More On Amendment 4

There is noting like giving the voters some power if you want to bring out the corporations to oppose. A lot of newspapers are coming out with editorials opposing the Amendment, all for the same two reasons: it will be too expensive, and it will cost jobs.

Using the Ballotpedia Amendment 4 page [they have links for the claims made]:

County and city commissioners evaluate comprehensive plan amendments after proposed changes are reviewed by the local planning commission, vetted by the public (via public hearings), receive recommendations from local government planning staff, receive input from seven state agencies and are approved by Florida’s Department of Community Affairs According to state records, in fiscal year 2006, there were 6,406 amendments to local comprehensive plans. If passed, Amendment 4 would require a taxpayer-funded referendum for all such changes.

They have a link to the text of the Amendment on the page so you can read it yourself. It is short and to the point – same process as is currently used, but the last step is a vote by the people, not just the city or county commissioners.

We are told that this will lead to litigation, but the current process leads to litigation, so that doesn’t change. OTOH, judges are a good deal less likely to overrule a referendum than a commission vote, and, in any case, a NO vote simply means that the current plan won’t be altered to accommodate someone, i.e. the law stands as written.

Then we are told it interferes with property rights, but they don’t explain how not changing the law does that. These plans have been in existence for a quarter of a century. Not changing them means that no one’s rights are altered. It is the changes that alter property rights.

Opponents talk like there is going to be a special election every time one of these issues comes up, but the Amendment doesn’t require it. The cost will be printing ballots and the standard legal notices. It may shock opponents, but we have elections all the time in Florida, so there are a lot of ballots to choose from without doing anything special.

In case the opponents haven’t noticed, the building bubble was the proximate cause of our current “unpleasantness”. With or without this amendment, it will be a very long time before there is any significant building going on in Florida. We have thousands of vacant properties, the foreclosure fraud mess has tainted property records, title insurance companies aren’t inclined to issue new policies, banks aren’t lending mortgage money, and a huge chunk of Florida’s work force is unemployed. There are projects all over the state in various stages of construction that developers have just walked away from, and no one is sure who owns them.

Perhaps if it had been more difficult to change the comprehensive plans, we wouldn’t be in a hole this deep, but this amendment might make Florida stop digging and start to climb out. As long as your project corresponds to the comprehensive plan, this Amendment doesn’t affect you in any way. This is about the people who don’t want to follow the rules, but want the rules changed to suit them. Why don’t we try abiding by the laws as if they were laws, and not just suggestions.