losing the revenues from private applications.
To "decline to participate" is to miss an opportunity to change the system.
Does anyone think we should continue to have private applications filed every two years to probe the line for weak spots?
Recall Pepe Diaz.
Also add wrecking Miami by water: port of Miami deep dredge and blasting of Biscayne bay.
Other than the LBA Machine what is the history of the other builders groups? Didn't you mention one of them was for a moratorium?
None of them were for the moratorium.
This Commission needs an enema.
What about identifying a pro-hold-the-line commission candidate in Diaz/Martinez/Barriero districts and fund them to replace these greedy people.
It is cheaper to recall them. We don't happen to have $300,000 sitting around to go up against they guys. Besides Martinez will be out soon.
Scott wasn't "clueless about the long history of land use battles in Florida." One of his primary campaign platforms was that "regulations" had killed the housing market and not the fraudsters in the banking and finance sector turning homes into casino chips.
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