As SB 474 Moves Forward

For those of you who may have missed some of our posts over the past couple of weeks, we will describe Senate Bill 474. Simply put, it is the worst possible growth management bill ever forced on the citizens of the great State of Florida. This bill would allow school boards to build schools any place they desire with no citizen input, and no regard to citizens who may be negatively impacted by such a school. This bill also creates a situation where school boards would become the ultimate authority when it comes to allowing growth in our communities with no recourse given to other local governments or citizens who again, might be negatively impacted. This bill also forces local governments, including school boards, to inventory property they have purchased and give the lists to developers who may want to build affordable housing units. The developers would be encouraged to build on these properties using tax money that residents have paid, even if current zoning or other restriction would disallow this use now. Again, school boards would become the ultimate growth management bodies in every community in Florida. Locally that means that the same people who could not track cases of tainted meat are going to be responsible for how our communities are going to grow.

There is also another great hidden nugget that has been attached to the bill. It allows for the creation a mobility fee (See Pain Index from November 26, 2007) to handle transportation problems created by the new level of allowable growth. This new fee, or tax as most would call it, would not replace some other tax or fee, it would just be a new tax added to what citizens are already paying.

There is plenty more to this sad excuse for legislation that we are not going into at this point, but just based on these few examples of what we can only call mistakes, one would assume that this bill would have been voted down as it moved through the transportation committee. The answer to that... Nope. It passed with 7 yes votes and only 1 no vote. We guess the claim of some that this bill was not going to move forward was incorrect. Of course it would move forward when you look a the billions of dollars it would open up for developers and the fact that it would allow the creation of a new mobility tax. It also gives some developers a special pass to build without government restrictions if they are supported by a local school board. It is sad that the property owners of our communities are going to take the punch to the kidneys one more time. We can only hope that more people write the legislators to let them know that SB 474 is bad legislation that needs to be stopped in its tracks.

The WayneWho staff would also like to ask what our county elected officials have done to stop this measure, and if the hired lobbyist that all of our governments pay for has taken on this item. We see no evidence that the lobbyist has done anything to stop this bill, and we have to question the value of continuing to pay for a lobbyist that did not know this bill was on the horizon, and has done nothing to speak against its passage.

We also have to question the value of local media outlets that give no space or air time to activities on the state level. Maybe it is because they do not understand the bills, or maybe it is that a pro-developer growth bill that will erode the property rights of citizens is just not sexy enough to waste time on. We do not know. What we do know is that uncontrolled growth has become a problem because no one is willing talk about it honestly, let alone say 'no' to those who stand to gain so much profit from bills just like this on the backs of our hardworking citizens. We would have to guess that since more growth means more people, which translates to more papers in yards and more advertising revenue, that pro-growth bills will continue to take a back seat to important articles on "Epcot's International Flower & Garden Festival". Now that is sexy.

CS/SB 474