TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Voters Make Land Preservation Priority

ADVERTISEMENT

By YVETTE C. HAMMETT

yhammett@tampatrib.com

Published: November 9, 2008

TAMPA - Hillsborough County residents said it with their votes. Environmental lands are important to them and they want them protected.

Seventy-nine percent of the county's voting electorate approved an extension of the Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program Nov. 4, infusing it with up to $200 million in bonds that can be used to purchase land over the next few decades.

"This is a phenomenal victory and it's a clear wake-up call to every elected official in the county that the public here truly cares about the environment," said former County Commissioner Jan Platt, who pushed for the original ELAPP program in the late 1980s.

Platt and former Gov. Bob Martinez co-chaired Preserve Hillsborough, the committee set up to get the initiative approved.

Voters here followed a national trend that garnered a record amount of funding for similar programs. Nationwide, voters approved $7.3 billion to preserve land, according to The Trust for Public Land, which keeps a database on such issues at www.landvote .org.

Florida, as a state, did its part. Sixty-eight percent of voters approved a constitutional amendment proposed by the Florida Wildlife Federation that gives a tax break to landowners who set aside property for conservation.

"The fact that our voters would vote to extend a tax at this time in our economy speaks volumes," Platt said of the ELAPP initiative.

Martinez said he couldn't be more pleased.

"It was super," he said. "ELAPP got the highest percentage of votes of anything on the ballot."

The ELAPP tax is 25 cents from every $1,000 of assessed property value. For the owner of a $225,000 house with a $50,000 homestead exemption, that's about $44 a year.

Martinez, who as governor created the Preservation 2000 program in the 1990s to protect sensitive lands all over Florida, also called the Hillsborough vote a clear message from the people. "Clearly, it is something about which the county and the country are very passionate."

For Preserve Hillsborough publicity chairwoman Jan Smith, the victory is sweet.

"I was nervous going in, because this county has changed dramatically since the last time ELAPP was on the ballot in 1990," Smith said. "It's now clear the public understands, absolutely, that they need to preserve natural areas for the future."

"Floridians, as a community, are saying 'we don't want to pave Florida over,'" said Ann Paul, regional coordinator for Audubon of Florida. "Our whole community pulled together for clean air, clean water, open space and wildlife."

Floridians have approved 80 percent of local land conservation funding measures since 1996, according to the Trust for Public Lands.

Nationally, 71 percent of the conservation ballot initiatives passed Tuesday, the biggest of which was the Minnesota Clean Water, Land and Legacy constitutional amendment accounting for $5.5 billion. It is the single largest conservation ballot measure in history.

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 865-1566.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT