For too long developers, with their deep pockets, have held the upper hand in Florida, and local and state politicians eager to be re-elected and hungry for the support of big-monied developers have a history of rubber-stamping development approvals.
It’s time for that to change.
But Amendment 4, popularly known as "Hometown Democracy," would be a change for the worse if it is approved by voters this fall.
A few months ago I met with former St. Johns County commission candidate Al Abbatiello, who is currently serving as county coordinator for Florida Hometown Democracy, and two other proponents of the plan. They asked me to endorse Amendment 4.
I cannot.
On the surface it sounds like a good idea. Even the name inspires good feelings. We all have a warm spot in our hearts for our hometown, and democracy — how could that be bad?
The answer is it can be bad on several levels, not the least of which is that it will fail to do what its proponents promise.
Basically, Amendment 4 will require local governments to ask voters’ approval for every comprehensive land use change. Proponents say this puts the power to stop over-development into the hands of the voters.
It will, but it does so by stripping that power away from the people those same voters elected to do the job.
Why not just vote pro-development politicians out of office? I asked representatives from Hometown Democracy that question, and was told that no matter what some politicians do, the voters will just keep returning them to office. One of them cited the late Sen. Jim King as an example of an incumbent who enjoyed too much name recognition, and whose pro-development stance attracted big donors to help him get re-elected.
To say that voters can’t be trusted to elect good representatives is cynical, but even if it’s true, to say in the same breath that voters will make the right decision on complicated planning issues makes no sense.
There’s a reason why the founding fathers chose a representative democracy when they started this country. They knew from history that democracies often failed because they degenerated into mobs ruled by the speaker with the loudest voice. In modern America, the biggest voice belongs to the person with the biggest advertising budget.
If big money wins elections, then when it comes to a vote on a comprehensive plan change affecting some big developer, which way do you think the big money is going to fall?
"A development may drop $1 million on [public relations]," St. Johns County Commission Chairman Ron Sanchez told me this week. "The anti-development people won’t have that kind of money."
He’s right. If he wasn’t, wouldn’t politicians be pandering to the Sierra Club instead of developers?
Good planning requires good information. Currently, the St. Johns County government employs a staff of experienced degreed professionals whose job it is to study and evaluate developers plans. Sometimes those plans spend years with the staff before getting their first hearing before the Planning and Zoning Agency, which is often months before the County Commission holds its first hearing on the development.
The packet that reaches the commissioners is often inches thick and filled with information about how the development will affect traffic, waterways and even eagles’ nests.
There is only enough room on a ballot for a brief paragraph that will likely often be in-decipherable legalese. Multiply that by several dozen and you’ll have an idea of just how future ballots will look in Florida if Amendment 4 passes.
Currently, the county negotiates concessions from the developers as their plans work their way through the gantlet of government review. School sites, parks, land for fire stations and even pristine conservation lands become set-asides the developer must agree to provide before they can build their first road or put in their first sewer line.
But once the county’s approval becomes a mere formality on the way to the ballot, what incentive will developers have to negotiate? It would be far easier for them to put a pretty name on an ugly plan and run television ads touting the "Save our homes" amendment, and spend the million dollars they would have put into infrastructure improvements on advertising.
That’s not good planning. But I suspect good planning is not the goal of the Hometown Democracy folks. I think they want to put an end to all development. That’s not only a bad idea — it’s too late.
"People have a very good reason to be unhappy with the development in St. Johns County," said County Commissioner Phil Mays, who was appointed to his position in January 2009. "There was some extremely poor planning that went on in St. Johns County between 1995 and 2007"
St. Johns County already has approvals in place for up to 80,000 homes in developments that haven’t been built. Some of those homes — even whole developments — are approved to built on property that perhaps should be preserved for conservation or commercial applications.
But changing those classifications would involve negotiations with the developers and, eventually, a comprehensive plan change. If we stifle the County’s ability to negotiate, we guarantee that those already-approved developments will be built right where they are. And taxpayers will foot the bill for the needed infrastructure to support most of them — schools, roads, fire stations and all.
Good government involves thoughtful deliberation, and the vast majority of us don’t have time to sift through the reams of paper needed to be well informed on every issue, certainly not on every comprehensive plan amendment. That’s why we elect people to do it for us. To relieve them of the responsibility for ensuring that the job is done right is a recipe for bad government.
Recently, in a letter to the editor of the St. Augustine Record, Abbatiello called for a moratorium on land use changes in the county until "the voters have spoken."
The voters have already spoken. They elected a County Commission to do their bidding. If those commissioners don’t do the job, vote them out of office.
But voting f
