President of 1000 Friends of Florida speaks to Florida's Woes

Letters to the Editor for Monday, Oct. 25
The Palm Beach Post

According to news reports, Rick Scott would support eliminating the state's land planning agency, the Florida Department of Community Affairs (DCA). He claims, "It's really impacted people that want to build things; it's really killing jobs." House Speaker-designate Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, concurs, noting that DCA's functions could be distributed to other agencies.

Everyone should be sensitive to the need to create and maintain jobs. But blaming DCA for this state's economic woes is tragically misguided.

Since January 2007, DCA has approved comprehensive plan amendments that allow for 558,400 additional residential units and 1.43 billion square feet of nonresidential space, all of which remains unbuilt. On top of this, Florida is among the top three states in number of foreclosures, and has an existing vacant housing inventory of between 300,000 and 400,000 units.

What is really killing jobs in Florida is the fact that with so many vacant dwellings on the market, lenders are understandably unwilling to finance new construction. Once the economy rebounds and the inventory of overbuilt housing is sold, then there is plenty of opportunity for builders to construct the dwelling units and offices already approved by local governments and DCA.

While some candidates are channeling the rage felt by builders and developers, they fail to recognize the level of anger of average citizens who are fed up with the overcrowded roads and schools, sprawling development and degraded natural areas. Widespread public support for Amendment 4, which would require voter approval of each local comprehensive plan amendment, is but one manifestation.

Florida's growth-management laws help to protect sensitive natural areas from inappropriate development and rural areas from sprawling over-development, provide for greater coordination between local governments, balance local issues with state legislative priorities, require that infrastructure be in place to support new development and require citizen participation in the development review process. If Florida loses DCA or key portions of its growth-management laws, all of this could be in jeopardy.

CHARLES PATTISON

Tallahassee

Editor's note: Charles Pattison is president of 1000 Friends of Florida, which advocates for growth management.