2010: Candidates have to take a stand on Florida Hometown Democracy. It is going to be a humdinger of an election year ... by gimleteye

There is already a tremendous build-up to the 2010 elections in Florida. Governor Charlie Crist will face Congressman Kendick Meek for US Senate. All five state-elected positions, Governor and Cabinet, will have new occupants in January 2011. But the sleeper issue of the 2010 elections has not yet emerged: it is the proposed Florida Hometown Democracy constitutional amendment. The citizens' ballot initiative, approved by the Florida Supreme Court after legal challenges by special interests, will be the first time-- and it couldn't happen at a better time-- Florida voters will vote on the politics of growth. The amendment will magnetize public anger at the sour economy. Gov. Crist has already voiced his opposition. The measure proposes voters, and not local elected officials, must decide changes to local comprehensive development plans. Today, changing growth plans is a milking machine for special interests and politicians and in Florida contributed to the worst housing market collapse since the Depression. Every candidate for public office will have to take a position, one way or another, on FHD. The issue will be impossible to avoid, if only for the money piled against it by special interests.

Across the state, one newspaper editorial after another has lamented how development interests--dominating the Republican led legislature--have cooked their own goose. Instead of reform, trade associations and the builders lobby have gone the other way: putting in place radical, new laws so when demand revives, it will be more of the same-- only faster and more hidden from public view. At the same time, the development lobby is floating a poison pill amendment of its own, "Floridians for Smarter Growth" that actually claims it will be better for voters to physically register with their supervisor of elections office to sign a petition, one at a time, for any particular land use change in order to qualify for the local ballot.

The state's homebuilders and real estate interests and business communities fought tooth and nail to keep Florida Hometown Democracy from the ballot. Now that Amendment Four has qualified, every candidate for state-wide office will have to take a position on "growth"; something that recent candidates for state-wide office have flat-refused to do. Why? 99 percent of campaign accounts are packed tighter than root canal with developer money. To fight FHD, developers are raising a mountain of cash--$4 million so far--for an election a year and a half away. The state-wide campaign against Amendment Four could raise more money from builders than the race for US Senate. Oh it's going to be a mean 2010 in Florida: it happens at a time when demographics have shifted away from the developer-friendly, Republican majority.

What is most strange about the venom against growth management in Florida today is that twenty years ago, when the Growth Management Act was proposed (by a Republican Governor) and passed into law, it enjoyed near universal support on both sides of the divide. Today, you can't find a Republican legislator who will defend growth management. Members of the Florida Senate, even as I write these words, are organizing (again) to eliminate the state agency charged with managing growth-- the Florida Department of Community Affairs-- in the next session of the legislature. Perhaps their strategy is to make the constitutional amendment a moot point, by simply erasing the government capacity to manage growth.

At the same time, development interests are using the economic crisis as the reason to strip protections for Florida's communities. Most of the Florida legislature doesn't have a clue what growth management is. And the legislators who do are from the real estate industry. Legislators like Senator Mike Bennett, the Republican (Bradenton) developer who spearheaded and made sure that Charlie Crist signed into law "The Growth Anywhere Act" in the recent session; the new law eviscerates transportation concurrency rules and further hobbles state review of major developments. "Florida Hometown Democracy is the most assine proposal I've ever heard," Bennett sniffed to the Bradenton Herald.

Crist lamely explained his vote as demonstrating his concern for Florida's economy. The truth is: Florida's builders and developers are making a better case for Florida Hometown Democracy that the amendment's supporters ever could. Crying wolf is not going to help with Florida voters, not with so many wolves already inside the door; foreclosures, job losses, ghost suburbs and soaring municipal deficits. Builders, like bankers, have expressed no remorse for their roles.

Will candidates from either party be brave enough to get on the same side as the public, whose anger against the status quo will be magnetized by Florida Hometown Democracy? It is going to be a humdinger; the sleeper issue of 2010 in Florida.



Here are two excellent editorials from The Orlando Sentinel (not a word from The Miami Herald, of course, except for the cartoons of Jim Morin):

orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-locorl-mike-thomas-growth-manag060409jun04,0,1180916.column
OrlandoSentinel.com

Crist & Co. pave way for lower home values

Mike Thomas
COMMENTARY
June 4, 2009


Charlie Crist and his Republican cohorts just depressed the future value of your house.

They did this by gutting the state's growth-management law.

We tend to equate rampant paving with crowded schools, traffic jams and environmental destruction.

But this time around, the impact extends to home prices.

It is a simple matter of supply and demand. Prices are crashing because there is too much of the former and too little of the latter.

Florida has more than 300,000 empty houses, many abandoned eyesores that drag down neighborhoods.

Despite this huge glut, developers are asking the state Department of Community Affairs for permission to build more than 600,000 new homes and almost 500 million square feet of regional malls, office buildings and other commercial development.

Everybody is lining up for the next boom.

The new legislation only will increase these numbers as it opens up more rural land to development.

We are creating a market in which demand won't catch up to supply for years to come.

We are going back to the old economic model of making Florida cheaper by sprawling ever outward.

Ideally, we would limit new housing, thereby increasing the value of existing homes when growth resumes.

Flooding the market with a steady stream of new homes thwarts this healing process.

"We are telling the market that supply is going to be large," says David Denslow, a widely respected University of Florida economist. "Who is going to buy a house for $200,000 if he thinks that same house five years from now will sell for $150,000?"

Making matters worse, the new legislation reduces development costs.

It exempts many large developments from intensive review by state planners. It also exempts many developers from having to pay for road improvements required to handle the traffic they create. That eventually shifts the burden to taxpayers.

We will be subsidizing them so they can sell their homes more cheaply, undercutting the value of our homes.

I have never seen the politicians stick it to the populace quite like this.

It is why Crist signed the legislation in private, after normal business hours, then rushed off the next day to champion health care for kids in a massive diversion campaign.

The justification is that new development will boost the economy.

It will do no such thing.

There will be no onslaught of construction jobs because there is no demand for more homes and more commercial space. Growth-management laws aren't crippling Florida's economy. There is an endless supply of lots out there, already approved for new homes. There are 7,000 empty lots in the rural burb of Groveland alone.

A lack of growth is what's crippling Florida's economy.

This legislation solves nothing. Nor was that the intent.

The intent was to allow landowners to lock in their right to pave, and to pave cheaply. It will jack up their land values. It will allow developers to throw up their sprawl whenever people do start trickling back into the state.

This is nothing more than a sweetheart deal for the people who write big campaign checks. And Charlie Crist has a big campaign coming up for U.S. Senate.

The law is so irresponsible that it was opposed not only by every environmental group but also by the Florida League of Cities, the Florida Association of Counties and the American Planning Association.

The only way to stop this madness, to protect this state and your home value, is the Florida Hometown Democracy amendment. Hopefully, it will be on the 2010 ballot.

Critics have called its restrictions on new growth extreme. But what the politicians are doing to this state is even more extreme.

"We haven't supported it," says Charles Pattison, president of 1,000 Friends of Florida. "But it is getting to the point where the Legislature isn't leaving anyone any alternatives."

Mike Thomas can be reached at mthomas@orlandosentinel.com

OrlandoSentinel.com

Want sensible growth? Take matters into your own hands
Scott Maxwell

TAKING NAMES

July 22, 2009


Development interests are gearing up for a fight, stocking their war chests with millions of dollars to do battle against the people they fear most in the world:

You.

That's right, you.

Sure, you might not feel so powerful right now. (Or look it, sitting there in that coffee-stained pajama top.) But you are the very thing that developers fear most.

Why? Because, unlike many of our campaign-cash-craving politicians, you aren't afraid to tell developers "no."

Not if a proposed development would overcrowd your child's school. Or further clog your road. Or increase your taxes to provide services to a big development in some far-flung locale.

You're capable of making that decision. And that is the philosophy at the root of Hometown Democracy — that the people can be trusted.

Florida voters will get the chance to approve Hometown Democracy in the form of a constitutional amendment next year. But this bare-knuckles campaign has already begun.

So today we are going to look at who's funding the campaigns — and one of the most bogus arguments you will hear against it.

We start with the players.

Developers and opponents of Hometown Democracy like to describe the amendment's backers as "special interests." And if they mean people who are especially interested in the environment and the land, I suppose they are right.

Hometown Democracy's political efforts have generated about $2 million, according to the most recent state records. Most of that has come from wealthy environmentalists who are pushing the effort — people such as Lesley Blackner, a Palm Beach attorney who has championed this effort and has nothing to gain financially from doing so.

Blackner is a working mother who simply got fed up with local politicians doing the bidding of Florida's growth machine. (And with three Palm Beach County commissioners convicted of corruption in the last few years, who can blame her?)

Other donations come from residents tired of seeing developers get their way simply because local politicians were swayed by the sweet-talking, check-cutting developers and their consultants.

Hometown Democracy's goal: to give local voters a say on major developments that could impact their lives — not every single house or store, but rather projects that could impact communities for many years to come.

Supporters say they know we need growth. They simply want it to be sensible.

On the other side of the debate, we have Floridians for Smarter Growth, which likes to portray itself as defender of common sense and the common man.

But it wasn't common men who cut all those six-figure checks.

Looking at state records, we find a $200,000 check came from the National Association of Home Builders.

And another from the home builders for $400,000.

And another one for $150,000 ... and another for $63,000 ... and for $100,000 ... and for $200,000 ... and ... well, you get the point.

And that's just the home builders. With the help of well-heeled friends, opponents have raised more than $3.7 million.

The message this deep-pocketed group is spreading is essentially that Hometown Democracy will ruin Florida.

Big Business has predicted nothing short of an economic Armageddon if it passed — much like it did when the minimum-wage hike was proposed. (Note to the business lobby: If you keep predicting Armageddons that don't come, no one will believe you when you really do see the antichrist and a lake of fire.)

Another argument is that Hometown Democracy is too extreme; that there are better ways to achieve smart growth.

The next time you hear this talking point, feel free to respond: "Well, why haven't you achieved them?"

The answer: Because they don't want smart growth and never have. It's simply not as profitable.

Want proof? Look at Department of Community Affairs Secretary Tom Pelham.

Pelham has never been a big fan of Hometown Democracy. In fact, in 2007, he wrote a piece for the Orlando Sentinel that called Hometown Democracy "extreme" and a "meat ax" solution.

As a compromise, Pelham suggested three smart-growth proposals that he viewed as sensible alternatives to Hometown Democracy. He was actually trying to serve as a mediator.

So I recently checked back with Pelham's office to see how many of those three smart-growth plans legislators had allowed him to put into place in the two years that have passed.

The answer: None.

The politicians in Tallahassee simply wouldn't let it happen. In fact, last session, they began dismantling the state's existing checks and balances. They are as addicted to growth as they are to the campaign donations from its creators.

So don't let opponents try to con you into believing there are better ways to achieve smart growth.

Because while they may be right, they will never let it happen.

Not unless voters provide a wake-up call.

Scott Maxwell can be reached at 407-420-6141 or smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com.

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