Al Forman: Sunrise Groves' - AgTec -- the new zone to Browardize Martin County

 

Before we look closely at Comp Plan Amendment 10-4, which would create a new AgTec land-use zone by converting agricultural land to more valuable industrial, let’s look at how residents envision their way of life.

The hopes and aspirations of Martin County residents are embedded in the comprehensive plan. In essence it provides that, with the exception of Indiantown, urban development would be restricted to the east, agriculture to the west. This is eminently sensible because it limits sprawl and prevents the extension of public services so costly to taxpayers.

 

AgTec’s sponsor, Consolidated Citrus, is part of a huge landowner conglomerate that, in my opinion, doesn’t care about local quality of life. In addition to the 1,717 acres it wants to convert in Palm City, it owns about 38,000 additional acres. It is controlled by King Ranch, which owns 12,000 acres of Florida sugar cane, and 825,000 acres in Texas.

The proposed Sunrise Groves parcel west of Interstate 95 would add unneeded industrial acreage when there are thousands of undeveloped acres already zoned industrial. It would depreciate current industrial areas already suffering vacancies. It would open tens of thousands of additional acres for conversion by other landowners. After all, commissioners can’t play favorites.

Once upon a time, Broward County was more like Martin. It was change of land use that make it now the less desirable place to live. I don’t want that to happen here, and neither do the great majority of Martin residents.

Even the Local Planning Agency, so often too accommodating to developers, recognized how bad AgTec would be. It rejected the proposal. It is beyond rational thought to think that the County Commission would overrule the LPA and vote in favor of amendment 10-4.

AgTec promoters are slick. They hired a high-powered local public relations firm to convince residents that the conversion is a good thing. They have cookouts for nearby homeowners, but they don’t mention the added traffic load or the cross-canal bridge to St. Lucie County’s industrial park.

Everyone is concerned about jobs, so Consolidated pitches the vague estimate that it will create 8,000 jobs. But wait, not jobs now when we need them, but over the next 30 years.

So why the rush to convert the ag land now? Two words: Hometown Democracy. That’s Amendment 4 on the November ballot that gives residents the vote to approve such changes -- or not. King Ranch developers may find it easier to convince politicians in need of campaign contributions than persuade residents who have to live with Broward-style growth.

Here’s one more part of the Consolidated pitch that’s worth a snicker. They claim that they are doing this because agriculture is unprofitable. Yet they will retain some groves. They don’t say that the motivation for partial retention is to keep their property tax low. Snicker.

The AgTec proposal and its clones would ruin Martin County. Let’s hope that commissioners care enough about our county to reject it on Tuesday.

Forman, editor of the e-mail newsletter, Martin County DEFENDER, lives in Palm City.