Friedrich Nietzsche was a 19th century German philosopher.
One of Nietzsche’s ideas was “eternal recurrence,” also known as “eternal return.” The concept, that incidents in life continue to repeat, was proven to be correct by the Stuart Commission when they did not decide what to do for the umpteenth time with the Sailfish Ball Fields. For a decade, the City has been trying to determine whether those fields should be developed. To date, there still is no clear way forward…. only the same outcome of indecision.
Much of the problem seems to be that there is no systematic approach. Government, for all its vaunted keeping of records of past actions or inactions, refuses to ever read and learn from them. Consequently, the past is never studied by either staff or Commissioners to see what transpired earlier. While Nietzsche’s concept of “eternal return” is esoteric, the Spanish-American philosopher, George Santayana said something more apropos: “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
By not knowing what transpired earlier, there cannot be forward movement. At the meetings, the City Attorney attempted to give a history to the Commission, but it was not in prepared remarks and was superficially insufficient. Even the two Commissioners who had sat through discussions in past sessions appeared not to have remembered what was previously discussed and voted upon.
So, once again, there was the specter of Little Leaguers and their parents, the vast majority of whom do not live within the City limits and pay no Stuart taxes, crying about “their” ball fields. I resent the fact that, as a Stuart resident and taxpayer, I must subsidize the recreational pursuits of children that live outside the City. There are hard costs of $85,000 to maintain those fields which are not even under the City government’s control.
It is nice to hear about the past at Sailfish and the “poor” kids from Jensen Beach and Palm City waxing poetic about their baseball. The parents of those children pay taxes, not in Stuart, but to Martin County to provide recreational fields. So, why then, should City of Stuart residents pay for ball fields when only about 10% of the players are residents of the City? For the Commission to continue to allow this is ridiculous and a gross misuse of tax dollars.
The Commission and staff lost sight of the fact that there should have been no discussion about whether to sell those fields or not at the meeting. That decision was already a foregone conclusion, or so it would appear to any business person when the Commission decided to put out an RFP for developers to build there. Both the development applicants have spent considerable time and thousands of dollars to put these proposals together. Should that effort and expense be treated in such a cavalier fashion? I don’t think so.
Staff had an obligation to lay out a coherent vision of what was to be achieved by the Commission that night. If they had done so, then the Commission would have had the obligation to check the boxes outlined. Instead, the entire matter devolved into a morass of indecision. There were no rhyme or reason about how to proceed. The Commission concluded to once again make no decision.
Before this moves forward again, certain questions need to be answered. The first is whether the Stuart Parks and Recreation Department will provide recreational programs. Presently, besides the after school and summer camp program, programs are de minimis. In my mind, both are needed and should continue but so should sports, both organized and ad hoc.
Currently the role of organized baseball is filled by Martin North Little League and their sub-programs. According to the information provided by them to the City, there are currently 20 City of Stuart children enrolled in their league out of the 192 kids in total. Stuart tax payers are subsidizing the fields to the tune of $85,000, or $4,250.00 per Stuart kid. That is more than half the amount per capita that the School District pays to educate a child.
When I was a youngster there was Little League and Pop Warner football. I had friends and classmates that belonged to those programs. Most of us, however, didn’t play in organized sports. We showed up at the park and played ball. There were city recreational staff available to watch our behavior and hand out equipment, but you could just drop by and play ball on an ad hoc basis.
Life is different now. I wonder if kids would come if they knew they could go to 10th Street and be given a football or basketball and be able to play ball. As to organized recreation, there is nothing wrong with our own City staff providing it for Stuart children.
Let’s spend Stuart tax dollars for Stuart kids.
In order to provide organized recreation, the City would need to appropriate some money for the Recreation Center field, as well as for equipment and additional staffing. The staff needs to present to the Commission a modest plan on how to pay for this. It does not need to be grandiose with 4 baseball fields, a soccer field, and a football field. The important thing will be to make sure that there are adequate programs for all Stuart kids to participate.
The Recreation Center is not just for East Stuart but for all of Stuart. It needs to accommodate residents from Bahama Street as well as Manor Drive. A City of Stuart’s size cannot afford to have more than one Recreation Center and 10th Street is it.
The second matter that needs to be addressed is the Public Works Garage. It is not practical to decide about moving Public Works without knowing the cost and, just as importantly, where it is going. Supposition and rough estimates may result in faulty decisions. It should be up to the Public Works Director and City Manager to devise a budget and location before any further thought is given to selling either the current location or the Sailfish Ball Fields.
Third is the question of housing. Staff and the Economic Council gave a masterful presentation of declining City economic projections. The Finance Director provided a very significant statistic. The City of Stuart is still not collecting the amount of ad valorem taxes that it did in 2006. The real estate taxes currently collected by the City of Stuart are only half the amount needed to pay the public safety budget.
The tax bill for a median condo is $266 and single-family home $494. If you count every parcel in the City, 610 parcels pay nothing, 700 parcels pay $100 or less with 3102 parcels paying $500 or less. Yet, the cost per parcel for City services is $700. If, the City were a business, you would not like the trajectory.
Our housing stock is old. There is a useful life determined by both functional, economic, and physical obsolescence. Many of our homes have reached one or more of these forms of obsolescence. A home that is 60 years old but in good condition could be just fine for a resident that moved into the home in 1958 when it was new. That same home, even in good condition, would not be attractive to a 30-year-old because some of the features of that home are no longer functional for today’s families and the improvements needed cannot be economically justified.
There is a dearth of residential properties. From rental stock to owner occupied, there is not enough product. This results in higher prices being charged either to lease or buy in the Stuart market. The only way to solve the problem is to build new housing of every type. At last week’s Commission Meeting, a planner stated that there was a shortage of 4000 units in the City. That may sound high until you factor in the 21,000 people according to a DEO report that commute to the City every day because they either can’t afford to live here or the type of housing they are looking for is not available.
Does that mean that the City needs to make sure that there are units available for under market prices? I would say the answer is yes and no. A city of Stuart’s size does not have the resources or the expertise to provide those subsidies of under market rate housing. What it can do is make product more available by increasing supply through smart development policies.
I hear over and over that the proposed housing is too expensive and that it will fail. What exactly does failure mean? Take the worst-case scenario, which is nothing will be rented for the price needed to pay the mortgages and taxes. Then two things will occur. The bank will foreclose and sell the project to someone else at a reduced amount, and then the rents needed to carry the project will be less. The market will find what is known as equilibrium.
At the same time, if the project is successful from the very beginning and the rental rates are achieved, then pressure is lessened on the existing housing stock. The supply has increased but the demand will remain the same allowing those older units to rent or sell for less. The best thing that can happen to Stuart is to increase supply. In the rental real estate market, a 5% vacancy rate usually equates to equilibrium which means that supply and demand are in sync.
So, should the ball fields be developed? The answer is yes if the above items occur. It is imperative that the City not allow nostalgia or fuzzy thinking to influence what is best for Stuart. If you want to have an economically diverse and generationally friendly place to live and work, you cannot keep the existing quid pro quo.
As to “workforce” or “affordable” housing, I would like to see one example of a city of the size and with the economics of Stuart in the housing business. There aren’t any. You cannot compare Stuart to New York, Miami or even West Palm Beach. Those cities’ size and tax base afford different opportunities.
Here is what I believe can be done. The City administration can put together a pilot program of duplexes in East Stuart with one side owner occupied and the other a rental unit. They can be built on smaller lots. This type of project would encourage home ownership and demonstrate feasibility.
In respect to the ball fields, when the City does an RFQ, it can ask that a limited number of units be kept to 70% of the average medium income. The project needs to be mixed-use in nature. It needs to be open with residential and businesses fronting all streets including Martin Luther King Blvd. This should be planned as an economic generator for East Stuart, not a gentrification project.
There is a way forward, but it must be logical and methodical. The City Manager needs to take steps now. The Commission kicked this down the road for 90 days. That was idiotic. Once the steps that I outlined are taken, then the RFQ process should begin again, but only if the Commission realizes that, once an RFQ is released, the decision has been made to sell those fields. It cannot be taken back. At Monday’s meeting, City Manager Dyess said that the Commission needed to get off the merry-go-round. He was right.
Edmund Burke, an 18th century member of Britain’s Parliament, a philosopher and historian wrote: “When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people”.
It is time the City Commissioners show leadership for the good of the City of Stuart. They were elected to make decisions, not sway in the winds of fickle popular opinion.
