Citizens for Lower Taxes and a Stronger Economy, Inc.

To the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Amendment 4 is a job killer that would cripple the state's building industry and make the current recession permanent.

To Florida Hometown Democracy, the political action committee behind Amendment 4, it was the building industry that contributed to the state's recession with years of overbuilding that resulted in hundreds of thousands of vacant homes and plummeting property values.

The stark difference in opinion between the two sides was evident Monday night during a League of Women Voters debate on Amendment 4 at the Hippodrome State Theatre. The four-person panel of speakers included local environmentalist Rob Brinkman; Earl Starnes, a professor emeritus of Urban & Regional Planning at the University of Florida; Adam Babington, the legislative counsel for the Florida Chamber of Commerce; and Ross Burnaman, a Tallahassee attorney and the co-founder of Florida Hometown Democracy.

If Amendment 4 gets 60 percent of the vote in November, future changes to local government comprehensive plans, including those for development projects, would have to clear an additional hurdle after approval by elected officials - a voter referendum. Burnaman described Amendment 4 as an attempt to "get a handle on the overdevelopment and the lack of public participation in our planning process."

"The (comprehensive) plans are not guiding the growth, the growth is guiding the plans," Burnaman said.

Babington argued that Amendment 4 would politicize planning issues, with all development proposals having to include a political campaign. In its review of the ballot language for the amendment, the Florida Supreme Court stated that the full financial impacts for local governments could not be accurately predicted, but, if Amendment 4 passes, it would lead to increased elections costs.

Babington said Amendment 4 would kill growth, leading to higher taxes, job losses and lawsuits against local governments over development proposals. He pointed to Pinellas County's St. Pete Beach as an example of those problems. Since 2006, when voters were given the power to approve or vote down development plans in a referendum, the city has spent $734,000 in legal fees for lawsuits over comprehensive plan changes, according to politifact.com.

Burnaman, however, took umbrage with the comparison, saying lawsuits in St. Pete Beach happened because developers put comprehensive plan amendments allowing high rise development to the voters as a first step instead of first going through the process of city approvals.

Starnes, who helped write the state's Growth Management Act, also supported Amendment 4. He argued that there's a "lack of political will" to manage growth and that has led to a situation where "sprawl and development have been permitted across the state." Already, he said, enough development plans have been approved that, if they were all built out, the state's population would be in the range of 80 million to 100 million.

When Babington argued that Amendment 4 would kill the building industry, Starnes questioned, "Why do we continue to worship at the altar of growth in Florida?"

Brinkman said he understands the frustration that drove the Florida Hometown Democracy movement and agrees that much of the state has done a poor job of planning for and managing growth. That, he said, is why he opposes Amendment 4.
His concern was that, if it's approved, the Florida Legislature would respond by gutting state control over growth management. In that regard, he compared passing Amendment 4 to "waving a red flag in front of a bull."