Rape of Natural Florida Continues

[stjr]

More examples of why Amendment 4 may pass.  Below, two stories, one in Nassau and one in Seminole on the destruction of natural Florida to support uncontrolled and unrelenting growth.  Both pushed by developer controlled county commissioners.

Read it and weep:

Seminole County and the St. Johns River:

Paving over paradise to drain the St Johns River
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Submitted by Abel Harding on June 29, 2010 - 1:29pm Abel Harding

Seminole County is moving forward with its Yankee Lake project that will drain up to 5.5 million gallons of water per day from the St. Johns River.

In the process of building the facility, the county is destroying a cypress forest. The destruction can be seen on the video below, which was posted on Riverhugger, the blog of the St. Johns Riverkeeper.

http://www.youtube.com/v/57Rgk_JwLXg&

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/401574/abel-harding/2010-06-29/paving-over-paradise-drain-st-johns-river

Nassau County and the Intracoastal Waterway:

Development on Crane Island may happen yet



Source URL: http://jacksonville.com/business/2010-07-01/story/development-crane-island-may-happen-yet

By Kevin Turner

After her father died about 80 years ago, Sara Alice Broadbent became a self-sufficient hermit and ardent defender of her family's homestead on Nassau County's Crane Island. Rifle in hand, she would run off nearly anyone who dared set foot there, according to local lore.

The Broadbent family house mysteriously burned down 58 years ago and Sara Alice disappeared into legend.

The 148-acre island and its enviable waterfront have remained in their natural state over the ensuing years, despite the efforts of would-be developers and despite costly court battles partly financed by taxpayers.

At the center of the current fight is the question of whether the island should be zoned "conservation" and limited to 41 houses, as mandated by the state and supported by opponents to development, or become the home of a 169-residence development and a 90-slip private marina as supported by developers and county leaders.

With a ruling earlier this month from Florida's First District Court of Appeal, however, it appears the developer may be able to move forward after all. The ruling overturned a Nassau County judge's 2008 order that had nullified a Nassau County Commission ordinance in 2006 allowing denser development on the island. With the appellate court's decision, the development again has a green light.

But opponents have vowed to appeal.

And so it has gone for at least 20 years on Crane Island. Nothing has been simple for those who have sought to develop it.

The island, in the Amelia River just to the west of the Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport, is partly owned by The Linwood and Jane Willis family trust, partly by Willis and partly by a South Carolina realty group that also is its developer. The group's plans for the island's development call for turn-of-the 20th century Southern designs and boat access to the Intracoastal that would be accomplished with a marina created from land dredged out of the middle of the island, bringing boat slips to a number of its homes.

The county's comprehensive plan in the early 1990s designated the island as conservation land, which would allow owners to build 41 houses on the island's southernmost 113 acres.

The County Commission, siding with the developer, voted to revise the comprehensive plan and increase its density for development in 1994, 1997, 2003, and 2005, according to court documents. But the state's Department of Community Affairs repeatedly refused to allow the change in the comprehensive plan.

"I can tell you that we've objected every time the county has submitted a comp plan amendment as we don't think it's suitable for medium density as they propose," said DCA spokesman James Miller. "Among a number of issues we have with it, it's located in a high hazard area and it's also incompatible with the Fernandina airport."

But in 2006, the Nassau County attorney gave the County Commission an opinion they could change the county's comprehensive plan without DCA approval, as long as the zoning was changed to that of an adjoining parcel's zoning. The commission then voted to rezone the island from "conservation" to a low-density designation used by nearby parcels, and a decision from the St. Johns River Water Management District indicating the island isn't wetlands helped bolster the county's case.

Because that rezoning still wasn't enough to accommodate the developer's plan, the county used a provision in its comprehensive plan that allowed a development credit "swap" with nearby land owned by the Amelia Island Co., parent of the Amelia Island Plantation. The Amelia Island Co. land also is classified as being in a "coastal high hazard" area. Access for future Crane Island residents to a nearby Plantation golf course sweetened the deal for the island's future residents.

Although the way then appeared clear for the planned 169-residence development and marina, it wasn't over yet. Three East Nassau County residents, Eric Titcomb, Bob Weintraub and Julie Ferreira, filed suit. A circuit court judge ruled Dec. 22, 2008, that the county didn't have grounds to change the county's comprehensive plan on its own.

But the June 3 First District Court of Appeal decision reversed that, ruling that the county did have the right to reclassify the island from wetlands to uplands if the water management district said that was the case.

But it's not over yet, Weintraub said.

"We are going to appeal this," he said. "There are different ways we can do that. Our strategy has not been determined yet."

Weintraub said the group has been helped in their legal efforts by representation from a Cape Coral attorney, private donations and the backing of the Sierra Club. So far, they've raised about $40,000 to support their effort, he said.

[floridaforester]

Amazing, lets hasten the demise one of Florida's greatest natural assets to fuel more unsustainable development.  Overbuilding of new residential neighborhoods was one of the biggest factors in our current economic condition and the corporate/political powers-that-be think that continuing past mistakes is the correct path for the future.  These idiots that spout their free market garbage just don't get it.  The market HAS spoken and apparently these knuckle draggers are deaf as well as retarded. 

[Ocklawaha]

What a damn shame to destroy such a beautiful area.....  However as a "child" of the 50's, the 1960's left me with an indelineal memory that will cure this foolishness in 24 hours.

Hurricane Donna

followed by

Hurricane Dora

The Jacksonville/North Florida beaches from St. Augustine well into Georgia were smashed as bad as anything you might have seen of Katrina or Andrew. Once these new citizens look out their front window straight into a scene like one would see on the TV show, "Deadliest Catch." Now lawn, no lawn chairs, no BBQ grill, no shrubs, no neighbors, just endless violent, dark, churning, water!

OCKLAWAHA

[stjr]

I hate to see the drastic deeds of Amendment 4, but, this behavior is a strong endorsement for its passage.  It's the same mind-set that led voters to pass the class size amendment.  Our State constitution should not be used to regulate at this level yet voters don't seem to be able to get their elected representatives to act beyond their own self interests or to tackle the truly challenging needs of this State.  Too bad we can't count on these officials to do the right thing without such prodding. 

Developers and their lackeys think their single act is not going to make a difference and/or they are blinded by their greed.  However, the sum total of millions of local acts like these, not some single organized global process, is what is causing the destruction of our global environment.  Regardless, developers will assure their own destruction through their excesses.  Unfortunately, they will also assure ours.