What do we expect the future to bring for Stuart and Martin County? If we look at our current County Commission, we know that it is about to experience change to its composition. With the indictment of Commissioners Heard and Fielding on public records violations, there will probably be different people sitting in those seats. This could occur this year by resignation or removal by the Governor or next year at the ballot box.
Both Heard and Fielding have a distinct point of view on development that precluded growth outside the Urban Services Boundary (USB). They also fought development within those boundaries. I agree with much of their philosophy outside the USB boundaries. I differ with them within those boundaries. If you want stop sprawl, and both say that is their stated goal, you need to allow density within the USB.
Sprawl occurs when you have mono-functional development. Under the current Comprehensive Plan, 20-acre ranchettes are allowed. It may be that you won’t be able to see your neighbor, but this is development away from jobs and shops. Regardless of the type of housing, you still will need roads, schools and other services. The people who live in these scattered communities will need gas stations and stores.
Therefore, if you want to keep agriculture, you need to concentrate population and growth within our cities and towns. If you want Martin County to avoid what occurred in South Florida and the I-4 corridor, then we need to plan better for sustainable development. The blanket “no” so often heard by businesses from the county needs to be tempered to allow for reasonable and smart growth.
At some point the Urban Services Boundary will need to be expanded. But, for now and the immediate future, let’s have infill development and re-purpose properties that are no longer economically feasible. Our half-empty 1960-type retail strips and our aging housing stock need to be re-developed. More and more people want to be part of a community, to know their neighbors and walk to a store. Isn’t it rational that we not be tied to mid-20th century development patterns?
I am not advocating some central plan where we herd everyone into condos. I am saying that we need to look at trends to determine what type of lifestyle we will have in 10, 20 or 50 years. Infrastructure is expensive to build and maintain so, before we commit to expanding Martin County’s, we need to look to what the future will bring.
As we look at the Martin County of the future, do we continue to do things in the same way or open our minds to a more wholistic approach? Do we look at one project coming forth at a time or do we have a Comprehensive Plan that can be used as a planning document for growth instead of a document that impedes it? Stuart should be a center of a new urban dynamism. Along with our sister cities, we should be where the action is. We should be the engines of economic and population growth. Martin County should be thinking of why county government exists. It should exist not to provide urban services but to function as political subdivision of the state. Let new cities be formed out of all the current county CRAs.
There will be nearly 21 million Floridians by the end of 2017. Does anyone really believe that Martin County will be left out of having an increasing population? Just in the past two months there has been an influx of more than 200,000 Puerto Ricans fleeing the ravages of Maria and bad government. People from the entire U.S. want to live and work in our state. Eventually some subset will find Martin County. Let’s be prepared.