growth management

Remember the first time you got handed the car keys and had a little cash in your pocket? Felt pretty grown up, didn't you? How about when you first turned 18 and all of a sudden you're able to make your own decisions, except whether or not to buy a beer? At 21, though, even the choice of beverages becomes your own, so that must be what grown up is, right?

That's been one of the flaws in local growth planning, one of the biggest reasons we're stuck in the state's longest commute on decaying roads. It's always a plan to get us the next few years. It's time to start planning from a different perspective, not like parents absolved of legal responsibility for what happens after an 18th birthday party.

I have an endorsement to make.

It doesn't have anything to do with who'll be moving into the White House come January. Doesn't even have anything to do with who's running for what in the large number of Clay County offices up for grabs this year, or even the potential Clay County Charter or State Constitution amendments.

I want to endorse a game. A computer game, its name is SimCity, but it might as well be called Virtual Growth Management. The game is to build a city from scratch. I've played it enough to realize that there are some game growth management factors that translate remarkably well into real-life.

The agenda for Tuesday night's meeting of the Orange Park Town Council has one interesting, and potentially far-reaching issue, cloaked in the innocuous title of:

Public Hearing and Second Reading of an Ordinance creating a new permissable use by exception for "facilities for assistance to the needy" in the "Residential, General" zoning district.

On the surface, the request for a land use change sounds nice, even commendable. Waste Not, Want Not, an organization that collects food from grocery stores and then redistributes it to other groups, has asked for an exception to the town's zoning law to allow it to set up in an area designated for general residential use. Who doesn't support getting leftover groceries into the hands of hungry people throughout Northeast Florida? To say no to such a request by a "facility for assistance to the needy" must sound uncaring.

The proposed Hometown Democracy Amendment that Florida voters may see on next November's  election has been written about quite often here at MCS.  But some readers may not have had the opportunity to view the actual text.  Here it is, copied and pasted from another blog, in case you missed it there. 

FULL TEXT OF PROPOSED AMENDMENT: BE IT ENACTED BY THE PEOPLE OF FLORIDA THAT:  

Article II, Section 7. Natural resources and scenic beauty of the Florida Constitution is amended to add the following subsection: Public participation in local government comprehensive land use planning benefits the conservation and protection of Florida’s natural resources and scenic beauty, and the long-term quality of life of Floridians. Therefore, before a local government may adopt a new comprehensive land use plan, or amend a comprehensive land use plan, such proposed plan or plan 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 as provided by general law, and notice thereof in a local newspaper of general circulation. Notice and referendum will be as provided by general law. This amendment shall become effective immediately upon approval by the electors of Florida. For purposes of this subsection:  1. “Local government” means a county or municipality. 2. “Local government comprehensive land use plan” means a plan to guide and control future land development in an area under the jurisdiction of a local government. 3. “Local planning agency” means the agency of a local government that is responsible for the preparation of a comprehensive land use plan and plan amendments after public notice and hearings and for making recommendations to the governing body of the local government regarding the adoption or amendment of a comprehensive land use plan. 4. “Governing body” means the board of county commissioners of a county, the commission or council of a municipality, or the chief elected governing body of a county or municipality, however designated. Serial Number 05-18      Date Approved June 21, 2005

It seems that quite a few people want to simplify the problem of local government's poor growth management by demonizing developers and others making a buck by building new homes, which results in more strangling traffic jams, the need for more teachers, cops and firefighters, and a public education district in need of a billion dollars worth of new schools.

Not only is simplistic to blame those folks, it's wrong.  Those who despise developers fail to recognize their own fault in the tragedies of Clay County's growth management record.  They resort, instead, to demonizing the very people who have proven themselves to be better Americans.