Land grabs fuel Hometown Amendment drive

Lauren Ritchie

COMMENTARY

October 11, 2009

The city of Wildwood, west of Leesburg at the junction of Interstate 75 and Florida's Turnpike, has annexed empty land that has approval for up to 87,000 new homes.

To the northeast of Lake, Flagler and St. Johns counties are entertaining four projects that would bring more than 20,000 homes and 7million square feet of commercial and industrial space.

Look east to the Volusia County city of Edgewater, which plans to leapfrog Interstate 95 for a development called "Restoration" that would dump 8,500 homes into a hypersensitive environmental area.

Commissioners in coastal Martin County are asking the state to approve 18 huge amendments to the growth plan. And developers in neighboring Palm Beach County want to build 1,590 homes on six tracts ranging from old polo fields to a drive-through zoo.

Big grab. Little grab. Grab, grab, grab.

Across Florida, developers are frantic to win land-use changes that would set the state's growth industry back in motion despite plummeting land values, historic levels of foreclosures and a saturated real-estate market choking on a glut of houses for sale.

And some governments are helping by positioning themselves to pull the trigger on the starting pistol the moment there's an uptick in the economy. Even the Legislature jumped in earlier this year to skin the growth laws alive in a desperate effort to kick-start building.

The state Department of Community Affairs in April took a snapshot of developments either approved or pending since 2007, when the economy melted. The result? Some 630,965 new homes have been approved or requested for 410,126 acres.

Lavish excesses

What the heck?

The answer is simple: Welcome to the Hometown Democracy Stampede.

What's going on is that developers and pro-sprawl governments are terrified that Floridians are sick of sprawl, tired of their formerly carefree lifestyle deteriorating into overcrowded schools, jammed roads and fed up with gypsy neighbors who live in ticky-tacky subdivisions for a year and move on to some other Sun Belt locale.

Developers are rushing to get approvals and governments to gobble up vacant land before November.

That's when Florida residents will get to vote on the Hometown Democracy constitutional-amendment proposal, which takes the power to approve massive land-use changes from elected officials who never cared what residents wanted anyway and hands it to registered voters.

Every time some big developer wants to dump thousands of homes into yet another rural area, he'll have to buy off not just five commissioners in any given county but the entire population. Ha, ha, ha!

The beautiful irony is that if developers had been reasonable rather than greedy, this never would have come before voters. Their lavish excesses carried the measure this far, despite a wide array of dirty tricks to sidetrack it.

'Stars have lined up'

But what about Lake? Is there a development tizzy here?

By several twists of fate, the answer is no. And there won't be, either. Hallelujah.

In a county controlled for years by building interests, arrogant pro-development commissioners didn't bother to follow state rules about the growth plan, and it eventually bit them. In 2006, the state imposed a moratorium on land changes with just a few exceptions, such as for schools. That halted big development.

There are two pieces of the growth plan, and they're both done now. One went to the state for approval — and won it — and the other still is making its way to county commissioners. From there, it will go to the state.

Developers and other growth-watchers presumed the state would lift the moratorium when that first piece was accepted. Last week, Lake learned that state officials have no such intention. They want the big kahuna. Count Lake County out for the Stampede with a capital "S."

Advocates of regulated growth are thrilled.

"The stars have lined up on this one," said Rob Kelly, vice chairman of the Land Planning Agency, a county advisory board that wrote the new growth plan.

Kelly said Lake is fortunate not to have to deal with the rush other counties are experiencing. Some of the projects coming in across the state wouldn't be built for 50 years, he said.

Lake gets a break

Developers can whine if they want, but the truth is that they can start turning ground today in Lake if they really want.

County growth officials couldn't say how many developments have approval but aren't built right now. That's a shame because they should know. However, a School Board tracking estimated about 100,000 parcels have development approvals, which could more than double the population of Lake if houses went up on them all.

For once, Lake's timing is right on. We get a break.

And residents here can keep growth at a reasonable level by approving the Hometown Democracy proposal — Amendment4 on the ballot — in the Nov.3 election.

Lauren Ritchie can be reached at Lritchie@orlandosentinel.com

You may leave her a message at 352-742-5918.

Her blog is at OrlandoSentinel.com/ laurenonlake.

Copyright © 2009, Orlando Sentinel

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