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Suncoast Parkway Helps Pave Way For Hometown Democracy

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By LESLEY BLACKNER

Special to the Tribune

Published: July 6, 2008

Has anyone thought of renaming the toll road running through the middle of Pasco and Hernando counties the "Cone Porkway"?

You know, the toll road that came online at just the right moment, when cheap gas and easy money converged to unleash a perfect storm of developers and speculators gone wild.

I'm talking about the toll road, officially called the Suncoast Parkway, that sprouted thousands of houses on zero-lot lines that now bake unloved in the hot sun like abandoned SUVs. You know, the ones that are expensive to operate and far from (real) jobs.

It's the toll road that fed the frenzy and helped crash the entire economy.

Oh, the bubble was sweet (for the true believers) while it lasted. No questions asked, and no money down - just hope and hype - because the market can't be wrong.

Don't worry. Be happy. Go shopping. Go out to eat. And you can always refinance!

That big toll road, slicing like a can opener for 42 miles through virgin land, cost about $1 billion. Its "official" purpose was to "alleviate" traffic on U.S. 19 and U.S. 41. By the way, how is the traffic there these days?

But you know the real purpose - build it and they will come.

Florida's past 50 years have been fixated on one thing and one thing only: Build it and they will come. Every day you live with what happens when they build it without any thought for the future or the quality of life of the poor suckers already on the ground.

Never mind the schools are packed like sardines and there is an unending water crisis. Never mind the little secret that impact fees for new construction do not begin to cover the costs of new infrastructure and minimal services.

These days you're living with crazy tax rates and hurricane insurance that went through the roof. Perhaps, like so many others, you are upside-down in your little piece of paradise, owing more on your house than it is worth. Add to that jobs that are 30 miles from the new sprawl frontier and gas surpassing $4 per gallon.

Did anyone have a plan B?

The Serenova

Which brings me back to the giant toll road, the Suncoast Parkway.

You probably missed the news that Michael Cone, former head of Cone Constructors, the general contractor for the Suncoast Parkway, has been sentenced to a total of 20 years in prison, in two separate cases, for defrauding the state Department of Transportation and committing bankruptcy fraud. Even his wife was sentenced to federal prison for fraud.

Ten years ago I represented the Sierra Club in an ill-fated lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the toll road, which paved over hundreds of acres of wetlands and unleashed the tidal wave of sprawl. The court ruled we waited too late to file and that the mitigation for the destruction wrought by the toll road was adequate.

That mitigation was the Serenova Preserve, truly a jewel of our ecological heritage, a piece of Old Florida supposedly "saved" for generations yet born.

Mr. Cone, clever businessman, was part of a group that sold Serenova to the Florida Turnpike Authority. He carved 100 acres out of the "preserve" to dig out some of the sand necessary to fill the wetlands standing in the toll road's path.

Unfortunate things happened around that "out-parcel." Scrub jays, an endangered species, called the land home. Scrub jays are very territorial. They liked a particular tree in close proximity to the excavation site. One day the tree burned down. The jays disappeared. The mystery was never solved, but mining continued as usual.

Then the aquifer (where you get your drinking water) was breached during the excavation of the pit. Not to worry!

And as for Serenova, well, it's doing just fine, if you don't think about the Ridge Road extension, a four-lane highway that Pasco County is desperate to run right through the middle of it. Pasco will mitigate the mitigation!

An Education

The toll road was my great education in Florida land use. I looked at all the documents relating to its permitting and construction - all very official indeed with their rubberstamping. I studied the state and federal laws relating to land use.

I learned one big thing that I want to share with you: Florida land use is just politics. That's all it is. It isn't rocket science. It's the votes of five county commissioners. It only takes a majority to vote yes and change the community forever.

During the bubble, Pasco and Hernando commissioners just wouldn't say no to the endless, shiny developer dreams. Now look around. What were they thinking?

Clearly, the power to change the local growth plan is just way too much power concentrated in the hands of five people. But the developers like it that way.

Understanding this inevitably led me to the wisdom of Florida Hometown Democracy, the proposed constitutional amendment which will put comprehensive plan changes approved by a county or city commission to referendum before local voters.

Voters should have the final say over changes to their community's growth plan because you are the ones who must live with the consequences. If you haven't signed the petition, please do so.

Someone wise recently observed that the measure of a civilization is not merely what it creates, but also what it refuses to destroy. Of course, there's no going back on the toll road and the economic, social, fiscal and ecological disaster it spawned. But we must learn from mistakes and undertake genuine reform.

Do you really want more of the past? Florida Hometown Democracy is real reform.

The writer, a Palm Beach lawyer, is the president of Florida Hometown Democracy. Go to www. floridahometowndemocracy.com or call (866) 779-5513 for information.

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