State: State trims back growth reviews to 'big picture'

TALLAHASSEE -- For two years, Gov. Jeb Bush has been preaching about Florida's growth. We need to give local communities more control over how they develop, he says. We need fewer edicts coming down from Tallahassee.

But Bush has made little headway in getting the Legislature to change the state's growth laws.

Now, behind the scenes, the administration is moving forward anyway. Two internal memos written this month at the state's land planning agency set an ambitious goal:

"Reduce the Number of Reviews by 50% by January 1, 2002."

The administration has cut state reviews of development in one area, the Florida Keys, by 82 percent since Bush got elected, the memos say.

"I see them trying to rewrite the Growth Management Act without actually doing so," said Richard Grosso, general counsel of the Environmental and Land Use Law Center at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale.

The state's Department of Community Affairs reviews a vast array of land regulations, including changes to local comprehensive plans, the community blueprints for growth. It also reviews large developments that affect more than one county.

The state reviews are supposed to act as a check against local decisions, which are often influenced by developers with clout. In some cases, small counties don't have a planning staff, so the state review is important. Local residents who oppose a development can challenge it, and developers can work with DCA to make sure they follow state law.

Under Bush, the DCA now is delegating oversight for many local zoning and development decisions to local governments and to the state's Regional Planning Councils, which are advisory panels with no real enforcement power.

It is an idea that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago, when most Florida towns and cities were struggling with life under the landmark Growth Management Act, the state's first attempt to rein in runaway growth.

That was then, says the state's top planning official, former Pinellas Commissioner Steve Seibert. And this is now.

The 50 percent cutback in state reviews, DCA Secretary Seibert insists, doesn't meanthe state is backing away from its responsibilities.

"We do what the law requires us to do," Seibert said. "We would not ignore the law in any way."

Local planners are more sophisticated than they were in 1985 when Florida passed the Growth Management Act, Seibert says, and they can be trusted to make better decisions. The cutbacks in reviews in the Keys, he said, make sense because planners were reviewing minutiae, including additions to individual buildings. Seibert wants to cut back on what he calls "small stuff" reviews, so DCA planners spend more time on "big picture" issues, such as environmental protection, transportation and disaster preparedness.

But in a state where bad local decisions are blamed for the tacky jumble of strip malls, subdivisions and clogged roads, it's a tough sell. The approach makes a lot of growth-management advocates nervous, especially at a time when state government is cutting back on budgets and staff.

"I think they are chipping away at regulatory oversight," said Charles Pattison, executive director of 1000 Friends of Florida, a growth-management watchdog group. "The concern has always been, if you reduce that oversight, are you missing big-picture items? It's something we're going to have to monitor."

Longtime Florida planner Charles Gautier, who heads the DCA's local planning bureau, says his agency is asked to review about 12,000 individual comprehensive plan amendments every year.

"Very few of them are significant," Gautier said. "But the ones that are significant are really significant, and we want to spend more time on those."

The DCA is proposing its biggest review cutbacks in two programs: the Area of Critical State Concern program (which includes the Keys, Green Swamp and Big Cypress), and Developments of Regional Impact program, which oversees big developments that affect more than one county. New DRIs still will get a full state review, but the state wants to cut back on reviewing changes to existing DRIs. That could mean, for example, that a big, existing development could increase commercial development or add houses with less attention.

The changes will give state planners more time to physically visit communities that have planning problems and help them, Gautier said.

But is the department doing the job? Grosso doesn't think so.

"They are not reviewing the big stuff," Grosso said. "The approach at DCA over the past year and a half has been like this: They say, 'Oh, it's a large county. They have a lot of developable land left, so we don't have to scrutinize it closely. Or, it's Dade County, which is so fast-growing that, what's another development?' There's always some excuse for not having to spend real time scrutinizing.

"I'm not advocating paperwork for paperwork's sake. I'm all for efficiency," Grosso said. "But I see the state's emphasis is simply on cutting review."

Seibert points to one example where, he says, the new approach is paying off. In the tiny community of Oak Hill in Volusia County, a state planner helped the community set its vision. The town of about 1,400 was once a fishing village, but fell on hard times when Florida passed a ban on some fishing nets.

"We called DCA and asked them to give us a helping hand," said Oak Hill Mayor Susan Cook. "They are using Oak Hill more or less as a pilot, and their help is invaluable to us."

It's unclear whether the Legislature will take another crack at changing growth laws this year. A growth management commission appointed by Bush issued a slew of recommendations last year. But nothing passed except a few exemptions that will benefit St. Joe Co., the state's largest landowner.

Republican majority leader Rep. Mike Fasano of New Port Richey sent a letter this month to Florida newspapers, announcing that the Legislature would, indeed, propose changes to Florida's growth laws when it convenes in January. Fasano said that the state should remain "an active partner."

"As we continue this debate," Fasano wrote, "we must realize that 'growth' does not need to be a dirty word."

Still, it's debatable whether lawmakers will have the attention to deal with the thorny issue of growth in the coming session. The main agenda will be to redraw political boundaries for all legislative and congressional seats, a once-in-a decade exercise that can make or break many political careers.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk