Reject Broward County Charter Amendment 2

While most of the public and media attention regarding the Nov. 3 election has been on the presidential race, there is a down-ballot charter question that could greatly impact our communities.

Broward County

Charter Amendment 2 determines who will make critical decisions about how communities develop, how we protect the quality of life in our neighborhoods, and how we address real-world traffic congestion.

Many of us supported the county when it sought a penny sales tax to improve our transportation system. We thank the county for its work on this effort, and we are eagerly anticipating the county moving forward with the first round of plans.

Unfortunately, Broward County now wants to overreach.

With Charter Amendment 2, they want the power to overrule local municipalities’ decision-making on zoning and land-use regulations. They are asking voters to give the county exclusive authority to approve projects on county property if any of the transportation sales tax is spent on the development.

As the city of Lauderhill has said, “If Amendment 2 passes, Broward County will have authority over zoning, permitting, construction, architectural and landscaping standards over certain transportation projects.” Putting Broward County in charge of local zoning does not sound like my idea of good government. These development decisions are traditionally city decisions. Let’s keep it that way.

Cities are the government closest to the people and are best able to address our residents’ questions and needs. In Fort Lauderdale, the current city commission was elected on a platform of championing smart growth and promising to listen to our neighborhoods so we could preserve their charm and identity. In fact, we are rewriting our land-development code and downtown master plan to make sure this happens.

If Broward County gets its way, though, the county would be in control of significant development in our city.

Not only would my city and all other cities in Broward lose their voice, the county would be able to ignore all the rules that cities have put in place to protect our families, their homes and their quality of life.

The county could build whatever they want and ignore the permitting processes that any homeowner must go through when they want to remodel or make any substantive change to their home or apartment.

Is it appropriate for a county official to dictate how Fort Lauderdale grows? Let’s leave this decision-making where it belongs — at the local level.

Certainly, it is odd for the county to make this move. The county has long joined us in

Fort Lauderdale to challenge state lawmakers in Tallahassee from taking away homerule authority. With Charter Amendment 2, the county wants to do the same to our cities.

We all want to improve transportation in our region, and I am all in to partner to find effective transportation solutions. I am proud to have worked with the county to move forward with the Port Everglades Bypass Road, which will run parallel to 17th Street through the Port, then connect to Eisenhower Boulevard and 17th Street. County leaders and I worked together with neighbors to create a win-win solution to alleviate traffic on 17th Street. In fact, the county even worked to reroute the road based on feedback from impacted neighbors, and for that I am incredibly grateful. Working together bore a fantastic result for the bypass road and we can do the same for future transportation projects as well.

In addition to transportation collaboration, I am very excited of the partnering between the Fort Lauderdale City Commission and the Broward County Commission to work together on homelessness, a possible joint government campus, and our ongoing COVID-19 response. We need to keep working together in this spirit.

I urge voters to reject County Charter Amendment 2 and tell the county to work together with cities to build a better future for our region.

Ben Sorensen is a Fort Lauderdale city commissioner.