Getting Smart About Growth Management in Southwest Florida

You Think We’ve Got Problems?

Southeast Florida: They have 5 million people in 80 cities. They’re expecting another 1.8 million people in the next 30 years. Miami/Dade is among the five most traffic congested cites in the U.S. Thirty-five percent of their elementary school kids are in portable classrooms. According to the ULI’s SE Region Director, Anthony Treller, “We let it happen. It is what it is. Now we have to do something about it.” He also noted, “We seem to have to bring things to a crisis before we do anything.”

Orlando: “Eventually, we’re going to solve our growth problem, by squeezing everyone into Georgia, joked ULI’s district director, Jim Seller. Highlighting a huge local problem, he stated that 85 percent of the exploding school-age population growth in Orange county comes from children born to existing residents — not from in-migrating citizens. In other words, it’s not the new housing for snowbirds and retirees that has created the problem. At the same time, school construction has not kept up with the number of kids needing to be schooled. In a well-intended move, local officials created a building moratorium until school construction caught up demand. The unintended consequence: builders went to neighboring areas and created more urban sprawl.

Tampa Bay: Forty-two thousand people are moving to the area annually. It has become the #2 consumer market in Florida with 3.3 million residents. It has become a job-creation engine with 50,000 new jobs annually. But, with all the good news, they have big problems. ULI district director, Stuart Rogel enumerated the biggest: 1. A water shortage looms without effective regional action. 2. Incredible traffic congestion, particularly in th I-4 corridor. 3. They are running out of land for commercial development. 4. They are not turning out a workforce adequate to meet demand. 5. Quality of life has deteriorated, but no coordinated approach in the 7-county area exists to address the problem.

Although most of our companies benefit from the astonishing growth of Southwest Florida, we may be rightly concerned that the dizzying pace has run amuck. The quality of life that has drawn so many folks to our sunny shores is certainly suffering. Absent remedial and prescriptive efforts, we may kill the good-hearted goose that has been laying golden eggs for the past 25 years.

In this context, it’s natural to look for villains. Some may blame the development community, some the environmentalists, and others the bureaucrats. Cynics may blame all concerned. The inescapable fact is that millions more people will be living in the U.S. and in Florida over the next several decades. Accommodating them without destroying our quality of life demands fresh approaches and high levels of cooperation among all concerned.

Enlightened self-interest appears to be driving the majority of the business community to embrace the concept of smart growth, which dictates a responsible approach to building and development. At the same time, there is a determined effort by Governor Bush to reform the growth management process so that we can address the problems of growth with appropriate levels of government involvement — from the state to the regional, county, and community level. His Growth Management Task Force recently released its report with a plethora of reform recommendations. The state legislature is debating how to turn them into law.

The efforts of the smart growth folks and of the growth management reformers are inextricably intertwined. This is a story that will play out over many years. In this article we’ll attempt an overview of the major components at play. These are issues to which we’ll return on a regular basis.

Smart Growth:

A Balanced Approach

“Smart growth is pro-growth. We know that developers, banks, and the entire community rely on growth to fuel the economy. The goal is not to limit growth, but to channel it to areas where infrastructure allows growth to be sustained over the long term.”

Hugh L. McColl, Jr., chairman and CEO, Bank of America

Legendary banker McColl is here assuaging the concerns of skeptical business interests who assume the worst from a concept like smart growth. The case for smart growth goes like this:

While many individuals and communities recognize the value and benefits of growth, often they are troubled by its unintentional consequences. Recognizing that conventional planning and development approaches are not effectively addressing growing traffic congestion and greater losses of open space, communities across the United States, often with support from their state governments, are turning to smart growth.

Urban Land Institute,

Smart Growth: Myth and Fact, 2001

But there is a different perspective from a typical citizen such as Kathleen McLaughlin of Naples, who spoke at a Growth Management Task Force session in December 2000. She expressed serious concern about area growth and its negative impact on the quality of life. She stated that growth in Naples was in a crisis with very little open, green areas left. She felt that county commissioners continued to approve development with little consideration of the impact on the natural environment. She wanted state incentives to maintain open space and to stop urban sprawl. Although she might have pinpointed the wrong villains, her concerns were no less valid. And her concerns are shared by thousands of thoughtful residents of Southwest Florida.

The Ultimate Paradox:

Achieving No Sprawl with Low Density

“Americans hate two things: sprawl and density,” said David O’Neil of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) at a March 19, 2001 ULI meeting. The impossibility of eliminating both while accommodating the 60 million new Americans expected by 2020 was at the heart of the Florida ULI Conference.

O’Neil noted that the term ‘smart growth’ has become a “term of art” used so often and so inappropriately that it has begun to lose meaning. He acknowledged the understandable concerns of the anti-growth forces that see ‘smart growth’ as ‘sprawl.’ After all, in high growth areas of the U.S., there exists too often traffic gridlock, infrastructure problems, a loss of green space, a mismatch between jobs and housing, and poor regional cooperation.

Regardless of whether the term ‘smart growth’ has been abused, managing the kind of growth faced in Southwest Florida — and throughout the state — is an unavoidable necessity. As O’Neil put it, “Smart Growth issues aren’t going away.” Smart growth, as outlined by the ULI does take a balanced, comprehensive approach to the challenges we are facing. These are the key elements, according to the ULI:

• Development is economically viable and preserves open space and natural resources.

• Land use planning is comprehensive, integrated, and regional.

• Public, private, and nonprofit sectors collaborate on growth and development issues to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.

• Certainty and predictability are inherent to the development process.

• Infrastructure is maintained and enhanced to serve existing and new residents.

• Redevelopment of infill housing, brownfield sites, and obsolete buildings is actively pursued.

• Urban centers and neighborhoods are integral components of a healthy regional economy.

• Compact suburban development is integrated into existing commercial areas, new town centers, and/or near existing or planned transportation facilities.

• Development on the urban fringe integrates a mix of land uses, preserves open space, is fiscally responsible, and provides transportation options.

Achieving this smart growth nirvana will require an unprecedented level of cooperation and discipline from all concerned parties. In the absence of workable smart growth strategies, hyper growth in Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and Tampa has meant lots of people, lots of cars, lots of sprawl, and lots of problems. Their ULI delegates at the March 19 conference made it clear that they face extraordinarily difficult challenges. (See Sidebar, You Think We’ve Got Problems?) Southwest Florida has the opportunity to deal with our own challenges before they become uncontrollable.

Meanwhile, Back in Tallahassee

“The current model is completely broken,” said Mark Morton of the Barron Collier Companies and a member of the growth management study commission. In his presentation to the March 19 ULI conference, he referred to the 16-year-old Florida growth management process. It has not worked well and will not keep pace with Florida’s anticipated increase of 16 to 23 million residents in the next 30 years, according to Morton.

The commission concluded that existing laws were too complex and too unwieldy to accommodate the rapid growth that Florida has experienced since 1985. The focus of its recommendations was to ensure a strong, diversified economy, world-class education, and an effective transportation system.

After a year of study, it was obvious, according to Morton, “You can’t conclude that regulations affecting the end result will solve the population growth problem.” He added that “we demonize the issue of developers and development when the real issue is growth.”

A core recommendation was to limit state regulation in local issues to cases where there is a compelling state interest — for example in the case of drought or natural disaster. In addition, the committee recommended that future regulations assess the cost and the benefit of development with full-cost accounting. Full-cost accounting would better reflect the positive side of growth.

A possible unintended consequence of the proposed legislation is the education prescription that would give local school boards the authority to determine the right number of schools for a growing population. Morton suggested that school policy might be hijacked by environmental or other no-growth advocates. The result is that building of schools might be blocked and development stopped in its tracks.