Calling Farms 'Urban Land' Would Be Costly Mistake

A proposed roll-back of Florida's growth-management rules wrongly assumes that more houses and apartments are all the state's urban areas need to become better places to live. City residents don't have to worry about how to pay for more roads or transit, according to the Community Renewal Act.

The change is partly motivated by legitimate needs to better focus growth and to find a reliable, fair way to pay for its costs. The reforms proposed by the state Senate Committee on Community Affairs don't fix those problems. The bill simply eliminates much of the state's oversight over urban growth and hopes for the best.

Nothing in the bill helps pay for the backlog of unbuilt roads and unfunded transit proposals.

Remember that Florida's reasonable laws governing growth did not slow things down during the recent boom years, and they won't magically create a market for new houses and condos until the recession and credit crisis are over. And when growth returns, Floridians will wish they hadn't forgotten the hard-learned lessons of the recent past.

The bill defines as a "dense urban land area" any local government with over 1 million people or more than 1,000 people per square mile. Hillsborough County qualifies by either measure. Almost every town qualifies.

Hillsborough has about 1,100 people per square mile, or about 1.7 per acre. Even if the people were evenly spread out, which of course they're not, that's less than one house per acre, hardly a dense urban area. Much of Hillsborough is agricultural, and many of Hillsborough's problems have been caused by rapidly converting these rural areas into dense subdivisions linked to urban jobs by inadequate roads.

Under the bill, it appears that towns and big counties could approve huge new developments that have big impacts on neighboring communities without state review. Let's not forget why the Legislature set up a review process for developments of regional impact. It was to force communities to deal with those impacts, such as increased traffic and water shortages.

Florida does need to find better ways to encourage urban growth in places where residents want it and can afford it, and to encourage redevelopment statewide, where appropriate.

The immediate problem is a surplus of houses, not a shortage. Even when the economy recovers, Florida, and especially Hillsborough and Pasco counties, will still have a large supply of houses for sale and empty lots of approved for development.

It will take a long time for that inventory to be used up.

One of the problems with growth is that even with rising property values and new sales taxes, fast-growing counties haven't had enough revenue to pay for all the roads, buses, playgrounds, libraries and all the other public services that new residents immediately demand. The multibillion-dollar backlog just in the Tampa area is evidence that growth has fallen far short of paying its way.

Generally, dense growth costs less per person, and the Legislature is right to look for ways to encourage it while discouraging costly sprawl. And in recent years Florida has done a better job requiring growth to pay its way. The burden has gradually shifted away from taxpayers at large.

Regulating growth is a state issue because local elected officials are tempted to postpone asking voters to pay more. They don't care if the growth of their own communities causes problems elsewhere. The price has been paid in another way: deteriorating quality of life measured in traffic congestion, traffic accidents, overcrowded classrooms, water shortages and many other things that chip away at Florida's appeal.

The present slowdown is a good time to consider what kind of growth will best benefit Florida when growth returns and how to encourage the sort of growth that will improve the state's reputation as a good place to raise a family and to retire. The focus must be on areas where existing residents want growth and are willing to deal with its consequences. The focus must be much sharper than 1½ people per acre.