St. Pete Beach Proves Flaws in Amendment 4 Campaign's "Shovel Ready" Claims

One of the claims made by George Niemann, (the Amendment 4 campaign's Hillsbororough County regional coordinator) in his June 3 blogpost "The Sky Won't Fall if Amendment 4 Passes," is that passage of Amendment 4  won't stop new building projects because many projects are already approved and are "shovel ready".

Mr. Niemann writes:

"Amendment 4 won’t stop anyone from building. Florida is “shovel ready” as we speak. It does not require a change in any growth plan to build a building. Current land-use designations already in place allow enough home-building to accommodate another 100+ million people, without ever making another change. More than 1.3 billion-square-feet of additional commercial floor area (13,000 Walmarts) is already approved on our growth plans. Pre-approved land is everywhere. When the market rebounds there’ll be nothing to stop business from building. Amendment 4 will simply assure that building occurs in these pre-approved, appropriate, rational places."

Like many of the claims of the Amendment 4 / Hometown Democracy campaign, this argument seems convincing at first glance, but a careful examination shows that it is jam-packed with inaccuracies.  Florida voters need only look to St. Pete Beach for proof.

First, the argument itself defies logic.  To say that Florida is "shovel ready" is a gross oversimplification of a situation defined as much by the administrative complexity of the Department of Community Affairs's procedures as by the harsh economic realities of Florida's commercial and real estate markets.

In fact, the argument made by Mr. Niemann and other supporters of Amendment 4 / Hometown Democracy is actually two arguments wrapped into one:  1) Amendment 4 won't stop businesses from building, and 2) even if it does, Florida won't suffer because there is already a glut of approved development on the books already.  Unfortunately, both of these arguments are wrong.

While it may be true that  many comprehensive plans have been amended to accommodate proposed development, it is not true that "[i]t does not require a change in any growth plan to build a building" and/or that "[w]hen the market rebounds there'll be nothing to stop business from building."

St. Pete Beach proves both of these statements are wrong.  Like many Florida cities, St. Pete Beach is already fully developed.  Like many Florida cities, St. Pete Beach has both a residential community and a business/commercial community (which, in our case, is based largely on tourism).  And, like many Florida cities, the survival of St. Pete Beach's businesses depends upon their ability to redevelop and adapt to changing demographics and economic circumstances.

Contrary to Mr. Niemann's generalized statements, St. Pete Beach has no swaths of "pre-approved," undeveloped land.  There are no "shovel ready" solutions to the problems facing St. Pete Beach's aging tourism industry.  In St. Pete Beach, like many cities, the path to revitalization (and in many instances, mere survival) of the city lies in RE-development, which often does require modifications to the city's comprehensive plan.  Thus, Amendment 4 does threaten to hinder the revitalization efforts of many Florida cities.

In St. Pete Beach, the successful redevelopment of our hotels to maintain their competitive viability required changes to the city's comprehensive plan.  It was the efforts of the hotel/tourism oriented businesses to redevelop that sparked the conflict that led to the adoption (and later the repeal) of our Amendment 4-style referendum system, as well as the avalanche of costly lawsuits.  

Niemann's argument is flawed because, as one wise man once said, "all politics is LOCAL".  Niemann's "shovel ready" argument sounds good if viewed broadly, but when you look closely you will see that when applied to the actual, real-world facts in small cities like St. Pete Beach, those "shovel ready" arguments simply don't apply, and Amendment 4 does threaten to hinder carefully-designed and fairly-balanced redevelopment efforts.

In fact, the conflict in St. Pete Beach reveals one of the most serious flaws in Amendment 4:  it can actually foster conflict that stymies the comprehensive planning that is critical to the success of any comprehensive plan.  The truth is that while there is a passionate, motivated, highly litigious minority of folks in St. Pete Beach who are vigorously opposed to the height and density increases that were authorized by a vote of the people of St. Pete Beach in 2008, the height and density increases were not indiscriminate or unfettered...they were allowed in a specifically-defined area of the city which was less than a mile long and was already dominated by existing hotels. 

The St. Pete Beach plan was truly comprehensive--it recognized that certain regions of the city were predominately tourism-oriented, other areas were single family residence oriented, and it allowed adjustments and restrictions to height and density accordingly.   Unfortunately, by adopting Hometown Democracy / Amendment 4-style referendum/election requirements, the city of St. Pete Beach opened itself up to lawsuits when the city's anti-growth faction didn't like the allowance for height in the city's hotel district.

St. Pete Beach's anti-development folks are opposed to increases in height and density even in the hotel district--even though height and density remain restricted in the residential districts--and the avenues for citizen veto and litigation created by St. Pete Beach's Amendment 4-style regulations have proven fatally disruptive to the city's legitimate, balanced, well-reasoned efforts to implement a truly comprehensive land use plan in a city that must successfully balance both residential and commercial/tourism interests.

In essence, the city is harmed in two ways:  it's ability to balance competing interests and pass a truly comprehensive development plan is impaired by the referendum/veto, and even if necessary changes are passed by a vote of the people (as was the case in St. Pete Beach), Amendment 4's rules subject cities to the crippling cost of litigation for alleged deficiencies in ballot language when anti-development folks disagree with the will of the people of the city.

So, to summarize, the claims of Niemann and the Amendment 4 campaign that Amendment 4 won't stop building projects and that the alleged profusion of  "shovel ready" projects does not detract from Amendment 4 is wrong because:

1. Many Florida cities are already fully developed and therefore cannot base their revitalization upon alleged "shovel ready" projects that may have been greenlighted elsewhere.
2. The alleged presence of "shovel ready" projects does not negate the fact that Amendment 4 creates impediments to well-balanced, truly comprehensive plans and amendments.

The Amendment 4 campaign's "shovel ready" argument seems is based on the fundamentally flawed premise that "one size fits all" when it comes to the hundreds of comprehensive plans of Florida's cities.  The sad tale of St. Pete Beach is just one example of why this just isn't true.

Click Here to read more analysis of the flaws in Amendment 4, including "Why Comp Plans Should Not Be Put on the Ballot" and "Why Amendment 4 Does Require Special Elections."

Amendment 4 / Hometown Democracy Does Require Special Elections. Exhibit A: St. Pete Beach

Supporters of Amendment 4 / Florida Hometown Democracy have repeatedly claimed that while Amendment 4 requires all comprehensive plans and comp plan changes to be put to a vote at "the next regularly-scheduled election", the proposed Amendment 4 "does not require special elections."

This is not true.

The city of St. Pete Beach, Florida learned this the hard way. In 2006, St. Pete Beach adopted Amendment 4 - style land use regulations that require all comprehensive plans and all comprehensive plan changes to be put on the ballot. St. Pete Beach's regulations and Amendment 4 are functionally identical because both require a referendum vote of the people before approval of all comprehensive plans and comprehensive plan changes.

St. Pete Beach residents soon learned that Amendment 4 - style rules DO require special elections, even though the literal language of such regulations does not appear to require them.

How is this possible?

The answer is simple. If a city's next regularly-scheduled election has no contested candidate races, then, as a result of Amendment 4, the only item that would be placed on the ballot would be the comp plan/amendment.

Ordinarily, if a city has no contested candidate races, the city saves money because it doesn't have to hold an election. Under Amendment 4, if a city has no contested candidate races, but if it does have a comp plan or comp plan amendment, then the city is forced to make a choice: either it refuses to put the comp plan/amendment on the ballot, (thus waiting for the next regularly scheduled election in hopes that there will be a contested candidate race), or the city must hold a special election in which the only item on the ballot is the comp plan/amendment.

St. Pete Beach has learned this is not a remote, rare or unique possibility because it has had no contested candidate races in 2009 and 2010, BOTH of its past TWO "regularly scheduled" elections.  Like most cities, the cost of an election is significant:  in St. Pete Beach an election costs roughly $20,000.  County-wide elections can cost $1.0 million.

If St. Pete Beach had had a comp plan/amendment in late 2008 or early 2009, it would have had to either pay to hold a special election to put it on the ballot, or defer to the next "regularly scheduled" election, hoping that the next election would have a contested candidate race that would require holding an election. If St. Pete Beach had waited until 2010, it would have faced the same problem again, since the 2010 election was also uncontested. Thus, the only way to avoid the continual delays would be for the city to pay to hold the "functional equivalent" of a special election.

Fortunately for St. Pete Beach, we did not have a comp plan/amendment to put on the ballot, but if we did, our Amendment 4-style rules would have forced us to pay to hold a special election. In fact, in March, 2010, St. Pete Beach did hold an election in which the only item on the ballot was a change to the city's community redevelopment plan.

Of course, the alternative to paying to hold a special election is to simply do nothing...to let comp plans/amendments sit, to subject them to continual delay. A cynical observer might well wonder whether this is a result that would actually please the anti-development folks, but I choose not to view this debate through such a tainted lens.

Instead, I simply want all Floridians to realize that they should not take at face value the claims of Amendment 4 supporters who are assuring Floridians that their proposed constitutional amendment will not cause their cities to incur the cost of special elections, because, as St. Pete Beach learned, that claim is simply not true.

Click Here to read more analysis of the flaws in Amendment 4, including "Why Comp Plans Should Not be put on the Ballot" and "Amendment 4 Threatens to Undermined Beach Preservation Efforts in St. Pete Beach."

Urban Planner: How Hometown Democracy Could Hinder Florida's Efforts to Counter Urban Sprawl

In his May 9, 2010 St. Petersburg Times story "Imagining a Less-Driven Florida", Bruce Stephenson critiques what he considers to be one of the core problems in Florida's admittedly flawed system of urban planning and development:  Florida's "60-year love affair with the auto-oriented, single- family-home subdivision."  Mr. Stephenson is one of a number of residents, planners, architects, historians, policymakers and developers who were interviewed for the program "Imagining a New Florida", a documentary produced by the Florida Humanities Council which premiers on Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. on most Florida PBS stations. 

I found this story to be very interesting because Mr. Stephenson argues that the passage of Amendment 4 / Florida Hometown Democracy could actually harm Florida's efforts to reverse the urban sprawl that has had such a negative impact on Florida's economy.  His observations are reinforced by the events that have occurred in St. Pete Beach since the 2006 adoption of the city's own local version of Amendment 4.

According to Stephenson, Florida's recovery depends on making a fundamental shift away its traditional auto-oriented, sprawl-inducing subdivision mentality: 

 "Increasingly baby boomers and millennials, the two largest age cohorts, see their future in "walkable urbanism" rather than "drivable suburbanism." As the percentage of households without children continues to rise, the current "demographic inversion" will intensify, increasing the demand for apartments, condominiums and small-lot homes in neighborhoods where residents can walk to parks, shopping and transit. Add the escalating price of land, water and oil, and it is apparent why real estate values in metropolitan areas with housing and transit options (for example, Portland, Seattle) have fared far better than Florida cities."

This view is in keeping with the new findings expressed in an analysis of 2000 - 2008 census data released today by the Brookings Institute, which found that "America's suburbs are now more likely to be home to minorities, the poor and a rapidly growing older population as many younger, educated whites move to cities for jobs and shorter commutes."  According to the study, the nation's demographics have begun a dramatic shift that will continue though in the coming decades:

"A new image of urban America is in the making," said William H. Frey, a demographer at Brookings who co-wrote the report. "What used to be white flight to the suburbs is turning into 'bright flight' to cities that have become magnets for aspiring young adults who see access to knowledge-based jobs, public transportation and a new city ambiance as an attraction."

Interestingly, the solution proposed by Mr. Stephenson and many other urban planners is an approach that many Floridians find nearly as detestable as urban sprawl, namely, increasing population densities to facilitate improved transportation and citizen connection with the community:

Economist Richard Florida predicts capital will be increasingly attracted to "mega-regions" best suited for global competition: rich in cultural diversity with efficient transportation systems, a range of housing options, healthy ecosystems, and significant research centers. Success will be measured in building more energy-efficient and sustainable communities as the ability to underwrite the far-reaching development pattern of the past 30 years continues to dissipate.

Stephenson goes on to describe how the passage of Amendment 4 / Hometown Democracy could harm Florida's efforts at urban redevelopment:

"Whether it is General Motors or outlying subdivisions, investing in oil-dependent industries is not the future. Good physical planning is step one, but we also need to engender a true "hometown democracy" that is an affirmation of a New Florida and not another round of political infighting. The currently proposed Hometown Democracy Amendment, slated for the November ballot, is not what we need. It represents a citizen revolt, and it came about because the state Legislature failed to lead and envision a sustainable future for Florida. Known as Amendment 4, it would require a public vote on proposed changes to community master plans. Unfortunately there is no accounting for good urbanism in Amendment 4; it is a communal nay, as likely to terminate the reconfiguration of a suburban netherworld into a transit stop as halt a sprawling subdivision. Utilizing limited resources more efficiently will require sharing spaces, places and reinstituting face-to-face relations. The future community — the one we need — cannot be an escape to a Magic Kingdom or arrive by government fiat. It must be vital and authentic, mixing profit with virtue to create what we can rightfully call happiness."

Mr. Stephenson makes an excellent point that is reinforced by the events in St. Pete Beach.   In 2006, the voters of St. Pete Beach adopted a local version of Amendment 4 that required a referendum vote on ALL comprehensive plans and comp plan changes.   The hue and cry raised by proponents of SPB's version of Hometown Democracy was, among other things, the need to create a "People's Vote/Veto" to prevent increases in building height and density.  The density issues in St. Pete Beach focused mainly on hotel height and density, but the citizen activists of SPB seem equally opposed to residential/condo densities as well as hotel densities, and they view the "Veto Power" provided  by Hometown Democracy-style referenda as their best weapon to fight the spread of "high rises" and "condo canyons" in St. Pete Beach.

This raises yet another reason why the Saga of St. Pete Beach is directly relevant to the Hometown Democracy / Amendment 4 debate.   Mr. Stephenson argues (correctly, in my opinion) that the future salvation of Florida's economy and its urban infrastructure is to embark on a determined, deliberate, coordinated program to fundamentally change Florida's entire urban and transportation infrastructure planning process, with the primary focus of these changes being a shift towards centers of INCREASED RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL DENSITY and INCREASED RELIANCE ON PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION in order to reduce urban sprawl, reduce dependence on automobiles and other oil-based transportation modes, and increase the connection of residents/citizens with their communities.  However, in St. Pete Beach, the adoption and use of Hometown Democracy-style referendum votes/veto powers was campaigned as means of PREVENTING INCREASES IN DENSITY.  Thus, it seems to me that St. Pete Beach has proven that the Veto Power of the People can be an obstacle to the kind of comprehensive improvements that Mr. Stephenson advocates, and those obstacles would arise throughout Florida if Amendment 4 passes in November.