Maze Buster

REVIEW SUMMARY
What. Community Planning Act
Issue. Stripping state-level review of development
Impact. Streamlining expected to produce cost savings for public and private sectors and spur jobs.

Builders, developers, local governments and a share of the state's million-plus unemployed have reason for optimism should the Legislature pass one of two comprehensive growth management reform bills under consideration.

House Bill 7129 and Senate Bill 1122 reduce the state's role in the comprehensive plan amendment process. By removing much of the state's second-guessing of local governments' planning decisions, it speeds up the time it takes to review comprehensive plan amendments that now go through multiple layers of review.

Linda Loomis Shelley, a former secretary of Florida's department of community affairs, calls the streamlining effort “... the largest change in the growth management law since we enacted it in 1985.”

“Local governments ought to be able to be in position to properly plan for themselves,” says Rep. Ed Hooper, R-Clearwater. “And the key word is properly.”

It's more a question of when the state's growth management laws get reform, than if, given the positive reception reform has gotten from the House and Senate and Gov. Rick Scott's focus on regulatory reform. A Florida League of Cities' representative also says it supports the bill.

Hooper, the vice chairman of the Community & Military Affairs Subcommittee that sponsored the House bill, decries the time it takes for a city's amendment to get through city, county, regional and state review. “It's not fair for anyone willing to invest in a community to have to wait a year to find out if he's got a chance to spend a lot of money to either make a significant investment in a particular community or county,” he argues.

From 136 to 65 days

Currently, by statute, it takes a minimum of 136 days to process a plan amendment before appeals. The bills shorten that to 65 days by expanding a 4-year-old alternative plan-review process used in Tampa, Pinellas County and few other local governments, to all cities and counties.

“Time is the enemy in every scenario of huge infusion of capital,” says Hooper. “Time kills all deals.”

Both bills also make transportation, parks and recreation and school concurrency optional for local governments. That leaves it up to cities and counties to decide concurrency — whether they should require developers to build those facilities at the same time as the development. Local governments can choose whether requiring those facilities to be built at the same time as development outweighs economic development or other community goals.

Laurie McDonald, Florida director for Defenders of Wildlife, believes the changes will lead to urban sprawl, and claims that removing the state concurrency mandate means Floridians will have to shoulder the cost of new development.

But Todd Pokrywa, a certified planner for the developers of 8,500-acre Lakewood Ranch on the Manatee-Sarasota county line, says the bills provide local governments with alternatives to concurrency that can discourage urban sprawl. “Concurrency doesn't work,” notes Pokrywa, “and is the root of a lot of the problems and pushes development out further.”

Kami Corbett, a land-use lawyer with Foley & Lardner in Tampa counters McDonald too. “It's like, 'oh my God, the local governments are going to immediately going to move to repeal concurrency,'” she says. “This is not something that's going to be done in the dark of night. There's going to be a community conversation.”

The House version also extends building permits for two years and developments of regional impact development orders for seven years.

Environmentalists want more review

The Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. President pro-tempore Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, passed the Community Affairs Committee that Bennett chairs, but it still may not be a sure thing, at least not in its current form.

That's because it could face amendments by a more left-leaning Environmental Preservation and Conservation Committee before it gets to the Senate floor.

Still, the likelihood of passage has a coalition of environmental groups riled up over what they're calling “draconian changes” despite environmental protection language kept in the act and urban sprawl controls added to it. Their solution: form another committee to study it and bring back recommendations in 2012.

A coalition of environmental groups headed by 1,000 Friends of Florida put out an email attack on the two bills April 6 telling their members to call on legislators to “stop the madness” that will “gut Florida's landmark growth management system.” The group includes Sierra Club of Florida, Defenders of Wildlife, Tropical Audubon, Clean Water Action and the National Parks Conservation Association.

In a two-and-a-half page memo, Charles Pattison, president of 1,000 Friends, writes, “ ... Florida would be much better served by a deliberative body that brings forward workable recommendations for the 2012 session.”

Bennett says the environmental groups misconstrue the thrust of the legislation, which removes duplicative regulation and shifts more control from state agencies to cities and counties. He adds: “I have no intention of allowing any bill that's going to allow the paving over of Florida.”

The senator sums up the controversy, saying, “They want to make sure we don't go too far. I want to make sure we don't go too far too. We have some wonderful assets we want to protect, but the local governments know what they want to protect.”

Avoiding the next bust

No one has been more deliberative in studying the state's growth management policy than perhaps Bennett, an early architect of growth management reform measures. He sponsored a 2009 state planning reform law, a pre-cursor to this year's bills.

Bennett's bill tracks the House Bill on the major reform items. He says the differences are minor and sees no major problems ironing out the issues.

But Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, the developers of Lakewood Ranch, which is in Bennett's district — hopes a few issues will work out to its advantage. Lakewood Ranch bills itself as “the largest green-certified community in the country.”

The developers are looking for Bennett and the Senate to go along with the permit extensions and also support extending development agreements between developers and local governments beyond 20 years.

Planner Pokrywa says the extensions are important for its future plans. “If not for these extensions we'd have to go through a formal process to extend those dates and analyze impacts,” he says.

That's no small task according to Pokrywa, who says that paperwork for three developments of regional impact within the property cost them $1.5 million to $2 million apiece. “That's no small amount of money to get initial approval to put the first shovel in the ground,” he notes. “These extensions help so that developers across the state aren't being kicked while they're down.”

And as long as they're down — builders and developers can't help hire some of the million unemployed, something not lost on Pokrywa. “Right now the process is too cumbersome and too time consuming,” he says. “And those opportunities that may have gone to Florida are going to the Carolinas or other states.”

Growth management laws contribute to boom-bust

According to some experts, Florida could be losing development opportunities because of the state's maze of growth management regulations.

Florida's growth management laws and rules mushroomed during the past several decades to become “one of the most comprehensive, regulatory, growth management systems in the country,” according to a House staff analysis of HB 7129.

The implementing rules alone swelled to more than 34,000 words spread over 49 pages.

A number of economists from across the country have studied the impact of restrictive growth management laws. (See “Ground Zeroes,” Business Review, June 4, 2009)

Economists cite the fact that in the states most heavily regulated by growth management laws — think California, Arizona, Nevada and Florida — land supply was constrained and couldn't react to increased demand, thus fueling land price escalation. The real estate bubble inflated and ultimately burst leading to those same states to rank among the highest in foreclosures.

“Because of the growth management laws, prices escalated substantially,” says economist Wendell Cox, principal of St. Louis-based Demographia, an international public policy consulting firm specializing in urban policy, transportation issues and demographics.

Cox has studied the influence of state growth management laws on the housing crisis and the economic meltdown. “This all has to do with the housing crisis,” says Cox. “It all has to do with your growth management laws.”

Cox supports legislators' efforts to ease the restrictions, especially now. Otherwise, he says, the state is setting itself up for another boom-bust cycle. “This is the opportune time for what are very unfortunate growth management laws in Florida.”