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Bradenton Herald Editorial, November 14, 2007

Managing Growth

In the not-too-distant past when explosive growth dominated Florida's real estate scene, daily headlines here in Manatee County heralded the approval of a 2,000-home development here, another over there and a third just down the street.

Citizens raised concerns about unbridled growth and infrastructure issues. And still do.

Then there are the mundane land-use issues for bureaucrats and elected officials to decide: The mom-and-pop convenience store/gas station wants to add a car wash. A landowner asks to put up an apartment building on a lot zoned for single-family residential.

All of those decisions - big and small - require the adoption of an amendment to a local comprehensive plan.

How would you like to vote up or down on every comp-plan change? How would you like to enter a polling place on Election Day and confront a ballot with 242 comp-plan amendments?

That's the precise number of amendments that Manatee County adopted last year. Each city in the county had its own, too.

If the supporters of Hometown Democracy - the clever but misleading name of an initiative to change the state constitution - win the fight to put all comp-plan decisions up for a vote each fall, that's the kind of ballot voters will face.

Daunting, to say the least.

Last week at the University of South Florida's Sarasota-Manatee campus, the school's Institute for Public Policy and Leadership hosted a panel of experts to discuss the issue. While the merits of Hometown Democracy sparked impassioned debate, everyone agreed that the current system of growth management needs more public input.

But a vote on every single issue? We question whether that will rein in growth around the state, as Hometown Democracy advocates purport, or simply stop it altogether. And maybe that's the goal.

Mostly, we wonder if voters will bother to wade through massive ballots. We fear they would not.

Hometown Democracy is a long way from reality. Advocates still need to round up enough signatures to qualify the measure for the fall 2008 ballot. Then the initiative needs 60 percent approval to amend the state constitution.

For the uninitiated, state law requires that cities and counties adopt comprehensive plans. On its Web site, the city of Bradenton offers a solid definition of a comp plan - as "designed to be a useful growth management and decision-making tool in areas such as future land use, public facility expansion and improvement, transportation, natural resources, solid waste, water and wastewater management, and parks and recreation development. Besides being a source of updated information on the local area, the Plan provides a framework for the future growth and development of the City of Bradenton."

Pretty straightforward and, well, comprehensive.

Hometown Democracy would have us bypass our representative form of government. We elect county commissioners and city council members to do a job for us, to pore over each and every comp-plan request, weigh the merits and make a decision. Those decisions also come with input from citizens because the meetings are open to the public.

Ross Burnaman, co-founder of the Hometown Democracy movement, said at last week's debate that local planners and elected officials should be able to convince a majority of voters that each comp-plan change is in their best interests.

We agree. On big issues. We don't want to vote on comp-plan changes that only involve the tweaking of a word or two, or try to figure out some highly technical matter best left to land-use experts.

The Hometown Democracy amendment, as written, does not make any distinction between big and small issues. All would be on the ballot. That's unworkable.

There was a moderate voice for change in growth management at the debate, coming from Steve Pfeiffer, general counsel for New College. He said greater public participation in the planning process would help address growth problems.

We agree. Citizens need to assert their right to participate in the process and voice an opinion.

Hometown Democracy, Pfeiffer commented, will bring "high-priced media campaigns that will favor deep-pocketed developers. It will be more difficult to locate affordable housing. . . . I fear the result."

We echo that fear.

Hometown Democracy is just too extreme.

Talk back

Would you vote for Hometown Democracy, should it get on the fall 2008 ballot? Share your views at bradenton.com/opinion.