Amendment 4

[British Shoe Company]

"Amendment 4 is a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot requiring future land use map or comprehensive plan changes to be approved by voters in a referendum, not by local officials who (amendment advocates say) may be influenced or misled by developers."

[chipwich]

This is absolutely the worst amendment that could ever happen to the state.  It would be extremely costly to local governments and stop just about any and all development while leaving most permitting to uninformed citizens who would have no idea on how to vote on permiting issues they have no experience in.

The idea of the amendment sounds good, but in reality if passed, it would be a great disaster for everyone.   

While we know sprawl is not really a good idea, this amendment is definitely not the way to help stop it.

[tufsu1]

The voters will have control if passed.
Developers cannot buy us off.

sadly the opposite may be true...elction history shows that those with the $ often win...imagine the effect of a well funded developer PR campaign.

[Miss Fixit]

Vote NO on Amendment 4 - Florida counties that have enacted similar legislation are all trying to unwind it now, because it has created a local nightmare:  huge expense to local government and delays in getting beneficial land use changes made.

[JeffreyS]

There is a reason our nation was founded as a representative republic.

[British Shoe Company]

The voters will have control if passed.
Developers cannot buy us off.
Do the voters know what is best?

[strider]

Based on just going to the local zoning meetings and the things that go through city council, this amendment would indeed be a nightmare.  Let's not forget that zoning pretty much only exists to protect land values as it is.  It is tough enough insuring a few "experts" have a clue, so getting the general public educated enough to make those decisions would be impossible. The developer that mounts the best PR campaign will win every time regardless of true merit, effectively “buying off” the public with false promises and misinformation. 

[Miss Fixit]

Based on just going to the local zoning meetings and the things that go through city council, this amendment would indeed be a nightmare.  Let's not forget that zoning pretty much only exists to protect land values as it is.  It is tough enough insuring a few "experts" have a clue, so getting the general public educated enough to make those decisions would be impossible. The developer that mounts the best PR campaign will win every time regardless of true merit, effectively “buying off” the public with false promises and misinformation. 

Exactly right. 

[Dog Walker]

Is it time for some of the posters here to declare a special interest?  Who here is involved in the real estate development/sales or planning industry?  I am not involved in any of these, are you?

Let's look at the history of the evolution of comprehensive plans.  In order to bring some sort of order and control of real estate development, the State of Florida required each country to develop a "comprehensive" plan of land use; this area was going to be set aside for industrial development, that for housing, the other for agriculture.  You weren't going to be allowed anymore to drop 200 hundred houses in the middle of a pine plantation and then demand that roads, etc. were to be built to it.

There was a systematic way of amending these plans for changes in land use, but it required examination and commenting on the proposed change by staff in several departments;  Water Management Districts, planning departments, State EPA, etc.  This input was to be considered by the elected officials on the county commissions who would then approve or disapprove of the change to the comprehensive plan.

The practical result, over the years, was the complete corruption of the process, the agencies and the elected officials at all levels by development interests so that the comprehensive plan amendment process has become no barrier at all to the same kind of piecemeal sprawl that the whole process was designed to stop in the first place.

So currently, the comprehensive plan process is a complete joke and we have deeply embedded corruption in our agencies and elected bodies.  Does the name Tom Manuel sound familiar?

Amendment 4 may not be a perfect solution, but when a whole process is corrupted isn't it time for the people to take back the power that they gave to elected officials who are now abusing that delegated power?

[tufsu1]

Dog Walker...I agree that the system has been corripted...by special interests on all sides...so why does Amendment 4 only bring to the voters plans or amendments that have been approved by the governing body....why not let us also vote to overturn a denial?

The answer to this question is simple....the primary purpose of Amendment 4 is to get to "NO".

[JeffreyS]

It may be a good way to slow sprawl.  Remember the larger the group making the decision the less that gets done.

[Dog Walker]

You haven't answered my first question, either!  So I will answer it for you.  As a planner and employee of Reynold, Smith and Hills, (RSH now?) you have an interest in things staying as they are.

Of course the purpose of Amendment 4 is to get to NO!  If we don't say no to what has been going on for the past twenty years we are going to continue to get exactly the same sort of development that has gotten us into our "water wars", outer beltway, traffic jammed, foreclosed, over-taxed, under schooled present situation.  We need to make it really hard to keep on with business as usual and Amendment 4 will do that.

Land, water and the rest of our environment are not an infinite resource.  We need to say NO until smart and properly educated people such as yourself are forced to come up with different, less destructive ways of doing business.  The better models are out there and you know them.  We just need to say NO until you start using them.

[tufsu1]

You haven't answered my first question, either!  So I will answer it for you.  As a planner and employee of Reynold, Smith and Hills, (RSH now?) you have an interest in things staying as they are.

I assume you're talking about me...if so, I do not work for RS&H

But feel free to read what the professional planning organization in Florida thinks about Hometown Democracy...btw, APA Florida represents over 3,000 practicing planners in the state...most of which work for local governments and are in the trenches of this debate every day.

http://www.floridaplanning.org/hometown/index.asp

[Dog Walker]

Apologies, I thought you did work for RSH, but you are a planner for development interests are you not?

Of course APA opposes Amendment 4.  An appeal to numbers (40 million Frenchmen can't be wrong) is a poor argument by the way and is one of the classical fallacies.  Or did you intend it as an appeal to authority; another classical fallacy.

APA's members don't want to have their professional opinions and plans subject to review by an ignorant public.  How demeaning.  What a blow to professional pride.  What a blow to your paychecks when development is slowed.  

Opposition to Amendment 4 is coming from the special interests who have deeply embedded reasons to keep the system as it is.  Money.

[Miss Fixit]

Of course the purpose of Amendment 4 is to get to NO!  

Scary.  Not all development is bad.  Amendment 4 will indiscriminately prevent development, good and bad.