The Growth Management Act was established in 1985 by the Florida Legislature. The theory was that a town or city, by statute, now had to give citizens an opportunity to provide feedback when a municipality wanted to make changes to their comprehensive plan; cities could no longer ignore the will of the people. But Floridians have witnessed a vastly different scenario.
Some elected officials have proven time and again that they are fundamentally incapable of listening to the voters that put them in office. Addicted to the "build it and they will come" mentality dutifully peddled by lobbyists in Tallahassee, they fail to see what everyone else can: Housing booms go bust, and an economic engine built on more houses cannot be sustained.
Too often, our citizens are witness to a process where attorneys representing developers attempt to convince a majority of city commissioners that certain land-use changes are in the best interest of the town and its residents.
The News-Journal's editorial says that allowing the course of land-use changes to be decided by the citizens would unwisely remove it from the elected bodies. I submit that where comprehensive land-use changes are concerned, it is this repeated failure of the elected officials to act in the best interest of Florida's citizens that has driven voters to seek a remedy such as Amendment 4.
Originally appeared on News-Journal Online at http://www.news-journalonline.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/2010/07/07/taking-control-of-growth.html
