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5 quit growth panel in disgust

With the residents gone, the county decides to disband the task force to address building problems.

By MICHAEL VAN SICKLER
Published October 20, 2005

TAMPA - In the same week that county commissioners are forming a task force to address school crowding, another high-profile committee addressing growth problems collapsed after five residents quit in disgust.

The task force, which was supposed to tighten rules governing major development, was disbanded Wednesday by county commissioners who concluded that, in the wake of the departures, the board leaned too far in favor of builders, who now held a majority.

"There does not appear to be a genuine desire on the building industry's part to make changes," Terry Flott of Seffner told commissioners as she submitted her resignation.

"I cannot continue as a member of this committee. To do so would make me a part of the problem, and that is something I am not willing to do," she said. "I urge you to put a stop to this charade."

Commissioners expressed surprise and dismay at the abrupt exodus.

"Five resignations," Kathy Castor said. "That's a problem."

"It's an embarrassment," Tom Scott said.

"This is our shame," Ronda Storms said.

Commissioners voted to get a report back from Bruce McClendon, the county's planning and growth management director, about what went wrong.

Commissioners formed the task force two years ago after they were flooded by complaints from residents about shoddy development.

Commissioners appointed 28 members, split evenly between residents and building industry representatives. They were to tackle what to do about a type of project called "planned developments."

Other jurisdictions allow exceptions to rigid zoning for planned developments as a way of getting developers to build subdivisions, office parks or shopping centers to a higher standard.

In Hillsborough, however, the concept has been criticized for being vague, prompting the committee's deliberations. Vagueness is an advantage for developers because it saves them money and gives them flexibility.

When builders submit planned development designs to commissioners, they're allowed to have few specific details that neighbors might care about, such as where entrance ramps may be or how dense an area will be or how tall buildings will be.

Providing such details costs money for architects, planners and engineers. If commissioners reject the project, that money is wasted. Planned developments let builders fill in many of these details later - after commissioners have already approved the project.

But residents complain that the planned developments often lack important specifics at the time commissioners are deciding whether to allow them. Developers rarely build what they promise, they say, and the county rarely enforces the few rules it does have about what does get built.

The task force included a who's who of the development industry: land use lawyers Vin Marchetti, Biff Craine and Judy James; Joseph Narkiewicz, executive vice president of the Tampa Bay Builders Association; and planners Michael Horner and David Smith.

Despite such names, residents were able to negotiate a set of recommendations that they approved. By February, they submitted them to the county's planning commission. Planners there endorsed the changes, but before the commission could vote on them, McClendon yanked them from consideration in May.

At the time, he said he wanted to avoid conflict because some builders on the committee didn't favor the changes. On Wednesday, he acknowledged that a hope for a perfect compromise was unrealistic.

"We were hoping for a consensus," McClendon said. "But the split it turns out was too wide."

In the summer months, the county zoning administrator, Paula Harvey, took over for McClendon as the committee's manager, creating dissent among the residents, who said she, too, often sided with developers.

Despite that frustration, they held on. Then they read a St. Petersburg Times article last week about Marchetti, who asked that commissioners pay his client at least $274,000 because county officials waited too long to tell them about a design flaw in a shopping center driveway that required an expensive remedy.

County officials said they couldn't have detected the flaw because the project was a planned development and the plans that commissioners approved were no more than general "bubbles" that provided little detail. Residents were galled when commissioners sided with Marchetti and agreed to pay. "(Marchetti's) the one fighting against changing the process," said one of the residents who resigned, Jeannette Figari of Brandon. "And yet, here he is, blaming the process. It's a slap in the face of the committee, and I just can't be a part of this manipulation any more. I have to get off this committee."

Another Brandon resident, Pam Kopp, wrote in her resignation letter: "In light of that article ... I have come to understand that industry representatives will continue to lobby to maintain the status quo."

Marchetti said it wasn't the planned development process that he blamed in that case but a series of flaws that the county should have caught sooner. He said he was surprised by the resignations.

"I thought we were making progress," he said. "We just needed to vote."

Not so, Ana Shaffer of Brandon said.

"I have learned the hard way that participating in this effort to improve the rezoning process for the benefit of the whole county was futile," Shaffer said.

Keystone resident Rich Dugger quit weeks earlier after reaching a similar conclusion.

At least one commissioner, Kathy Castor, has grown tired of delaying tough votes by giving it to a task force of volunteers to consider. She opposed forming a task force to deal with school crowding, calling it a delay tactic.

On Wednesday, she said commissioners should approve the recommendations that the now-defunct task force came up with in February.

"The board should just deal with it," Castor said, "and not put it off for two more years."

Michael Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3402 or mvansickler@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 20, 2005, 01:19:18]