2. Q: What does Amendment 4 say?
A: This constitutional amendment will give Florida voters the right to decide whether their local comprehensive land use plan should be changed. Currently, city councils and county commissions exclusively make those decisions.

Here’s the ballot title and summary you will see on the November 2010 ballot:

 

---

 

---

 

3. Q: Why is Amendment 4 necessary?
A: Our local governments spend millions of dollars creating comprehensive plans in order to promote sensible development. These plans are also intended to ensure that growth does not destroy Floridians’ quality of life and our environment, and that infrastructure and government-provided services are not overwhelmed by unplanned, run-away construction. Yet, as recent history demonstrates, too many local governments do not respect our plans. It is just too easy for wealthy developers to obtain comprehensive plan changes. All they have to do is persuade the majority of a city or county commission to grant their requested change. Routine granting of plan changes destroys the value and integrity of comprehensive plans. The result is unplanned growth. Floridians are now living with the consequences of unplanned, runaway growth: overcrowded roads, depleted water supply, rising taxes, and reduced quality of life.

Amendment 4 will likely save Floridians untold billions of dollars. Unplanned, reckless over-development will be much more difficult to push through. You already know that most new construction does not pay its way: the tax revenue and impact fees from new construction do not begin to cover the costs associated with putting in new roads, schools, water, and sewer, not to mention essential services including fire, rescue, police, garbage, etc. Taxes are rising fastest in the faster growing areas. For too long Floridians have suffered the double calamity of both watching their state ruined by bad development and paying for it too.

A “Cost of Community Services” study prepared for Leon County, Florida, determined that for every one dollar of economic benefit generated by new development, the county must pay between $1.38 and $1.72 for required additional services. Read the study for yourself here.

Now that Florida’s development-created bubble has burst, Florida homeowners are confronted with the nightmare of simultaneously falling property values and rising property taxes. How did that happen, when our politicians boasted for years that your taxes would “drop like a rock”? Turns out Florida’s government went on a huge spending spree over the past decade. All that new development has proven to be incredibly expensive. None of it has paid its own way. Now homeowners are stuck with the bill.

Mark Lane, a columnist for the Daytona Beach News Journal, wrote a great article that explains growth doesn't pay its own way. Read that article here .

Because comprehensive plan changes often determine the destiny of a community for generations to come, it is vital that such changes are made -- as they are supposed to be made -- in the public interest. Amendment 4 will ensure that changes to comprehensive plans truly reflect the consensus of the community. Because voters must live with the consequences of plan changes, they should have the final say over whether to approve or reject proposed changes.

 

 

4. Q: What is a comprehensive plan?
A: Local comprehensive land use plans were mandated in 1985 by the Florida Legislature when it passed the Growth Management Act (Chapter 163, Part II, Florida Statutes, The Local Government Comprehensive Planning and Land Development Regulation Act). This law requires all local governments (i.e., all counties and municipalities) to adopt a local comprehensive land use plan to guide future growth and development.

 

 

5. Q: How does Amendment 4 work?
A: Under Amendment 4, your city or county commission will study and vote as usual on proposed changes to the local comprehensive land use plan, which is a blueprint for future development. If your commission approves changes to your local comprehensive land use plan, you will get the opportunity to veto or approve those changes at the next regularly scheduled Election Day. It’s that simple. Amendment 4 doesn’t require special elections or local petition-gathering efforts.

Voters will decide if a proposed plan change serves the public interest and makes their community a better place to live. If the majority votes yes, the change happens. If the majority votes no, the change doesn't happen.
 

 

 

6. Q: How can I learn more about my local comprehensive land use plan and what it means for my future?
A: Each city and county in Florida has a comprehensive plan. You may want to familiarize yourself with your own local comprehensive plan.

Your local government may post its local comprehensive land use plan on its website. You can also obtain your local plan by request. Contact your local government's planning department or clerk's office to request a copy of your plan. Florida’s Sunshine laws guarantee that these plans must be accessible to you.

 

 

 

7. Q: Under Amendment 4, when will referendum elections be held?
Amendment 4 does not require special elections. Any referendum on a comprehensive land use plan change can occur at the next regularly scheduled local election. Typically, there is an election every year.

If a developer does not want to wait until the next election and seeks a special election, the local government should make the developer pay for it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. Q: What if your city or county commission approves lots of comprehensive plan changes?
The Florida Growth Management Act became law in the mid-80's and mandated comprehensive planning in order to ensure sensible growth and protect Floridians from sprawl and over-development. Local governments spend millions of dollars to create local comprehensive land use plans. Every seven years a plan is reviewed at the local level and by the Department of Community Affairs in Tallahassee. A proposed plan change goes through two public hearings and review by the Florida Department of Community Affairs.

So what went wrong? The reality is that too many local governments do not respect their local comprehensive land use plans. Local comprehensive land use plan changes are political decisions made by elected officials. When your commissioners vote on a proposed local comprehensive land use plan change, they are presumed to be representing the broad public interest. They are supposed to reject a proposed change unless they make a determination that the plan change serves the public interest. But we know what happens: too often the public interest is simply defined by our commissioners as “Keep the developer happy.” The well being of the community, citizens' quality of life, fiscal responsibility, our beautiful environment, everything that makes your community a desirable place to live, is sacrificed at the altar of the Sprawl Machine. Too many commissioners rubberstamp destructive comprehensive plan changes.

The Growth Management Act did not intend constant local comprehensive land use plan changes. Once Amendment 4 is in the Florida Constitution, the number of speculative plan-change requests will drop because developers will know that they will need to persuade not only a majority of a city or county commission that their proposal is in the public interest, but the voters also. The sweetheart backroom deals between local government and developers will become much more difficult and unlikely.

Knowing that the public has veto power, commissions will be more careful about approving unpopular land use changes. Developers and local governments will learn to live with the plan, which is the way it was always supposed to be.

Under Amendment 4, you will not vote on rezonings or variances. You will not vote if the lady down the street wants to repaint her house or add an addition. You will vote on only those few comprehensive plan changes that are actually approved by your commission. You can expect Amendment 4 to give commissioners the backbone they've been missing, and for them to start to say NO to bad plan-amendment proposals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13. Q: What role will a City or County Commission play under Amendment 4?
City and county commissioners will continue to hold public hearings on proposed comprehensive plan changes and to vote whether to approve or reject each proposal, just as they have always done. Commissioners will still have the same power to kill bad proposals. Amendment 4 will give voters a veto over bad proposals that a commission insists on passing.

The amendment will clean up the corrupt local politics of growth. Developers will no longer be able to buy off a simple majority of a city or county commission with their campaign IOU's. Example: three Palm Beach county commissioners were convicted regarding their corrupt land-use votes in exchange for secret payoffs from developers. There are lots more examples, and these are just the under-the-table deals that are discovered. Amendment 4 should give at least some commissioners the backbone to finally say NO to bad comprehensive-plan changes.

 

 

 

14. Q: Who supports Amendment 4?
A. Floridians from all walks of life are tired of the status quo of over-construction and government of, by, and for developers.  View our endorsement list here.

 

 

 

15. Q: Who opposes Amendment 4?
A. Amendment 4 is opposed by construction and land-use interests who profit mightily from “government of the developer, by the developer, and for the developer.” They like the status quo, which requires only a majority vote by a local commission to approve a plan change. The Florida Chamber of Commerce is leading the disinformation campaign against Amendment 4.

When you read a letter, column or blog in opposition to Amendment 4, Google the name of the author. Chances are, the author makes his living over-developing Florida or works in government (which is often the same thing.)

 

 

 

 

 

17. Q: Don’t we elect our politicians to make these plan change decisions?
A. Our opponents argue that we live in a representative democracy and we elect the officials we want to make decisions for us. Actually, in Florida we have a mixed system of government with elements of both direct and representative democracy. At the local level, we already vote directly on charter amendments, bond, and tax questions, as well as recall elections.

Amendment 4 reflects Floridians’ dissatisfaction with the failure of our elected officials to respect growth management and our publicly approved land-use plans. President Teddy Roosevelt famously said: “I believe in the Initiative and Referendum, which should be used not to destroy representative government, but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresentative.” This is precisely the purpose of Amendment 4.

 

 

18. Q: What impact will Amendment 4 have on construction?
It is a gross exaggeration to say that if Amendment 4 passes, development will come to a standstill. There is already enough land approved for development in Florida to accommodate 80 to 100 million residents – about five times more people than we have living here now.

And even that isn’t enough for some land speculators and politicians. In just two years (2007 to 2009), commissioners around Florida voted to change local plans to allow a staggering amount of overdevelopment -- 520,000 more houses, 1.2 million more people, and 1.3 BILLION more square feet of commercial and office space.

Developers have plenty of land set aside for building right now and into the future. Amendment 4 would only require a vote if a developer insists on building outside the already-approved areas.

Read about the 1999 study here.

 

 

 

19. Q: What about jobs?
A. Our comprehensive plans have lots of growth built into them. There are millions of construction projects authorized and on the books that have not yet broken ground. Under Amendment 4, there will still be lots of opportunities for construction.

Proposed plan changes that truly benefit the community’s well being will no doubt be approved, as they should be. An employer who comes to town with the promise of many good jobs should have no problem mustering community support for a plan change, if such a plan change is necessary. A business that wants to quickly get up and running has much vacant commercial property available to select from and considerable land designated as commercial and ready for building. The normal plan change now takes at least one year. Amendment 4 will simply add the requirement of a referendum at the end of the current process, a referendum that the developer can pay for if he does not want to wait for the next regularly scheduled election.

Our opponents desperately paint Amendment 4 as a “job killer,” which is ironic, given that Florida is in the midst of a job crash brought on by reckless over-development and real-estate speculation. During this recent period, developers got pretty much everything they wanted. The Developer/Government Machine created burst the real estate bubble and crashed our economy. They are the “job killers.” Now Floridians are living with the consequences: soaring property taxes, coupled with crashing property values.

 

 

 

20. Q: Has Amendment 4 already been tried in Florida?
An episode in St. Pete Beach, so often highlighted by opponents of Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment 4, was actually created by developers who wanted to build high rises on the beachfront of the quaint community.

The ballooning city legal bills opponents talk about were also caused by developers, who went OUTSIDE the state’s long established land-use approval process. The special elections they talk about were requested by developers. By contrast, Amendment 4 is an add-on to the existing state land-use approval process, and it doesn’t require special elections. Amendment 4 adds one new step to the land-use process: a citizen vote.

Here’s what happened in St. Pete Beach:

Developers created a so-called “citizen’s group” called “Save Our Little Village.” “Save Our Little Village” was shepherded by Cornerstone Solutions, a political consultant group run by lobbyists for the National Association of Homebuilders and the Florida Association of Homebuilders.

Campaign contribution reports show that “Save Our Little Village” was financed by developers and resort companies. To get people in St. Pete Beach to agree to more high rises, “Save Our Little Village” proposed ballot initiatives to change the town’s plan to allow the high rises it wanted. “Save Our Little Village” went outside Florida’s long-established growth management process, and attempted to create a whole new, illegal process. Then the developer-backed “Save Our Little Village” sued the city.

In this 2008 story, the St. Petersburg Times points out that the city sued “Save Our Little Village” because its actions in changing land-use were illegal:

"You can't put a comprehensive plan item on the ballot for citywide referendum without going through the Florida Growth Management Act process first," said attorney Thomas W. Reese, who was hired to represent the city in a similar suit brought by SOLV late last year.

State statutes require comprehensive plans to go through local and state planning agencies before approval, Reese has argued. If the residents were to approve the petition items by vote they would be effective immediately.”

Again, developers in St. Pete Beach went OUTSIDE the regular Florida land-use approval process. Amendment 4 is an add-on to the existing process.

Under Amendment 4, local city or county commissions will study, hold public hearings, and vote as usual on proposed changes to the local comprehensive land-use plan (the overall master plan), just like they always have. The new Amendment 4 step is that voters will veto or approve the commission’s decision on the next regularly scheduled Election Day. It’s that simple.

Builders who choose to build where land is already approved for it won’t face a vote at all. Amendment 4 only requires voter approval local comprehensive land-use plan changes. It doesn’t apply to individual development approvals, re-zonings, or variances. And it doesn’t require special elections.