In a Dec. 12 editorial ("The real Amendment 4"), The Palm Beach Post exposed the dangerous uncertainty surrounding Amendment 4, a proposed change to Florida's Constitution. In a letter to The Post, Lesley Blackner — one of the amendment's authors — tried to publicly rewrite the measure she failed to craft properly in the first place. The facts do not back her up.
The plain language of Amendment 4 calls for a referendum on any change to a "local government comprehensive land use plan." But the devil is in the details. According to Amendment 4, a comprehensive land use plan is "a plan to guide and control future land development." That could mean almost anything.
Most agree with The Post that this almost certainly includes every aspect of a community's comprehensive plan, right down to traffic signalization issues and minor technical changes. Many would say the amendment could even be extended more broadly to include common zoning issues as well — a claim likely to be debated in court, at taxpayer expense, if the amendment passes.
If the authors of Amendment 4 meant to limit the scope of their proposal as Ms. Blackner claims, they could have done so when they wrote it. The fact that they did not tells us one of two things: At best, Amendment 4 is poorly written; at worst, it is cleverly designed so that lawyers and judges get the last say on land-use decisions, rather than voters. Either way, Amendment 4 is broken beyond repair and should be rejected.
BRIAN SEYMOUR
West Palm Beach
Editor's note: Brian Seymour is Palm Beach County co-chair for Floridians for Smarter Growth and a land-use lawyer. Floridians for Smarter Growth is a coalition of business groups and municipalities that oppose Amendment 4, also known as Florida Hometown Democracy.
