The Sarasota County Commissioners will hold a public hearing on Sept. 14 to invite citizens’ input on a proposed charter amendment that would retain the county’s present Comprehensive Plan rural land use on designated rural lands annexed by municipalities.
A recent Herald-Tribune editorial asked four salient questions about the proposed charter amendment and suggested that if they could not be answered “yes,” the County Commission should not put the proposal on the November ballot. I agree.
The first question asked if the County Commission could guarantee that the proposal would withstand a court challenge. The proposed amendment is taken almost verbatim from a recent District Court of Appeals decision which ruled that a charter county, such as Sarasota County, could impose Comprehensive Plan restrictions on annexed rural lands. While there’s no “guarantee” that anyone will prevail in any court of law, this is as close to a guarantee as you get.
The editorial also asked if there is sufficient time to answer the questions of voters. The proposal is quite simple to explain. More complex referenda have been considered by Sarasota County voters, and 60 days was more than sufficient time for all views to be heard.
The third question asked if there is an imminent threat of massive annexations that warranted a quick vote. Threat of imminent annexation is not the issue – the proposal doesn’t prohibit annexations at all. It is solely intended to require coordinating Municipal Comprehensive Plan changes on annexed rural lands, with the county’s ability to pay for additional infrastructure needed by the annexation.
Since 2000 North Port and Venice have annexed and have changed, or soon will change, land use designations from rural to urban on over 21,000 acres, all without coordination with the county. The reason that the county had maintained these lands as rural was because there is not funding available to build the needed infrastructure such as roads, parks, schools, libraries and jails to serve the additional development. Unwilling to wait, anxious developers petitioned the cities for annexation with the promise of greater densities sooner.
“Yes,” there is imminent threat of additional massive land use changes that will destroy environmentally sensitive areas and exacerbate infrastructure deficits.
The final question asked if the county and the cities have exhausted every reasonable effort to coordinate planning and development. The preferred way for governments to coordinate planning is through joint planning agreements. JPAs codify where and when development is to take place, and which government is responsible for building what infrastructure. After many years of good-faith negations by the county, no JPAs have been reached. Next the county filed legal suits and challenges to the state planning agency. What we learned from this experience is that while intergovernmental coordination is preferred, it is not a requirement of law.
We have talked, negotiated, sued, challenged and pleaded for intergovernmental coordination to ensure that roads, schools, parks and libraries are available to meet the needs of rural lands that are converted to suburbs. All of these efforts have failed.
The county is now using the last and only legal means available to require a financially feasible infrastructure plan to meet the needs created by municipal development. “Yes,” not only have we exhausted every reasonable effort to coordinate planning.
Municipal Comprehensive Plan changes on recently annexed lands will eliminate thousands of acres of agricultural and environmentally sensitive lands to build subdivisions and malls. We are already burdened with huge infrastructure deficits without the additional impacts from 65,000 more people who could move into these recently annexed areas. It is not unreasonable to ask taxpayers to consider a rule that requires intergovernmental coordination – their taxes will pay for it if we don’t cooperate.
This proposal is not about power, home rule or slowing growth. It is about coordinating growth with our ability to pay for it, nothing more.
Another Herald-Tribune editorial asked cities how they would change their planning and development policies to preclude the need for the charter amendment. Let me suggest an answer – municipalities would approve no Comprehensive Plan amendments for rural lands without a Joint Planning Agreement with the county.