On managing growth, time for Florida to get back in the game
In April 1984, an Orlando Sentinel editorial warned, “Growth is coming to Florida and if it’s managed no better than it’s being managed now, that growth will destroy the Florida we know.” It was an early entry in editorial writer Jane Healy’s “Florida’s Shame” series on the imperative of growth management — a series for which she would win a Pulitzer Prize in 1988.
Thanks in part to advocates like Healy, along with leaders like Gov. Bob Graham and legendary Florida environmentalist Nathaniel Reed, the state Legislature in 1985 passed landmark legislation to manage growth. The 1985 Growth Management Act established state review of all local government comprehensive plans — their blueprints for growth — to ensure they met statewide standards. A year later, Reed co-founded 1000 Friends of Florida to serve as a watchdog for growth management.
But in a shortsighted move in 2011, Gov. Rick Scott and legislators enacted a law that abolished the Department of Community Affairs, the state’s growth management agency. The 2011 Community Planning Act significantly curtailed state and regional authority over planning and land development.
In the five years before it was shuttered, DCA exercised its oversight by challenging more than half the proposed amendments it reviewed to local comprehensive plans. After DCA’s responsibility was transferred to a division in another state agency, the Department of Economic Opportunity, DEO objected or commented on fewer than 7 percent of proposed comp plan amendments.
Citizens, businesses and local governments can still challenge planning decisions by other local governments under the 2011 act. But the standard used by courts to consider appeals makes it almost impossible for challengers to succeed.
So, fast forward to 2019, and Healy’s warning about the destructive dangers of unmanaged growth to Florida’s future could be even truer today than in 1984.
In 2016, a report from 1000 Friends of Florida, the University of Florida’s GeoPlan Center and the Florida Department of Agriculture forecast that our state population would skyrocket from about 19 million in 2010 to almost 34 million by 2070. The report warned that millions of acres of natural and agricultural lands would be lost forever without a greater push to direct new development to urban areas.
In an August report titled “Trouble in Paradise,” 1000 Friends of Florida and eight allied conservation organizations urged Florida’s leaders to re-establish a department-level planning agency and strengthen the power of the department and citizens to enforce growth management laws. We called for this agency to focus on incentives and investment strategies to promote more compact urban development with a mixture of homes, shops, schools and offices within close proximity; a range of housing choices to ensure affordability; and multiple transportation options including walking, biking and public transit. Besides curtailing sprawl, developments with these amenities would save taxpayer dollars by reducing the need for additional, costly public services — an appealing benefit for Floridians of all political stripes.
“Trouble in Paradise” also called for leaders to create an economic plan to guide the investment of tax dollars for infrastructure and conservation. Such a plan would identify lands on which urban development and redevelopment are appropriate and cost-effective for Florida over the next 50 years, versus lands that need to be protected from urban development. Spending would focus on implementing the plan: Infrastructure investments would be targeted to urban areas to support economic growth, while conservation investments would be made to protect land permanently for agricultural use, water quality protection and wildlife diversity — all critical to our economy, our environment and our quality of life.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has impressed Floridians across the political spectrum by unveiling an aggressive plan to fight the state’s water quality crisis. Up to now, however, he has not declared growth management to be among his priorities. Yet there’s a clear connection between failing to manage growth and the toxic algae blooms that have fouled Florida waterways and devastated local communities. Poorly managed, sprawling development adds to the nutrient-laden runoff from roads, lawns and septic tanks that pollutes our waterways and feeds algae blooms. It consumes open land where water would otherwise be naturally cleansed of pollutants and could recharge underground supplies.
Beyond its corrosive impact on Florida’s water quality, sprawl degrades our quality of life. It eliminates green space for wildlife and outdoor recreation. It worsens traffic congestion. It strains other public services and adds to taxpayer costs for them. It reduces property values. Each of these problems is serious enough to demand attention and action from Florida’s leaders, starting with the governor.
To protect and preserve “the Florida we know” — and treasure — the time is ripe for state leaders to renew their commitment to growth management.
Paul Owens is president of 1000 Friends of Florida, a nonprofit advocate of growth management. Before that, he was the Orlando Sentinel’s opinion editor.