WALSH: Sarasota wins state's most anti-growth booby prize

REVIEW & COMMENT

Sarasota wins state's most anti-growth booby prize

by Matt Walsh, Editor and Publisher

Contrast Sarasota with Lee County, where the vision is one that embraces economic vitality.

Too bad for Sarasota County residents. Come May 6, they will win Florida's economic booby prize of the year - if not the decade.

With an affirmative vote in a special election - which is all but assured - Sarasota will become the most difficult metro county in Florida in which to develop, giving it also the distinction of being the most anti-growth, anti-development, anti-business, anti-economic health, anti-people county in the state.

And here's one of the saddest parts: It will have achieved this distinction with the help of the county's leading business organizations. They negotiated with the Dark Side, and the Dark Side won.

This is a dejecting story. But it also should be viewed as a Flash Warning to everyone in Florida who believes in property rights and the free enterprise system. If you are not vigilant, Sarasota's cancer will spread to your county, too.

Call this cancer "economic myopia." It's the erroneous belief that the more you control, impede, regulate, punish and stop population growth and development, the more affordable and better your quality of life will be. People who suffer from this cancer cannot see - and refuse to accept - the real consequences of the disease.

Here's what happened in Sarasota County:

Earlier this week, the Sarasota County Commission voted to place on the May 6 special-election ballot a proposed charter amendment that would require:

• A 5-0 vote of the county commission to increase the size of the county's urban service area by moving an imaginary boundary line east of Interstate 75 (see map at right);

• And, a 5-0 vote to establish new overlay districts that would allow increased density and intensity in land outside of the urban service area.

To top it off, the charter amendment would require a voter referendum to remove the urban service area boundary altogether.

This urban boundary, by the way, is an imaginary line that runs along I-75 and essentially is in place to keep all land east of the interstate rural or allow only low-density development.

Currently, only a majority vote - a fundamental feature of a representative democracy - is required of the county commission to implement any of the above three changes.

But soon, the threshhold will be 5-0 unanimous votes.

And get this: That is a compromised improvement from the original proposal! The misnomered, anti-growth Citizens for Sensible Growth had collected enough signatures for a charter amendment that would have required a countywide referendum to increase the urban service boundary.

After polls showed voters easily would have approved that amendment, developer Henry Rodriguez, Greater Chamber of Commerce Chairman Pam Truitt and land-use lawyer Dan Bailey negotiated with the Dark Side. They figured it would be easier for development interests to obtain 5-0 unanimous votes from county commissioners than it would be to persuade voters. So these self-appointed spokesmen for businesses and pro-growth residents sat with the Dark Side and negotiated terms that added in two additional restrictions in the anti-growth side's favor!

They called the results a "consensus smart-growth amendment."

The chamber's Truitt hailed the "consensus amendment" in a Sunday newspaper column as "a win-win for all."

But clearly, it was more of a lose-win - a loss for freedom, property rights and economic growth and a win for the anti-growth side. On the same newspaper page, a spokesman for the Dark Side was thrilled. You know you lost when the spokesman writes that the consensus smart-growth amendment "is clearly more comprehensive and better achieves the goals" of Citizens for Sensible Growth than its earlier amendment.

'Not an ounce of backbone'

The business interests never should have negotiated. It's like negotiating with terrorists for hostages. It legitimizes their cause, and the good side makes concessions that violate core principles.

In this instance, business interests were more concerned about "consensus" and getting along than principle. Maggie Thatcher had it right when she spoke in Clearwater nearly 20 years ago: "There is not an ounce of backbone in compromise."

The uncompromising core principle should have been that the urban service boundary is patently unconstitutional because it is antithetical to the 14th Amendment (equal protection) and it does more economic harm to Sarasota County residents than it does good. On this latter point, consider these negative economic effects of Sarasota County's longtime, anti-growth policies and the 10-year-old urban service boundary:

• Sarasota's cost of housing is fifth-highest of 67 Florida counties ($287,000 median price).

• Sarasota has the seventh-highest planning tax in Florida ($93,950 per home for the cost of regulations and planning).

• Sarasota has the 11th highest cost of living among Florida's 67 counties.

Another indicator: Look at the accompanying table in the upper right of this page. Sarasota County's population was greater than Lee County's population in 1970. Sarasota was the biggest, most economically robust county south of Tampa Bay then. But since then, Lee's population growth has far surpassed that of Sarasota and so has Lee's economy. Lee has 16,100 business establishments and an employed labor force of 269,270 compared to Sarasota's 13,460 business establishments and an employed labor force of 166,528.

Sure, many in Sarasota would say they don't care how much more Lee has grown than Sarasota. They don't want fast population growth because they believe it destroys their quality of life. The more restrictions the better. They talk of "sustainable growth" - code for strict anti-property rights regulation.

Such a posture is what Thomas Sowell calls "spoiled-brat politics." When Bill Earl, leader of Citizens for Sensible Growth, bought his low-density, rural property east of the interstate, did he also pay for the guarantee that the land east of the urban service boundary would remain rural in perpetuity? Of course not. Rather than pay real money for what he wants, Earl and others want that guarantee from the government. And the only way to get that guarantee is for the government to take away other people's property rights.

In truth, there should be no urban service boundary - at all. But with the urban boundary as it is and passage of the "consensus smart-growth amendment," Sarasota County residents will sentence themselves to higher and higher housing and living costs; an economic future of anemic population and business growth; and a future that does not offer robust opportunity for the children and grandchildren of today's Sarasota County parents to live and prosper in their childhood hometowns.

Take a close look at the future land-use maps on this page. They tell it all. They show two disparate visions - one in Sarasota County that seeks to constrict opportunity, and one in Lee County that embraces economic vitality.

When you talk to business leaders in Lee County, they are excited about the future - in spite of today's economic conditions. They talk about a bustling, expanding airport that is drawing more and more tourists and corporate development on the fringes of the airport. They bubble over the vibrant, exciting growth at Florida Gulf Coast University. They see possibility and opportunity.

Too bad for the citizens of Sarasota County.

Spoiled-brat politics

... Let's go back to square one. The people who bought homes in a neighborhood 40 years ago did not buy the neighborhood, nor did they pay for a guarantee that the neighborhood would stay the same for 40 years, much less in perpetuity.

The only way the govern-ment can give current residents such a guarantee is to take away other people's property rights, which exist precisely to keep politicians at bay.

Buying a chance and asking the government to turn that chance into a guarantee has become a common occcurrence under spoiled-brat politics.

When you buy a home with a great view of the ocean, you do not pay for a guarantee that nothing will ever be built between you and the ocean. You ask politicians to give that to you, at someone else's expense.

Some people even call that idealism because you are "preserving" something good. But preserving it from whom? And why is what you want more important than what they want?

Thomas Sowell

"Every Wonder Why"

HOW SARASOTA,

LEE COMPARE

Population / % Chg.

1970

Sarasota 120,413

Lee 105,216

1980

Sarasota 202,251 / 67.9%

Lee 205,266 / 95.1%

1990

Sarasota 277,776 / 37.3%

Lee 335,113 / 63.2%

2000

Sarasota 325,961 / 17.3%

Lee 440,888 / 31.5%

2006

Sarasota 369,535 / 13.3%

Lee 571,344 / 29.6%

2010 (est.)

Sarasota 406,881 / 10.1%

Lee 648,395 / 13.5%

Total % Chg. '70-'10

Sarasota 338%

Lee 616%

% of Pop. 65 and >

Sarasota 29.6

Lee 22.2

Median age

Sarasota 49.6

Lee 42.6

Median family income

Sarasota $59,190

Lee $57,430

Median home value

Sarasota $287,000

Lee $270,000

Housing Affordability Sarasota 4.85

Lee 4.70

Square Miles

Sarasota 571.55

Lee 803.63

Persons/Sq. Mi.*

Sarasota 646

Lee 711