New growth bill needs fast burial

If the growth bill finally approved by the Legislature is signed into law by Gov. Charlie Crist, it could bring to a sudden stop many road projects that developers already have agreed to fund in Hillsborough County.

Crist should veto the bill before it has a chance to put the bite on taxpayers. Under the change, it appears that developers could pass the buck for most if not all transportation and school improvements.

The Hillsborough County Commission, at the urging of Commissioner Mark Sharpe, voted unanimously Wednesday to ask Crist to veto the 82-page bill.

To their credit, all four senators representing the Tampa area and its suburbs - Ronda Storms, Victor Crist, Arthenia Joyner, and Charlie Justice, along with Sen. Paula Dockery of Polk County - voted against this bad bill.

The issue is not liberal vs. conservative as some House members seem to have assumed. No Republican House member in this state voted against it.

Most of the opposition came from southeast Florida, where the pain of ill-planned growth is better understood than in less dense areas.

The bill's main author, Sen. Mike Bennett of Bradenton, tells us his goal is to promote more responsible growth and that the changes wouldn't stop Hillsborough County from collecting impact fees.

That may not have been his intent, but the outcome is likely to be quite different. Remember, it was the unintended consequences of existing growth laws that are behind this attempt at reform.

Bennett's bill instructs state planners and transportation officials to design a mobility fee, but it's unclear who would pay it and how much it would be.

Sharpe suggests the wording of the bill could force county taxpayers to pay for new transportation "strategies." At the same time, it could stop the developer-funded improvements planned for Lithia-Pinecrest Road, Big Bend Road and many other areas.

Peter Aluotto, director of growth management for the county, told commissioners that "in plain English, in the entire urban service area, all those projects get a pass."

Bob Hunter, director of the Hillsborough City-County Planning Commission, tells us the bill appears to him to cost the county tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure payments from developers.

Among other things, the bill would require that school capacity include both charter schools and "relocatable" classrooms.

Charter schools can close, leaving public schools overcrowded. And a relocatable is nothing more than a mobile building. Taxpayers should remember that it was the appearance of dozens of portable classrooms on school parking lots and playgrounds that became a symbol of the high costs of unplanned growth.

The bill purports to focus growth in dense urban areas. But it defines those areas as about one house per acre. And by undercutting the state's pay-as-you-build concept called concurrency, it offers no real incentives to put future houses and apartments closer to job centers or transit.

This is the same Legislature that could not find a responsible way to develop an Orlando rail project and that denied funding for the commuter rail line in southeast Florida. If there is any effort to focus and support urban growth, lawmakers have done a good job hiding it.

It is cold consolation that the bill the Legislature passed in a confusing flurry of last-minute changes is much better than many other alternatives offered this legislative session.

But it is wrong in its assumption that any growth is good growth. Hillsborough County is several billion dollars behind in catching up with its transportation needs.

"This bill will put us further behind," Sharpe rightly warns. "Someone has to pick up the tab."

It's no mystery to taxpayers who that will be.

Crist should kill this outrageous scheme to make taxpayers pay developers' bills and voters should remember those lawmakers who supported it come election time.