Fernandina Beach News Leader

2/8/2010

Viewpoint -- Amendment 4: boon or bane?

By Vickie Samus/Former Nassau County Commissioner

The Hometown Democracy amendment, Amendment 4 on November's ballot, has drawn a great deal of controversy as entrenched business leaders and reform-minded citizens argue the pros and cons. The one issue that concerns me the most is the burden that the amendment will place on the voter. Some say there will be costly special elections and the voters will have to consider dozens of referenda with many pages of technical detail to understand.

To understand the amendment's consequences I have read the amendment carefully and drew on my four years as Nassau County Commissioner representing District 3 (Yulee).

The amendment will require voter approval of land-use changes to a county's or city's comprehensive plan. Comprehensive plans are meant to be a long-range vision of what the public wants its community to be in the future. For example, a comp plan designates how many people should live in an area, called density. Residential 1 means single-family homes. Residential 3 means high-rise condos or apartments. Most of Amelia Island is residential 1. If a developer wants to build a high-rise on Fletcher Avenue, for instance, he must get a change to the comp plan from residential 1 to 3. Plans to increase the density of the Fernandina Historic District would require a comp plan change.

In looking over land-use changes to the Nassau County and Fernandina Beach comp plans there haven't been too many, mostly dealing with an increase in density, such as changing agricultural land to residential, or, in the case of Crane Island, from conservation to residential. One city commissioner has a long list of recent decisions on his website that he claims would require referenda under Amendment 4. But a close look at this list shows very few to be changes in the comp plan; many are variances to building code, such as permitting a structure to occupy a greater portion of a lot than the code permits.

The bottom line appears to be that the number of land-use comp plan changes that would require a public vote will not be many.

And few are technical in nature. An increase in density - condos replacing single-family homes, building a big box store in a residential community, redesignating agriculture land to permit 749 homes, converting conservation land for large-scale development - are not technical issues that will be difficult for the public to understand.

As to the frequency of referenda, the process by which comp plans are changed is clearly stated by Florida's Growth Management Act. A city or county commission must hold two hearings; if approved, the change is sent to the state's Department of Community Affairs (DCA), which issues a report listing any objections. The commission must address any objections before the change can take effect. Changes can only be submitted to DCA twice a year. The Hometown Democracy amendment does not require that approved changes be put before the voters immediately. The referenda can be held once a year as part of the regular election. Adding a referendum to the annual ballot is not very costly.

When I was a county commissioner we often had hard choices to make when faced with a comp plan change. There was always the threat of a costly lawsuit from the property owner or developer if we denied the change. There is a principle that land should be developed at its "highest and best use" that makes it difficult to deny a comprehensive plan change, even if we are opposed to it. Having the Hometown Democracy amendment in effect will, in the long run, help commissioners solve this "Gordian knot" by making the voting public partners in making these difficult decisions.

So, understanding that Amendment 4 will not put a heavy burden on voters, there will not be more elections than we have now, there will be few issues on which the public must vote, and seeing that Hometown Democracy will actually help commissioners, I have come around to see that the Hometown Democracy amendment is something we need. The few non-technical referenda we will have to consider is a small price to pay for restoring balance to growth management decisions.

Vickie Samus is a former chair of the Nassau County Commission.