Santa Rosa County Supervisor of Elections Ann Bodenstein is warning both voters and the Board of County Commissioners that there will be a lot of problems for the county if Amendment 4 is approved by voters in November.
“Many people do not understand what it is really all about,” she told commissioners recently. “Many people do not realize there have been 100 future land use changes to the county’s land use comprehensive plan over the past two-year cycle. “Even though the proposed amendment to the state constitution would require voters to approve all those changes at the ballot box, it is obvious we cannot have a special election for 100 changes in two years.” Bodenstein pointed out that there are 41 precincts in Santa Rosa County. “If we have 100 changes requested over a two-year cycle, how would we do the maps for voters to understand what changes they are voting on?” she said. “I know we have to look at all this now, in case voters approve this, like the approved class-size amendment. But I honestly do not know how we would implement it if it was approved.” Outgoing Santa Rosa County Attorney Tom Dannheisser explained that the law would cover all land use changes, no matter how small. “Moat land use amendments are requested for very small pieces of land,” he said. “Landowners or purchasers of land make requests usually on parcels like five acres, or nine acres, sometimes even smaller. Someone trying to purchase a property for use as a small business, for example, could not wait for an election to approve a small land use change that could be approved by a zoning board.” Commissioner Lane Lynchard from Gulf Breeze said this would clog up the courts and make the process of any land use change a lengthy process. “Right now the little half-acre feed store in Jay, for example, has to wait three months for approval for a simple land use request. If this is approved, they could be waiting two or three years.” Dannheisser said it would probably be longer than that. “With the appeals process this could make that little feed store have to wait a lot longer than two or three years,” he said. “The legislature is going to have an impossible task writing the rule of the road for this if it passes. And there are no exceptions written into the amendment for errors. So if you want to move your line 20 feet because of an error in the survey, you will have to wait for voters in the county to approve that change. It is all the same process.” Bodenstein said she does not know right now how her office would get copies of the maps with proposed changes to all the voters in time for them to study and know what they are voting about. “We have 117,000 active voters in the county now and 4,000 more listed as inactive but have the same rights as the active voter,” she said. “A mail-out ballot would probably be the cheapest, and the cost for that if it was done today would be between $100,000 and $150,000. If we had to go to multiple ballots – like if we had 100 changes to be voted on – then the cost would go to $200,000 up to $250,000 for mail-out ballots.” She said early voting costs $5,600 right now for an election. “If we were to hold a special election for any of these changes, that would be the cost for a simple early election. With a lot of changes on the land use plan, the cost might go up with maps and people to explain the ballots. Right now we hire about 600 people to work the elections.” Commissioner Don Salter said he is concerned about the industry that is looking at Santa Rosa County for future development. “If I was an economic developer in Alabama or Georgia, I would hope that this proposed Florida amendment passes in November. This would eliminate all the competition of Northwest Florida for industry,” he said. “The large aviation or industrial companies that might want more property on a site than the county owns and needs to ask for some agricultural property to be rezoned industrial will not wait for two years or more. They will go elsewhere.” Dannheisser said the largest development to happen in Santa Rosa County over the past few years needed no land use changes. “If people think this will stop all large developments before they are approved by neighbors, that is not necessarily so,” Dannheisser said. “The largest development we had in the last couple years was in Pace, with the golf course and residential neighborhood around the course. That needed no local land use amendment at all. Everything there was already zoned for what they needed. “So large developments like that one usually would not even be affected. It would mostly affect the smaller businesses and landowners.” Commissioner Gordon Goodin of Navarre asked what would happen if Santa Rosa County refused to go by the amendment. “What if this passes and Santa Rosa says we are not playing by those rules and we refuse to change our own process here? Do we lose some state funding, or what?” Dannheisser said once it was a state constitutional amendment then there would be legal implications that would make it a felony not to follow state law, and it would be much more complicated than just not receiving funding.
