Amendment 4

[British Shoe Company]

The fee, if passed as proposed, has a pretty good structure for determining the proper fees associated with both large and small developments regardless of land use.  That's something we really can't say about the existing concurrency system.  As for elected officials, at the end of the day their performance goes back to the general public who put them in office.  No amount of modifying rules will effectively offset the amount of ignorance exhibited by us when we continue to elect more of the same.

Fees are French for Taxes.  

No fees please.....

= NO to #4

[thelakelander]

Call them what you want but the mobility fee is a user fee.  In this case, the one who adds traffic to roads pays for that additional traffic with money going to increasing road, transit, bike and pedestrian capacity in the surrounding area.  Since these things don't pay for themselves, without them the public will be paying extra taxes to fund and maintain existing and additional public infrastructure.

[simms3]

^^That.  And those are pass throughs to the customers/users of the development.

Also, might I add that since some people keep referring to elected officials "going against the public wishes" and being bought by developers who want to build a suburban PUD or subdivision:

The highest growth is in our suburbs.  There are three general types of people in NE FL.  There are the types who want *no* new growth and call everyone who moves here a damn yankee (and blames all problems on new residents).  Then there are the types who move here and prefer to live in the urban core.  Unfortunately this is less than 20% of people.  The now largest constituency is the group of transplanted families who need good schools for their children and they want a yard and so called privacy, as well as "amenities", and to this group of people the Nocatees, WGVs, Palencias, Fleming Islands, Julington Creek Plantations, etc are just perfect.

The diversion with the third group is where some of these people move here to a certain type of development, and then want all future growth to stop.  They don't want others to follow in their footsteps and have the same lifestyle that they so desired because it would add congestion.  A recent prominent example of this is the lady from Huntsville, AL who moved to Jax Beach, I believe to a condo, and then personally spearheaded the movement to place height limits and stricter bulk zoning codes in Jax Beaches (basically to halt further growth).  Others that move to the suburban communities realize that their HOAs could go down if their community was built out and they could have closer amenities and more options if more people moved nearby (and they are willing to put up with more congestion in the short term).

Either way, much of the public does actually want the suburban PUD style growth.  2 easier ways to solve current problems are to fix Duval schools so that more people are willing to move to Jacksonville as opposed to Clay and St. Johns and to change land use plans to limit dendritic accretion style growth and go for a more "planned" accretion style where various communities would have better flow and connectivity.

Our essential problem is gated communities, and that's what the people want.  If you think Amendment 4 is going to all of a sudden put an end to gated communities because you think people will vote down what they want, you are crazy.  All amendment 4 will do is delay the inevitable, cost the taxpayer, lower land values (I take my property value comment earlier back...I think it could raise current improved land), and reduce investment in the state.  Companies will reconsider relocating here if they know there is going to be an issue with relocating employees because of the effects Amendment 4 could have.

[fieldafm]

A recent prominent example of this is the lady from Huntsville, AL who moved to Jax Beach, I believe to a condo, and then personally spearheaded the movement to place height limits and stricter bulk zoning codes in Jax Beaches (basically to halt further growth). 

I lived at the beaches when this was going on, and the height limits were quite the contentious issue.  I find it relevant that since the height limits were passed, Jax Beach officials have been on the record as saying that very successful projects like the condo complex next to the Ritz, Fionn McCools, etc.. that has a mixture of condos(that are very nice btw), self-contained parking, and retail/restaurants on ground level that encourage pedestrian activity... will be limited in the future b/c a building like this will exceed height limits.  And they now see the success of such buildings and wish they had a few more like it.  Its the law of unintended consequences at play.

The law of unintended consequences is exactly why I oppose 4.  It(4) does nothing to solve the problem that created the movement for its existence in the first place... and IMO will open a can of worms that will place a huge financial burden on the public in its wake.

If you think Amendment 4 is going to all of a sudden put an end to gated communities because you think people will vote down what they want, you are crazy.

Simms does make a very good point(but thats not why I oppose 4).  Now and historically, the majority of the city does not see sprawl as a problem.  Again, go back to what was called the 2005 Comprehensive Plan.  It was the city's growth management plan from as early as the 70's.  It was never given proper enforcement b/c the overall majority of citizens didn't see sprawl as a problem, and the polls show almost exactly similar numbers today on this very issue.

[north miami]

See Sunday Oct 17 Miami Herald Carl Hiaasen piece for some little reported insight that will enrage some.........

[fieldafm]

link?

[north miami]

link?

"Running Scared Over Amendment 4"

Learn how your tax dollars have helped bank roll opposition

Carl Hiassen

miamiherald.com

www.miamiherald.com/carl_hiassen

[stjr]

Impact fees, DCA, land use plans, growth management, water management districts, concurrency, zoning, planning commissions, etc. - all tools to manage growth that have failed to deliver as promised.  The question is why?  The main reason given is developer influence over politicians.  You can say the public elects these guys and should chose others if they don't like the job they do.  However, to get elected, it takes big money and the developers provide it.  So, the only viable candidates we have to chose from are ones that will give in to corrupting the growth management process.  The proof is in the decades of making the pudding.

Amendment 4 represents the total frustration with all of the above programs cumulatively failing.  I still haven't seen a realistic fix for the current situation.  As such, at least Amendment 4 may, good or bad, serve as a catalyst for a bipartisan fix that, heretofore, has not been pushed for lack of pressure.  It already has succeeded in putting the growth management process at the forefront of political discussion in this State.  I don't remember this much focus on same in a very long time, if ever.

[Jumpinjack]

A couple of months back, I heard Sec. of DCA, Tom Pelham, speak about the recent legislation affecting the state. He mainly focused on the recent Senate bill removing traffic concurrency, a tool of growth management.

Also, maybe because he knows he is going out with the new administration, he was very outspoken about failure to pass a Citizen Planning bill of Rights in 2007. The legislature saw to it that the bill never made it out of the first committee. DCA is under Sunset Review right now so we could see the end of state growth management agency this year.

[CS Foltz]

I think, Amendment 4, if it passes, will see alot of potiential changes..........we need to do something since what we have does not appear to work well at all!

[cline]

Also, maybe because he knows he is going out with the new administration, he was very outspoken about failure to pass a Citizen Planning bill of Rights in 2007. The legislature saw to it that the bill never made it out of the first committee. DCA is under Sunset Review right now so we could see the end of state growth management agency this year.

It was basically killed due to significant lobbying from the building community.

[Jumpinjack]

Fancy that!

[north miami]

A couple of months back, I heard Sec. of DCA, Tom Pelham, speak about the recent legislation affecting the state. He mainly focused on the recent Senate bill removing traffic concurrency, a tool of growth management.

Also, maybe because he knows he is going out with the new administration, he was very outspoken about failure to pass a Citizen Planning bill of Rights in 2007. The legislature saw to it that the bill never made it out of the first committee. DCA is under Sunset Review right now so we could see the end of state growth management agency this year.

Long time DCA staffer Charles Gauthier has been a pawn of political Growth "Management" whims- dumped at the tail end of the J.Bush administration.

Tom Pelham's placement had the effect of seducing many enviro in to a false sense of satisfaction.Could this have been by design??

So many under reported or not reported aspects...........

[tufsu1]

Impact fees, DCA, land use plans, growth management, water management districts, concurrency, zoning, planning commissions, etc. - all tools to manage growth that have failed to deliver as promised. 

while this may be true, care to imagine what Florida would look like without these rules?

[simms3]

Something I must mention.  Charlotte actually seems to let sprawl just happen.  The city sprawls way more than Jacksonville.  The difference is that Charlotte doesn't seem to spend its resources incentivizing or assisting the sprawl.  What I mean is their highway system is not as developed as ours.  I doubt they pay for much or any of the infrastructure.  It seems they don't care what happens in the suburbs because to them if people want to live all the way out there so be it.  The city clearly invests a higher percentage of its resources into the inner core than the suburbs.  Atlanta is much the same way (Atlanta is focusing on "corridors" now rather than growth as a whole).

Also Charlotte's sprawl is at least as ugly as our sprawl if not more.  Instead of faux mediterranean it is all brick.  There is clearly no planning either.

I don't care about the rest of FL.  S FL can become its own state/country imo, but here in Jax knowing that Amendment 4 won't do anything positive for our community (it will either stop all growth/investments or it won't stop sprawl but may stop dense developments), we can enact a few things to do things better.  While Charlotte seems to let the suburbs completely do themselves however they want (while they focus solely on the core) we can at least change land plans/zoning regulations to increase suburban density and encourage better street systems that connect.  Then we can increase impact fees more.  And finally instead of paying to build/widen more highways to assist this sprawl, we can build an inner city transit system.

People are willing and want to live in sprawl.  People are not as willing to live in the city.  We can simply stop "helping" developers build out in the suburbs and use these re-allocated resources to help Duval schools and infill developments and transit.  Amendment 4 does not address this.  It does not put an end to incentives and it does not prevent politicians from being friends with developers.  It may put an end to sprawl and if it does no new developments are happening, but I think it will just stifle infill developments and still allow sprawl.