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House bill is permit for runaway growth

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published April 25, 2007

A state House attempt to loosen controls on Florida's development growth has evolved into what must be a practical joke. What else could explain the provision that exempts Pinellas County from state oversight?

This is, after all, the county that dumped dirt in the bay to make room for more waterfront houses, pumped so much drinking water from the ground it turned salty, and built so many shopping strips that major traffic arteries become linear parking lots during rush hour. This is the county where the last two beach city commissions to approve taller hotels felt the wrath of angry voters at the polls.

Pinellas, a poster child for haphazard development, no longer needs the state to chaperone? This is the worst kind of legislative humor because it is written in the form a bill that could actually become a law.

The bill, HB 7203, is a frontal assault on growth management. It relaxes the requirement that roads be improved before new development chokes them; gives developers more time to hold up their end on agreements for large projects; allows a sixfold increase in streamlined permits in Duval County; and designates Pinellas, Broward, Jacksonville, Miami, Tallahassee and Hialeah as "pilot programs" and exempts them from the usual state oversight of local land-use decisions.

These pilot counties and cities were chosen because they are mostly developed already, but that's like rewarding failure. And if Pinellas legislators think their county suffers only from mistakes of history, then they are ignoring the growing signs of development revolt among today's voters.

This bill has been on the same kind of fast track that it would grant to development and is heading for the House floor after only one committee stop. If House members won't put on the brakes, then the Senate should. This is one exemption Pinellas does not need.

[Last modified April 24, 2007, 21:37:56]