Pick your cliche: Tossing the baby out with the bath water, cutting off your nose to spite your face.
They both describe the trouble with Amendment 4: It's a serious overreaction to some legitimate concerns about careless growth.
Amendment 4, more popularly known as Hometown Democracy, grew out of the frustration many Floridians feel when they see how development has affected their communities. As stated in the ballot summary, Amendment 4 would require that "before a local government may adopt a new comprehensive land use plan, or amend a comprehensive land use plan, the proposed plan or amendment shall be subject to vote of the electors of the local government by referendum."
The amendment has drawn support from environmental groups such as the Sierra Club of Florida and numerous local Audubon chapters (though Audubon of Florida has not taken a position).
The opposition includes the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the Florida League of Cities and the Florida Association of Counties.
Sitting uncomfortably in the middle after initially opposing the amendment is 1000 Friends of Florida, a group that advocates sensible development. 1000 Friends says the amendment could let small, specific issues override communitywide ones and create piecemeal planning, relieve local officials of accountability, turn land-use decisions into heavily funded media campaigns and cause "planning gridlock."
That said, 1000 Friends shares the feelings of many with regard to urban sprawl and the sometimes pitiful efforts at growth management by local and state levels. And so it has taken a neutral position.
The voters of Florida won't be able to take a neutral position.
Florida TaxWatch says that every year the state's cities and counties make about 8,000 changes to their comprehensive plans, all of which could be affected by the amendment. In the Leon County Comp Plan alone, about 35 amendments per year are submitted and about 20 are adopted. So depending on how the courts interpret the amendment, local voters could have to sort through as many as 70 amendments each election cycle.
Take a look at the sometimes cryptic Leon County charter amendments on the ballot this fall and you'll get an idea of the tedious nature of decisions voters would face under Amendment 4. Not all would be lively declarations against sterile high rises and in favor of pastoral vistas and untouched habitats.
But the bottom line isn't whether voters are qualified to vote on every significant or insignificant change to the Comprehensive Plan or even how many changes would be on every ballot.
The reason to reject Amendment 4 is that this is not how governing works. From the local to national level, we voters select representatives to do our will. And if they don't, we hire new ones.
Having a referendum — and at no small cost — on every issue in which voters have NIMBY interests but care little about the greater good would have unanticipated consequences, too. Indeed, special interests with money to invest in winning a land-use change play on the other side of the board from NIMBY groups that have more passion than bucks.
From a fractured real-estate market to clogged highways to polluted waterways, unrestrained growth can create big problems, but balanced growth that looks out for jobs and housing markets as well as natural systems and ensures clean, livable and sustainable communities won't come about by undermining planning and representative government both.
Yes, there are places where growth has been poorly managed and government officials lack a balanced view, but Amendment 4 is not a solution worth enshrining in our state constitution.
