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Miami Herald, July 20, 2008

Reject roadblock to smarter growth management

As Floridians debate the controversial Hometown Democracy amendment, its supporters say that the plan will ease Florida's growing pains. But before swallowing the ''Hometown'' medicine, voters should carefully read the warning label first.

By law, every community in Florida has a comprehensive land-use plan. Hometown Democracy leaders propose that all changes to this plan be decided directly by voters. The idea seems appealing. However it is just another Trojan Horse for the no-growth agenda.

Hometown founders are not interested in reasonable growth or better planning. The dangerous side effects of this amendment will ruin our state's planning process and end smarter growth altogether.

Hometown Democracy is fraught with unintended consequences and unanswered questions about its workability. If passed, this amendment will require every voter to decide literally hundreds of technical land-planning issues at the ballot box. Communities planning new roads, better schools or workforce-housing projects will find that ''Hometown Democracy'' makes planning virtually impossible.

These important community endeavors often require changes to the local comprehensive plan. Lost amid hundreds of other technical land-planning issues, many of these vital improvements will never make it through the impossible Hometown Democracy approval process. The result: Many local planners and elected officials will give up trying to manage growth altogether and punt all tough decisions to voters.

Recently, the Volusia County Council adopted a long-term plan for preserving environmentally sensitive areas. This plan is the first step in the county's three-year-old smart-growth initiative. It encourages new levels of cooperation among cities, schools, businesses, environmental groups and residents to continually improve growth management. The plan will ensure that Volusia County maintains a strong economy, a well-protected wildlife habitat and a conservation corridor for future generations.

Under Hometown Democracy, none of it would be possible. The long-term plan recently adopted by the County Council required seven changes to the county's comprehensive land-use plan. If even one of those seven changes failed to receive approval, the entire project would collapse.

More important, after several years of Hometown Democracy, few quality-of-life projects will be proposed at all.

The time and expense of planning community improvements will be too burdensome. As responsible growth management and planning become things of the past, political elites and professional campaigners will inherit control of our state's growth-management debate.

At the end of the day, Hometown Democracy has stumbled upon a classic case of right problem, wrong solution. Most Floridians agree that we can do a better job of managing growth. However, most also want smarter growth, a system that is well-managed and better planned. Instead, they are being offered Hometown Democracy, a chaotic and absurd planning nightmare that will make the problem worse. Proponents suggest that we dismantle public planning altogether and replace it with a political campaign on each of the 10,000 comprehensive-plan changes, most of which are quality-oflife improvements originating with local governments. That is not a solution; it's a recipe for gridlock and sprawl.

CLARENCE ANTHONY, former president, Florida League of Cities and the National League of Cities, Orlando