If you had to vote today on whether to allow Blue Head Ranch or Lake Placid Groves to build their projects, what would you decide?
Do you know where these projects will be located, how many housing units are proposed, or whether they'll be needed in the next 25 years?
Better start boning up, because both may be on the ballot if Amendment 4 passes.
A May 3-5 Mason-Dixon poll showed that if the election was held today, 61 percent of Florida voters would approve Amendment 4.
Although 60 percent is required to pass a constitutional amendment, Mason-Dixon said 21 percent are still undecided, so Sebring's chief planner thinks the margin will be wide.
"If even a quarter of those undecideds vote yes, it'll pass," Jim Polatty pointed out.
History
Amendment 4 is also known as the Hometown Democracy initiative. It would require comprehensive plan amendments - big projects that require a change to a city or county's state-approved development plan - to be approved by voters.
Developers hate the idea. "It gets a little dicey," Polatty said.
Highlands County Audubon Society President Dale Gillis is supportive: "I signed the petition," Gillis said. "In fact, I've signed it twice. They threw it out, and I re-signed it."
The issue was originally slated for a 2008 vote, but it was tossed off the ballot. This year, more than 1 million Florida voters signed, and the Florida Supreme Court approved.
Hometown Democracy says
"Amendment 4 will give voters oversight control over how their communities grow," says a statement on www.floridahometowndemocracy.com. "Under Amendment 4, your city or county commission will study and vote as usual on proposed changes to the local comprehensive land use plan, which is a blueprint for future development. Plan changes approved by the commission will then be submitted to you - the voter - on the ballot at the next regularly scheduled Election Day. You will either veto or approve them. It's that simple. Amendment 4 doesn't require special elections."
Polatty, who has been a planner for 30 years, doesn't think it's so simple. "We live in a representative democracy, where we elect representatives to do this."
Those representatives sit on planning boards, city councils and county commissions, and they study state laws, local ordinances, and several-hundred-page proposals.
"Let's say there's a bunch of them on the ballot," Polatty suggested. Big developers like Blue Head (AtlanticBlue proposes 12,000 housing units) and Lake Placid Groves (Lykes Brothers proposes 4,000 units) can afford public relations campaigns. A mom-and-pop development can't.
Also, Polatty doesn't think voters will spend the time to understand the development.
"That's the fear, and I doubt it," he said. "They won't be voting from an education base, they'll be voting from a gut reaction."
That argument doesn't fly with Gillis, who thinks commissioners and councilors don't seem to be spending the time to understand the development either.
"We believe the county commission has been too heavily influenced by developers and developer interests," Gillis said.
He watched the Blue Head and Lake Placid Groves debates in the Highlands County Commission. "They give a lot of weight to what the developers have to say. They seem to automatically vote for it, without any weight to whether it's needed or wanted or where to put it."
Susie Bishop, who advocates for Blue Head, takes issue: "A large portion of the ranch would be protected forever, and if a smaller portion ever developed it would be a well-planned, compact, self-sustaining community rather than sprawl."
Over the past few years, debates have been waged over whether Hometown Democracy - and those words won't appear on the Amendment 4 ballot - will cause special elections.
"Whether this will increase the number of referendums has been greatly exaggerated," Gillis said. What the opponents don't say is that voters will only decide comprehensive plan amendments - major issues, not every zoning change. His conclusion is that most questions will be decided at regular elections, like November general elections or spring city council elections.
Polatty thinks major developers may get to choose special elections, if they pay for them.
Both Gillis and Polatty think there's a very good chance that Amendment 4 will pass in November.
"And I think we'll be better off with it," Gillis said. "Voters have to have better control."
Not so fast
"I don't think it's a very good idea," said AtlanticBlue's Bishop. "As a citizen of the county, I think this amendment is going to be a huge financial burden on the taxpayers in an already very strained state budget, and that property owners already have many regulations and costly hoops to jump through before they can have an amendment made to their property.
"I also think the name of the proposed amendment (Hometown Democracy) is misleading and that voters need to read the amendment in detail prior to voting," she said.
Bishop wants to be clear: It has been misstated that Blue Head is trying get its comp plan amendments passed so it can beat the Hometown Democracy deadline.
Untrue, she said. If Blue Head is built, it will be years down the road, and Hometown Democracy voters would definitely have their say.
Amendment 4
BALLOT SUMMARY: Establishes that before a local government may adopt a new comprehensive land use plan, or amend a comprehensive land use plan, the proposed plan or amendment shall be subject to vote of the electors of the local government by referendum, following preparation by the local planning agency, consideration by the governing body and notice. Provides definitions.
Read the full text: www.floridahometowndemocracy.com/images/ConstitutionalA4language.pdf
