State: Board favors locally led growth

Board favors locally led growth

In a draft, the growth-management commission recommends giving local governments more control.

By JULIE HAUSERMAN

TALLAHASSEE -- Should the state back off and let local communities have more control over how they grow?

A commission appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush is leaning in that direction. The governor's Growth Management Study Commission on Friday released its draft recommendations: a densely packed document that would dramatically rewrite Florida's 1985 Growth Management Act.

Florida's growth rules were supposed to reign in runaway development, stopping the endless march of strip malls, housing developments and shoulder-to-shoulder condominiums.

Now, with Florida's population reaching 15.9-million and its sprawl problems getting worse, leading Republicans say that it is time to try a new approach. The commission hasn't yet voted on the final recommendations and won't conclude its work until Feb. 15. Then it will be up to the Legislature to craft a new law to change Florida's growth rules.

If approved, the commission's draft report would represent the biggest changes ever in Florida's controversial growth-management rules. Among the changes proposed:

The state Department of Community Affairs, which regulates development, would back off on local planning decisions unless a development affects one of three "compelling state interests." Those interests include whether the growth affects natural resources of statewide significance, transportation facilities of statewide significance and disaster preparedness. The DCA would do less "command and control" regulation and, instead, become a clearinghouse to help communities plan.

DCA Secretary Steve Seibert is even proposing to change the agency's name to the Department of Community Assistance. "This is the evolution of growth-management. It is not the abdication of responsibility," Seibert said. "We ought to be doing it better, and I think this is where we're heading."

Local governments would be encouraged to raise taxes to pay for infrastructure to support development. Those costs include roads, sewer lines, schools, fire and police protection, and other emergency services.

The state would come up with a formula to gauge the effect of a particular development. Then, local officials would have to produce a cost/benefit sheet on a development's impact. The community would then decide how much cost should be paid by the developer and how much should be paid by the community.

This idea -- called "full-cost accounting" -- has been floated in Florida before. Both developers and local governments have fought it, saying the formula can't help but be subjective, not scientific.

"This kind of economic modeling is way over the heads of most local governments," said Lynn Pappas, a Jacksonville attorney who represents developers.

The state would offer incentives for communities to revitalize downtowns and incentives to farmers to keep their land from being developed, including buying up development rights and cutting inheritance taxes on rural lands. In the cities, the state would relax planning rules and give more money for inner-city schools and roads.

The state's controversial Developments of Regional Impact program would be abolished, replaced by interlocal agreements hammered out by several governments in a region. The Legislature created the DRI reviews in 1972 to give all governments in a region say-so over large projects such as airports, industrial plants, mines, ports, resorts and large housing developments. State and local planners review impacts on everything from roads to water supplies, endangered species and utilities.

The Tampa Bay region has at least 197 approved DRIs, one of the highest concentrations in the state.

Florida's 11 Regional Planning Councils would become the lead mediators when residents oppose a development. And a resident's right to object would be expanded.

The draft report was posted, unceremoniously, on the DCA's Web site Thursday night. Not many of the people keeping tabs on the commission had a chance to read it and digest it yet.

Tom Pelham, a land-use attorney who was DCA Secretary under Republican Gov. Bob Martinez, called the draft "a mixed bag."

"It guts the local planning requirements, reduces the state's role to a narrow range of issues, abolishes the DRI process and replaces it with an unworkable paper exercise at the regional level," Pelham said.

But Pelham applauded the commission's ideas on providing incentives to steer growth toward downtowns, leaving the countryside intact.

But buying up development rights from farmers, Pelham warned, "will have a huge price tag."

The commission is scheduled to discuss the report at a two-day meeting Monday and Tuesday in Jacksonville. Two more commission meetings are scheduled before the Feb. 15 deadline.