Encouraging Fiscal Responsibility, Accountability, & Transparency
Summary:
A majority of the Board of County Commissioners of Martin County (the BOCC) is determined to make major changes which will have a devastating impact on Martin County, by unjustifiably amending our Comprehensive Growth Management Plan (our Comp Plan).
In consideration of the amendments, the BOCC’s proceedings have been hall-marked by a lack of fiscal responsibility, transparency and especially accountability to a majority of the Martin County electorate who has consistently objected to these possible changes.
Table of Contents: (click on a subject to view)
- Is There Anything Wrong with Our Comp Plan?
Fundamentally, prior to Dec 16, 2009, THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH OUR COMP PLAN; it had guided us over the last 20 years to grow in an economically sustainable and socially responsible manner, protecting Martin County’s unique quality of life. From the BOCC’s perspective, however, our Comp Plan has prevented the BOCC from opening our western agricultural lands beyond our Urban Services Boundary (USB) to their friends and supporters especially among the Future Group who want, for their own purposes, to develop these areas industrially, commercially and residentially. BUT, we already have enough land within our USB to satisfy our needs for at least 15 years, if not 30, at the estiamted rate of growth.
On Dec 16, 2009, a majority of the BOCC voted to rewrite our Comp Plan, by approving extensive changes to the Future Land Use Element of the Comp Plan. It also voted to create six “Essential Service Nodes” and to facilitate additional commercial development in western Martin County. These proposals to permit commercial and higher density residential activity in this area are direct violations of our county’s time-tested Comp Plan. Western Martin County is inhabited by fewer than 10,000 residents, or 7% of our population, and the proposal is neither supported by the majority of residents there nor justified by any demonstrated economic need. Florida’s Department of Community Affairs (DCA) rejected these proposals on the grounds that the BOCC failed to undertake a professionally prepared “needs analysis” to support them. Furthermore, these proposals are advanced without any accountability and without any financial plan for all the infrastructural demand that will follow. The BOCC rescinded the nodes on March 16, but also voted 4-1 to bring back the Nodes in the near future. Thanks, Commissioner Sarah Heard for voting no.
On March 30, 2010, the BOCC considered a proposal to create a separate Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) of seven individuals to be appointed by the BOCC for four years, to make decisions affecting the use of property throughout the County, independently of the BOCC. The public was to have no role either in selecting the CRA commissioners or in participating in their deliberations. This removes from public scrutiny and accountability decisions vital to our county’s orderly consideration of economically self-sustaining projects which preserve and enhance our county’s enviable quality of life.
On April 13, 2010, the BOCC will vote to permit landowners of roughly 11,000 mostly agricultural acres to increase the residential density on their land from the 726 homes permitted under the Comp Plan to 3,165. Another proposal seeks to amend the mixed use overlay designation on 263 acres in the heart of Indiantown, between Okeechobee Waterway and Warfield Boulevard to permit 3,945 homes from the 1,315 currently permitted.
Another proposal calls for the re-designation of 450 agricultural acres on the south side of Bridge Rd just to the west side of I-95, to industrial, which is not permitted outside the USB. Currently we have plentiful VACANT industrial land within the USB, with over 1,700 acres available for development.
At the same time, the BOCC will consider a Comp Plan amendment to permit Consolidated Citrus (King Ranch) to create 5 million sq. ft. of industrial space, 1 million sq. ft. of commercial with two hotels, and 200,000 sq. ft. of retail on 1,717 acres outside the USB on the western side of I-95 at the border of Martin and St. Lucie Counties.
These changes are but several of a series of steps the BOCC plans to take in dismantling our Comp Plan and opening our county’s valuable agricultural properties, mainly to the west of I-95, to unwarranted industrial, commercial and residential development. Breaching our current Urban Services Boundary in this manner will raise our taxes, because we will have to pay the costs of making urban services available in the west. This will only exacerbate our tax burden since the BOCC last year shifted impact fees for any new development to county taxpayers, and only balanced the budget by cutting important public services (like reducing public library hours and maintenance services in public parks, and possibly closing fire stations). This budgetary pressure has been further exacerbated by maintaining excessive public sector compensation awards and moves to hire expensive consultants.
- What approval of the BOCC Agenda items will do to Martin County:
In short, the county will become exposed to the threat of urban sprawl and we the taxpayers will lose because we will have to pay higher taxes to finance this process, in addition to suffering significantly adverse consequences to our quality of life. Developers, real estate speculators and their allies, will prevail and we the residents of Martin County will lose.
Essential Background:
Martin County comprises over 350,000 acres of land, divided principally between more than 220,000 acres designated for agricultural use and over 68,000 zoned for industrial, commercial and residential use within the Urban Services District (USD), in accordance with our Comp Plan. In general terms, the Urban Services Boundary (USB) follows the roadway of the FL Turnpike, with the USD to the east, and the agricultural land to the west of the Turnpike.
According to the Martin BOCC, its latest calculations show there are over 66,000 houses in Martin County, with an additional 4,900 units approved awaiting construction and further capacity within the USB allowing construction of another 9,000 units. Just over 100 building permits were pulled for 2009, at which rate it would take many more than 30 years of construction within the USD to build out approved and available sites.
- The Threat to Our Quality of Life:
Even with more than adequate capacity to accommodate nearly 14,000 new houses in Martin County within the USD, a majority of the BOCC is determined to change how our county is organized and even financed, by facilitating commercial and industrial growth in the agricultural lands. This effort began last summer, when the BOCC voted to place the burden of impact fees on taxpayers, rather than developers. This fiscally irresponsible move proceeded without publicity and lacked sufficient transparency to keep the public properly informed, but means, in effect, that most of the “front-end” costs of development outside the USD would be born by current taxpayers.
Additionally, without providing the public adequate opportunity to review and comment on its last- minute proposals to amend our Comp Plan last summer, the BOCC sent its proposed Comp Plan amendments for review to Florida’s Department of Community Affairs (the DCA, whose approval is required for any such amendments), in an effort effectively to re-write the entire Comp Plan. The DCA issued 48 objections to the proposed amendments. Nevertheless the BOCC majority immediately directed the County’s administrative staff, with the assistance of a lobbyist hired at taxpayer expense, to negotiate a settlement with the DCA. Many residents meanwhile sent emails and letters to the DCA encouraging it to continue to reject the BOCC’s proposed changes, but BOCC staff expects a compromise to be reached with the DCA later this spring.
- Further BOCC Efforts to Remove Comp Plan Protections:
In addition, the BOCC most recently has proposed that it appoint an agency of seven members, each with a four-year term, to which it would delegate assessment powers, rezoning actions and countywide planning, thereby removing critical BOCC functions from public scrutiny and accountability altogether. This proposal was placed on the BOCC’s agenda during the last week of February, but was postponed for a BOCC vote on March 30 in the face of massive public opposition.
- What This Means for Martin County Residents:
All these BOCC proposals are fiscally irresponsible. If they are adopted, we anticipate our taxes will go up to fund the extension of urban services beyond the USB, our property values will fall, our stock of vacant houses and office buildings will increase, congestion on our streets and unemployment among our citizens will rise. We have only to look to Palm Beach County and Broward County to the south and to St. Lucie County to the north to see the kind of urban sprawl and related problems such actions create.
- Why Is the BOCC Proposing Changes to Our Comp Plan?
A majority of the members of the BOCC voting in favor of the proposed amendments to our county’s Comp Plan have avoided explaining their rationale for seeking these changes. Articles already have been published demonstrating the lack of adequate justification and suggesting that only developers and campaign contributors will benefit from such changes. The DCA has twice made clear that there is no actual need for Essential Service Nodes. Martin County residents, already critical of the BOCC for its fiscal irresponsibility, as demonstrated by the intense pressure on the budget, the impact fees and egregiously large wage settlements with unions serving the county, are certainly justified in seeking explanations for these actions. It is more than apparent that the BOCC is not prepared to be accountable to its electorate and wants to proceed without respecting the views of its constituents.
- What is being done to fight these proposed changes?
The Martin County Conservation Alliance has filed a legal challenge with the state Division of Administrative Hearings asking a judge to throw out the changes approved by a majority of the BOCC in its Dec. 16, 2009, vote to rewrite the Future Land Use Element of the Comp Plan. As detailed elsewhere on this website, Martin County residents can register their disapproval of the BOCC’s actions and plans by contacting the BOCC at commissioners@martin.fl.us.
- What is the impact of the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment?
The possibility of approval by FL voters of the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment (Amendment 4) is a strong stimulus to the BOCC’s determination to approve as many projects and Plan Amendments as possible before Election Day. If the BOCC is able to settle with DCA on its revised version of our Comp Plan, the danger is that precedents will have been established to further dismantle our USB, regardless of the protections of Amendment 4.
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