Category Archives: Martin County

The Decision Is Still Ours

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Florida will continue to experience huge population growth from now until 2060.

 

A new study by Woods & Poole Economics, a firm specializing in long-term economic and demographic trends, shows that the Villages will be the number one metro area for growth in the U.S. between now and 2060. Orlando, Cape Coral, and Naples-Marco Island are all high on the list to experience exponential growth by 2060.

 

The Port St. Lucie metro area will grow from 511,300 people today to 920,600 by 2060. The Port St Lucie MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) has that city as its hub. The city’s population is now 212,901 residents, and it is currently the 7th largest city, by population, in Florida.

Florida scrub habitat in early springtime at Lake Kissimmee State Park in Lake Wales.

Fort Pierce is part of the Port St. Lucie MSA and so is all of Martin County. Where do you think the additional 400,000 plus residents are going to live by 2060? It is highly likely that a big subsection of these new residents will call our county home, and to believe otherwise is denying the data.

 

What the study also showed was the growing urbanization of most of America in the past 20 years, and it is projected to continue. Government policies that do not take this into consideration will fail. Saying no to projects because of some belief that you control the use of land owned by other people will fail.

 

If Florida were an independent country, it’s economy would rank 15th in the world. By 2030, we could be ranked 10th according to a study conducted by the Florida Chamber. There is no study that doesn’t expect Florida to be an economic powerhouse now and well into the future. People are moving here not to just retire anymore but to make their fortunes and find jobs.

 

Tallahassee wants and needs tax revenue now and in the future. They need to keep the train moving to accomplish it. One place they will be looking to make sure ample housing and economic opportunities exist will be in Martin County. The days of saying no are over. There is no longer the luxury of many residents being armchair nay sayers.

 

Costco and the Kanner PUD are a good project that should go forward. It has less density than what Stuart’s comp plan allows. The state DEO pointed that out when it went for review. The developer, now owner, of the site has an excellent chance of prevailing with the Governor’s Council, but if not, it will be a slam dunk in the owner’s favor in court.

 

The state must find adequate housing for millions of people. I don’t mean affordable or attainable or work force…I mean homes to house the folks who are flocking here from all over the U.S. Businesses of all types will open to serve the population. Our growing population will fill those jobs and open those businesses. Tallahassee is not going to have a few naïve people stop it. The economic and demographic juggernaut that is and will be Florida will continue.

 

Either we are going to have rational housing policies in Stuart and Martin County by good planning or the state will do it. If the state does the planning for us, I can assure you that Martin County will be looking more like other parts of the Port St. Lucie MSA and even Broward. The decision for another year or two is still ours…after that look for the final decisions to be more and more made in Tallahassee if our county has not realigned its thinking.

Thank You Commissioner Hetherington

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Some people are saying that Stacey Hetherington sold out those who voted for her by ultimately supporting the rural lifestyle amendment to the comp plan. That is just nonsense!

In the beginning, what was originally called Discovery (now Atlantic Fields) was a project of multi-million-dollar homes off Bridge Road that was going to proceed as an exception. There was not going to be any new land use designation. The Becker and Discovery folks were making presentations throughout southern Martin County and on Jupiter Island to select audiences. It seemed everyone was on board.

 

There was no public outcry or fierce resistance. The way it was proceeding, every commissioner except Heard was in favor of it. Discovery was going to be a money generator, leave acres of open land, and even have 800 acres remain in permanent conservation for farming. What happened?

 

In the interim, the developer came back with a plan to not proceed with the project as an exception but rather as a new land use classification in the comp plan. Suddenly, thousands of acres throughout unincorporated Martin County seemed to be up for grabs. I firmly said that it was a good project, but the new land use category had me wondering why disrupt the project at this point in the approval process. Until I had answers, I could not support it.

 

There were now people who began to want to know much more about the project. When it came before the BOCC at the beginning of the year, there wasn’t so much opposition by the public as concern. They also had questions that needed answers and until we (and I am a member of the public) received them, we couldn’t support the change.

 

Ciampi went from a yes on the project to a definite no on the land use category. Hetherington said she would not vote for it until she understood it better and there was much more public outreach. I was right there with her.

 

Then election season hit. And to my chagrin Stacey was a bit too strident in some of her campaign rhetoric hitting Stuart as growing too fast. It made her seem as if she was anti, anti, anti-development of any sort and that is not true.

 

Chastened, Becker, the developer, did do informational meetings and took public comment. The result was a narrowing of where the rural lifestyle could be used by Becker and county staff. It now encompassed only those properties of at least 1000 acres contiguous with the USB but outside the boundary. The number of acres to which the amendment could apply was less than 12,000, and 70% must continue to be open with at least 500 acres additional in conservation. There are 6 properties that meet the criteria.

 

There would be no package plants allowed. Water and sewer lines must be brought in at the developer’s expense and no other project can tap into those lines. My questions were answered, and there was ample opportunity for residents to go to the informational meetings held at the libraries.

 

Hetherington’s position was that questions needed to be answered and the number of acres narrowed. This was accomplished.

 

Unfortunately, she was less articulate on the dais when she was conveying her thoughts. That is too bad. But for anyone to believe she betrayed her beliefs or had situational ethics is not true. Hetherington conveyed to me that she needed a narrower definition of the rural lifestyle amendment.

 

If I had been a commissioner before the changes, I would not have voted for the designation either. Hetherington, by constant pressure on staff and the developer, received the changes she thought best for the county.

 

She also received something more…the commission’s vote to go out to RFP for a company to facilitate public meetings about where the future is for Martin County’s development. Doug Smith has been trying for years to have a real plan. Ciampi, Smith, and Jenkins all voted to do this.

 

In fact, Hetherington would not agree to vote in favor of the rural lifestyle amendment until a vote was taken on having a better planning model going forward.

 

Unlike Ed Ciampi, she never stated that she was unequivocally opposed to the rural lifestyle amendment. What she said was that she could not support the amendment as it was drafted back in February and without the chance for the public throughout the county to attend workshops on the proposal. I know that is true because Hetherington and I were of like minds and discussed it a couple of times.

 

Regarding this development and amendment, our five commissioners acted in good faith. Heard and Ciampi voted no, but I understand why even though I disagree. Smith and Jenkins were always in favor of it. Jenkins explained his position very well at the commission meeting as did Smith.

 

To think that Hetherington was somehow disingenuous is utter baloney. Is she a politician? Yes, what else is new. For that matter so are the others. Could she have better explained her position? Yes, that is for sure.

 

I applaud Hetherington for sticking to her guns at making the amendment better. I further clap my hands for putting the county on a footing to be able to construct a plan for our future. Thank you, Commissioner Hetherington.

 

 

 

 

The Challenge Of “Local” Schools

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The Covid epidemic showed parents where the schools were failing their students. Anytime the lives of children are disrupted to that extent, the faults in the system will be more apparent.

 

The United States has always prided itself on how education is a local responsibility. That has led to vast differences in the quality of what is offered from district to district, even between neighboring counties. The pandemic brought those fault lines into the homes of the students because of remote computerized instruction.

 

The life blood of our educational system is funding. Funding is based on the number of students in a district. Since Covid, many students have simply disappeared from the student rolls, especially in larger districts. New York City, the largest district in the country, has somehow lost more than 50,000 students. But the size of districts is not the only indicator of lost kids.

 

The biggest indicator was how long remote learning continued. Because of the governor’s insistence on a return to the classroom earlier than other states, Florida has rebounded in the number of students and remains robust as compared to some other states such as New York and California.

 

However, private and religious schools have had a net increase of 75,000 students nationally as of the end of the last school year compared to two years earlier. I don’t think this is so much an endorsement of religious or private schools as parents realizing that many public-school districts had become unreliable about whether they would be open or not.

 

Schools are not only a place for education but also the default childcare facility for parents who work. Without predictability, many parents cannot hold down a job. Private and parochial schools have proven more dependable by remaining open.

 

Another benefit to these schools and public charter schools is the ability of parents to take a more active role in their children’s education. As we have just seen in Martin County’s recent school board election, the defeat of both Liz Bernstein and Tony Anderson was the rejection of the supposed experts in favor of parental control. Both Jen Russell and Amy Pritchett, the newly elected school board members, are in favor of parents being in ultimate control.

 

There is a problem in achieving this when schools are under a centralized district. By its very nature, a district needs uniform rules and instructions to measure success. The entire parental rights movement is hampered by a centralized district format.

 

The other factor keeping parents from being in charge is the state instituting too many regulations…from LGBTQ+ to how to teach history or civics. Some parents may see Tallahassee’s heavy hand as against centralized districts being in control, but it ultimately affects parental control by not allowing a divergence of curriculum.

 

Every school should be seen as a public charter school with decisions made in each institution on instruction and every aspect of a school’s operation. A board made up of parents working with a principal and teachers can accomplish that.

 

The state’s function should be to collect the taxes and then send the vouchers to whichever schools the parents have selected for their children. The state should certify teachers and administrators. They should devise uniform mandatory tests to determine that the students are being given a good education.

 

If he really believes in parental rights, Governor DeSantis needs to limit the involvement of the state. Self-limiting state authority is hard for any politician to do and the governor is no exception in this case. However, without a reduction of state-level mandates and requirements, it will be impossible to really have what so many profess to want…local parental control.

 

My Questions Have been Answered Regarding Rural Lifestyle

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The Discovery folks invited me, and a few Martin media people to the Hobe Sound Polo Club for an informational meeting about the Rural Lifestyle amendment. The new amendment is a very pared down version of the original presented back in February.

At the time, I was not ready to embrace the amendment because it was county wide and I didn’t think there were enough public information meetings explaining it. I also had questions about where the water and sewer lines were going to be run and how far they would extend. Every one of my concerns have been addressed in the new amendment.

 

The acreage that would be entitled to the designation has been substantially reduced from the entire county to 11,924 acres. The Discovery development is adjacent to the urban services boundary (USB). To qualify for the designation, the land must be along the boundary. The water and sewer lines cannot extend or piggyback onto adjacent properties. So, the idea of leapfrogging to other properties should be out of the question

 

There have now been four public meetings throughout the county held in the libraries of Indiantown, Hobe Sound, Stuart, and Palm City. They were moderated by Nicki van Vonno, the past director of the Martin County Growth Management Department. A few of those meetings also had Zoom participation.

 

Though it is a developer amendment, if adopted, it can be used by any landowner who meets the qualifications. There are precious few owners that do. Here is the list I received from the applicant’s consultant:

 

Along Bridge Road:

  • Discovery/Atlantic Fields: 1530 Acres
  • Whitworth Ranch: 2824 Acres
  • Harmony/DiVosta: 2727 Acres
  • Three Lakes Golf Course: 1218 Acres

Mid County:

  • Atlas Family IV: 1695 Acres
  • Agri-Gators Farm: 1930 Acres

 

Everyone speaks about the sacred comp plan as if it is Holy Writ. It wasn’t until the 1980s when adopted that we were required to have one by the state. It is required to be updated (changed) periodically to adjust for circumstances such as population increases within the USB. At some point in the next few years, the line of the USB will be moved.

 

The two ways we can preserve our rural lands are to encourage infill development and greater density within the USB and to allow limited development using planning mechanisms such as Rural Lifestyle. In Discovery’s case, 70% of their proposed development will be green lands and another 800 acres will be a permanent agricultural trust with Conservation Florida as the nonprofit owner.

 

We need to accept that these type developments will attract very wealthy people. They will pay a great deal in taxes and ask for few services. Martin County will be another playground to them. But is that bad?

 

I was in favor of leaving each project to stand on its own but then that may trigger a spot zoning claim. Spot zoning refers to when a piece of property or groups of property have special zoning laws applied to them that differ from the zoning laws surrounding them. By giving alternatives to landowners, the sprawl that these large parcels may engender could be avoided.

 

I am now convinced that the Rural Lifestyle is the way to proceed for Martin County in these very limited circumstances. I urge the commission to embrace and pass this amendment. Without it, I believe we will end up with western lands that may look like St. Lucie County or, heaven forbid, Broward.

 

But we need to remember there is a second piece to this puzzle. It is to increase density and development within the Urban Services Boundary preferably within the CRAs. If we do not do this, Tallahassee will do it for us in a one-size-fits-all bill. That may be a great boom to Miami-Dade but will be the end of the Martin County lifestyle that residents cherish.

 

How To Replace The Stuart Rail Bridge

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I recently went on the Federal Railroad Administration’s website. It can be a fascinating read for those looking for money to do rail transportation projects.

 

And what I found was a $7.2 billion a year program that is slated to continue for the next 5 years at the same funding levels. This program is “to advance projects that expand and establish new intercity passenger rail service…” I don’t know about you, but that seems exciting to me.

The first grant I came across in the program was one to replace the 100-year-old San Luis Rey River Bridge with a double track concrete bridge and eliminate a .6-mile single track bottleneck in the city of Oceanside. The tracks are also used by BNSF freight lines. Sounds like a place I know in South Florida where I live.

 

There is also a grant for a new bridge across the Connecticut River in Connecticut. Maryland has a replacement slated for a 115-year-old bridge crossing the Susquehanna River. There are more rail bridges being replaced than I can list. But you get my point.

 

What I don’t understand is why isn’t the St. Lucie River Bridge in Stuart, Florida on the list? It is a partnership between the states and the federal government so is that the reason? Tallahassee doesn’t want to take any Democrat Washington money. The projects I saw that were funded were not for private companies. Yet there was the San Luis Rey Bridge that has the BNSF component. There is nothing that said only government owned rail roads need apply.

 

It appears that elected officials need to be engaged to bring home the money. This is more than doable. It requires that all our governments work together to accomplish something. That is a hard ask in our complex fractious political world.

 

In the meantime, our federal and state representatives will speak with the Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard to have a more equitable open and close bridge time and other such well-meaning but less effective problem-solving ideas. What we won’t do is ensure the funding for a new bridge. Isn’t that what our federal and state officials should be trying to do?

 

FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS SPECIAL ELECTION EDITION

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Several surprises in Martin County elections yesterday will change how some municipalities and the school board will be governed. There were many more close races than in the past. If anyone doubts the strength of Governor DeSantis and the GOP in this county, they should not. And there are no longer any nonpartisan races here.

 

Congressman Brian Mast easily beat his three challengers in the Republican primary. Jeff Buongiorno, Melissa Martz, and Ljubo Skrbic combined had 22.5% of the 23,375 votes cast in the county. Mast should beat Democrat Corinna Balderramos Robinson in the general by similar margins.

Val Demings trounced her opponents for U.S. Senate in the Democratic primary without breaking a sweat. She will go on to challenge Marco Rubio in November. Rubio a fixture in Florida politics for over 20 years will have a tough race on his hands. However, this is a red state and only getting redder. Governor DeSantis at the top of the ticket should insure Rubio’s re-election.

 

Former governor and now Congressman Charlie Crist came out on top over Nikki Fried in their Democratic primary matchup. He will go on to face Ron DeSantis in the general. At this juncture, Crist is on his own Quixotic journey. It may be time for amiable Charlie to practice law and lobbying.

 

In District 2, Stacey Hetherington beat her dark horse opponent T.J. McGowan handily. Hetherington has been a solid dedicated commissioner throughout her first term. She has grown in the job. McGowan came from nowhere and did not seem to have any accomplishments to point to in his bid for election. The final vote was Hetherington 22,931 to McGowan’s 12,491.

 

Sarah Heard beat Doug Mustapick by less than 5% of the 35,422 votes cast. Mustapick ran an almost flawless campaign. But going up against an iconic legend can be hard. While his mechanics were good, his message was unclear. He seemed to be anti-growth and an environmentalist. If so, how would he be different than Heard?  In this race one need to look where the money came from. The influence of the “Good Old Boys” almost won…message be damned.

 

Jennifer Russell, a newcomer to Martin County and to politics, beat Liz Bernstein with 56.2% of the vote. This was the most political of the non-partisan races. Russell had the endorsement of DeSantis and the PAC money to back her up. Bernstein ran a flawed campaign that did not take adequate advantage of her solid credentials. She was too close to Victoria Defenthaler and the teachers. Russell, even though her children do not attend regular public schools, is a mother and believer in parent involvement at the district level. Just what the voters of Martin County want.

 

In the other school board race, Amy Pritchett defeated incumbent Anthony Anderson by less than 1% of the vote. Anderson, a past teacher in Martin County and brother of the late David Anderson who was a fixture on the school board for over thirty years, was in his first term. Pritchett who is active in the “Moms for Liberty” movement has been involved with the school district for several years. Anderson had the experience but was too closely aligned with the educational establishment for this election’s voters. The nature of the school board will be very different in the future.

 

The continued ½ mill referendum designated mainly to fund a stipend for teachers passed by a two to one margin. I would have thought with the anti-educational fervor, this would have gone down to defeat. I am sure the teachers are very happy with the result.

 

The voters in the City of Stuart rejected incumbent Merritt Matheson for newcomer Chris Collins. Collins is firmly anti- growth. The vote in that race was 51.31% to 48.69%. Incumbent Eula Clarke beat back challenger William Laughlin with 1930 votes to his1687 votes. The open seat was that of Mike Meier who chose not to run. Campbell Rich won over Mark Brechbill by almost 10%.

 

Both Rich and Collins were beneficiaries of a voter backlash to perceived over development. New projects in Stuart will be coming to an end. Developers are already saying the gates are closed. The developers are not wrong.

 

Indiantown elected two newcomers to the council and returned Susan Gibbs Thomas. Both Jackie Clarke and Anthony Dowling were handily defeated in their races for reelection. Carmine Dipaolo won over Dowling by almost 20% of the vote. I would call that a solid drubbing. Clarke was defeated by Angelina Perez by almost 6% of the vote.

 

The electorate was tired of an ever-growing village government. The rub will come if the developers knocking on the door are allowed in. No matter who sits in these seats, the village will have a vastly expanded population moving in. The one person who may have been the biggest loser is Manager Howard Brown. The new majority will not be as accommodating as the last one.

 

This is our special election edition. More on the changes that this election will bring in our newsletter of September 4th.

All Schools Should Be Locally Controlled

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At times, the rhetoric on both sides of the education debate can be disingenuous.

 

Florida has embarked on a path that, if taken to its logical conclusion, will result in a school voucher system which is something I believe in. Competition is good in providing the best product for the least amount of money.

 

Unfortunately, the school unions and administrators have not embraced the concept. They believe that only professionals should guide the education of our children. That has given us in Florida and nationally some of the most uneducated students in the world for the most dollars spent.

 

If the state were to truly devolve education from districts to individual schools, teachers and principals would have greater freedom to institute and try different programs. Parents would choose their children’s schools based on what they felt was important. This would require that the state stop mandating as much of what they do today.

 

Tallahassee would set the millage for local real estate taxes as they do now including the local amount. It would be collected by the counties and then remitted to the state. The state would distribute the tax money in the form of a voucher for each child.

 

Their entire role in education would be to set minimum standards for teachers and schools and then stay out of the way. Would this mean the end of local public schools? I don’t believe so. What it would mean is an end to the billions of dollars that districts siphon from schools for the bureaucracy’s support.

 

Transportation and other district-wide operations such as buses would be turned over to voluntary consortiums funded by the schools if they participated. I would also remove the mandatory security that is now required and leave it up to the school to decide the level needed if any.

 

One of the few mandatory rules I would have the state enforce would be every school must have a governing board that is composed of parents of the students attending. They would be the ones that choose the principal and oversee the curriculum. This would mean real choice and not what passes for it in many instances today.

 

Tallahassee would have to be disciplined enough to not intrude in education except for enforcing those minimum standards and making sure that the money was not being syphoned off by the boards and principals. Are schools and teachers any different than other professions that they should be more closely monitored? I don’t believe they are.

 

Teachers will be able to be paid commensurate with their skills just like professionals are in other sectors of the economy with schools now being more market driven. Instead of inflexible rules, teachers would bargain not only for pay and benefits but for the ability to determine the best way of instructing their students.

 

There are far too many outdated concepts that have not allowed our students to prosper. Stop playing politics with our kids.

 

We don’t need curriculum mandates from the capitol. We don’t need state bureaucrats telling individual schools what not to include as part of their material or what books to have in their libraries. Let the parents and teachers in every individual school decide. We keep hearing about freedom, but what we really have are too many politicians and bureaucrats making decision for parents and children.

CONTINUED NO WILL BRING A BIG FAT YES

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Within the next dozen years, Martin County will have thousands of units being built.

 

While Smith, Heard, and increasingly Hetherington have lobbed bombs at Stuart for approving new units within an urban area, the county has with great stealth by the commission decided to create one city and probably a second. I am not speaking about Atlantic Fields or Three Lakes Golf Course. In my opinion, projects like those will save hundreds of acres of open land from development. Sure, the roll out of the “Rural Lifestyle” use was botched but that is imminently fixable.

Florida scrub habitat in early springtime at Lake Kissimmee State Park in Lake Wales.

Kiplinger’s Newfield will be a new urban center in Palm City. If it is developed as the now plan suggests, it will eventually have the same population as Stuart currently has. I support it because it is creating mixed use and mixed income housing and jobs within walkable neighborhoods. Not to mention all the open land that will be incorporated into the “town.”

 

Indiantown is open for business and the sprawl will occur there. The South Florida cookie cutter homes with every family having a car, truck, (and probably several) will happen. Residents that need to go for a quart of milk, be prepared to hop into your car to travel to the new Publix that will be built in a shopping plaza with hundreds of empty parking spaces. Schools, fire/rescue stations, and more will need to be constructed to support the population.

 

You doubt that Indiantown is becoming known as the next South Florida land development grab. Ask a hedge fund based in West Palm, Miami, or even New York, and they will have heard about the village. Acres that are not even in Indiantown will be annexed in to accommodate the Divostas and Pultes.

 

The reason the village was incorporated was because the county commission said no to everything from industrial to new homes. Instead of smart development we are likely to get what was feared…any development. See what I mean when a continued no ends up as an unqualified yes.

 

Could that new motor track we heard about be on county land? Maybe Lakepoint will morph into a track from the current mining operation. Perhaps King Ranch’s or Becker’s lands will be ripe for the track and the ancillary uses such as hotels, fast food joints, and gas stations.

 

The biggest unknown could be Harmony. That is still a ticking timebomb waiting to go off. The “Rural Lifestyle” could have helped prevent the thousands of homes that may come out of the ground there. While Newfield is an integrated community, Harmony will be a classic 1950s sprawl development.

 

The mishandling of the new land classification could have been easily prevented. Instead of relying on elites such as the Guardians to sell it, the county should have mounted their own dog and pony show and travelled near and far to explain what “Rural Lifestyle” was and wasn’t. While the supposed movers and shakers usually still win, the people are gaining ground on the good old boys whether moneyed environmentalists or developers.

 

Lastly, with the mood of the governor and legislators to keep Florida growing, there is no way they will allow a local government to stop the flow of new residents into the state. Florida’s entire way of life needs new blood for the economy to prosper. That means the new residents will need a place to call home.

 

A continued response of no from Martin County will have Tallahassee declaring a big yes. That of course will strip away even more home rule.

 

HOUSING IS A CONCERTED EFFORT

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I had heard that the Crossings in Stuart was losing its affordability status. That would have been a serious blow to families in the city.

 

Stuart City Manager David Dyess forwarded to me an email he received from the county’s Housing Program Coordinator clarifying that this was not true. The complex will continue having rent limits based on the adjusted AMI (Adjusted Median Income) until 2044. As the AMI changes so too will the rents. Even with a rising AMI, there are rent caps for tenants.

 

While this is much better than the apartments going to market, using the AMI may still place rents out of the reach of many people. When HUD was active in providing funding for different housing programs, the rent people paid was more tailored to the individual. That of course has all changed with the shrinking of those programs, which has resulted in the crises we see today.

 

Using solely the AMI to determine affordability will leave many renters not able to afford their apartments. The government needs to greatly expand the number of families that would be eligible for HUD’s Section 8 program.

 

Section 8 is a voucher program that allows those eligible to find their own apartment in which to live. The tenant then pays the landlord a pre-determined amount based on their income, and the government sends the landlord/owner the remainder of the rent.

 

This program worked extremely well in the 1980s and 1990s. All properties are eligible to participate. There were gross rent caps on the funding depending on family size. The Section 8 program was instituted at a time when public housing was failing to provide safe housing. The program became the perfect public-private partnership.

The federal government has all but given up on housing for people who need help. Homelessness for families is one of the outcomes of greatly reducing this type of aid. Can we really expect a few private owners, even using other government-backed programs, to build all the housing needed? The answer is obvious.

 

There are many problems in Martin County when it comes to affordable, workforce, or attainable housing. Some of the housing shortages for more affluent people can be solved by just building. The more product on the market, the cheaper prices are.

 

Years ago in big cities, unions and manufacturers constructed housing for their members and employees. This was an attempt to provide “wholesome” homes instead of tenement apartments. It was very successful in combatting social as well as economic problems and contributed to a stable workforce.

 

I don’t quite understand why the school board and Cleveland Clinic do not investigate doing something like that. Employees just starting out in their careers could be offered this type of housing first since their earnings are the lowest. More and more employers throughout the country are coming to this realization such as the “Teachers Village” in Newark N.J. and “Sea Pines” in Hilton Head S.C. Employers who want to attract good personnel can also provide rent subsidies as a perc.

 

Progressive has come to mean socialist in our political era. It wasn’t always so…just remember Theodore Roosevelt. Nothing beats the free market for sorting winners and losers. The government needs to be ruthless in not protecting industries or individual companies and enforcing anti-trust laws. However, when it comes to individuals, government has an obligation to provide basic needs…one of which is housing.

 

The question is will we? The answer would require a national effort. It is not anything we can do on the local level alone.

 

What Is The Rush

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The land development approval process has fairly rigid timelines that are set by Florida State Statute.

 

What made me do some research on the subject was a column written by Blake Fontenay in TC Palm regarding Atlantic Fields also known as Discovery. Depending on the type of proceeding that is before the commission, there are definite time frames that must be followed under statute. The county just can’t let things go on indefinitely. In my research I spoke to both the county attorney and the City of Stuart attorney beside reading the statutes cited.

 

How many of us have been involved in a civil lawsuit? The continuances and postponements are legendary. Sometimes, years go by before a court rules or, more likely, a settlement between the parties is reached. It may not be swift justice, but it is due process.

 

I believe that the project in question is a good one. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the Atlantic Fields developers decided they needed a new land use in the comp plan instead of the development plan that was explained to me. Originally, they were going to come in and ask for approval of their PUD as an exception. If that had occurred, two of the commissioners who now oppose the introduction of the “rural lifestyle” use would have probably approved the development.

 

Once the very favorable project became the subject of a new land use introduction, everything changes. Such a change requires more scrutiny and public outreach and education. The new land use would apply to more than just the one project.

 

On the first hearing date in the spring, almost everyone who spoke wanted to receive more information. There were some that were not in favor. At that point most of us wanted to have our questions answered in more detail. It didn’t help that the presentations given by the staff were not meant for civilians that need more basic knowledge and delivered with more enthusiasm.

 

Now the entire thing has been hanging around for far too long. Positions begin to harden. In my experience, the longer it takes to obtain an approval, the more opposition will develop. This is what has happened with Discovery.

 

The agenda for June 21st had three different public hearings regarding this project. The first one asked for approval to create a new future land use designation of rural lifestyle in the comp plan. If that were approved, then the second hearing would allow the Discovery property to be assigned the future land use of rural lifestyle. And then the third hearing would have been to have a PUD agreement and site plan for the property. Each hearing could only happen if, at the hearing before, the commission approved the action.

 

The first postponement was initiated by the BOCC and was tabled to a date uncertain. The second was requested by the applicant to table the three hearings to a date uncertain that the commission voted to approve. There is a 180-day time frame under FS 125.022 for quasi-judicial public hearings which would apply to a hearing for a PUD agreement. It can be extended by mutual agreement.

Comp plan amendments must be approved by the state. Under FS 163.3184, there is a 180-day clock from the time the state comments are received. Martin County received the comments on March 31, 2022. While there can be postponements, the 180-day time frame is not stopped. The clock ticks down to zero on September 27, 2022. The only way the time can be extended is by mutual consent of all affected parties including those who provided comments.

 

Would the commissioners like to have only non-controversial land use changes come before them? Sure, they would. But that isn’t what they signed up for. In my experience, the commissioners are genuinely concerned with what the public is saying. They may even agree with the prevailing view and do not like a project, but they just can’t vote no. They have a responsibility to vote yes if state statute and local ordinances dictate that the developer’s request is within the scope of the statute or ordinance.

 

If at some point this ends up in court, the county will have to prove that it did follow state statute and gave every opportunity to the applicant to be able to make their case. The price of that is sometimes having adjournments or postponements. Property rights are taken very seriously in Florida and a government violates them at some peril.

 

Deliberative consultation with as many residents as possible should be the goal. The notion that things such as this should be rushed ultimately benefits no one. In my opinion, at this point not enough is known about the classification of rural lifestyle to make a good decision.

 

Those that are in favor of the classification would probably find very little development that they would not support. And those who are adamantly opposed are no-growth adherents. Most of us just want more information and outreach. I think Martin County deserves it.

 

That educational responsibility clearly falls on the party that is proposing the change. Until the developer is ready to hire a third-party facilitator that is neutral to go out into various communities and hold informational meetings, this land use change should not move forward.

 

Public comment is important, but even more important is that the public comment be given by a fully informed public. When the public speaks their opinions should be based on facts not supposition. A reasoned argument is more important than a rushed one. Commissioners are more apt to listen.