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Hurchalla: Can Martin County's quality, protective comprehensive plan be saved?
Folks can be excused for paying no attention to local government while we were all trying to keep safe and sane.
But most people came here because they thought Martin County was a good place to live — a place that chose to be different from the rest of South Florida.
That’s because of a comprehensive plan that has strict policies to protect our environment and existing residents and taxpayers. Those policies do not allow commissioners to ignore them whenever they feel like it.
On Nov. 16 four members of the Martin County Commission seem determined to make some drastic changes.
They will tell you nothing is being changed and the only opposition is coming from hysterical no-growthers.
Chapter 2 of the comp plan sets out the overall goals and the important objectives and policies that make it possible to attain those goals.
Those are meaningless promises without specific mandatory policies that actually achieve the goals.
Some county commissioners want to delete all the objectives and policies in chapter 2 except the four-story height limit and the 15-unit-per-acre density limit.
Listening to WHY all these good policies have to be deleted; it sounds like Abbott and Costello in “Who’s on First?"
First, Commissioner Doug Smith explained soberly they have to do this because the state passed a law requiring the county to have a comp plan chapter on private property rights.
Then staff explained the real reason for deleting policies in chapter 2 was they were redundant. They were "addressed" elsewhere in the plan. It would be easier for people to find them scattered through the other 18 chapters than to have them all together up front in chapter 2.
It was just “good housekeeping.”
Then the legal department chimed in and explained that the new state statute DID require removal of the policies in chapter 2. The policies were “problematic” and might result in litigation by developers because they were worded differently and were stricter than policies elsewhere in the plan.
Oops! Who’s on first?
They gave as an example that it was better to delete a stricter policy that required that land use changes to commercial in your residential neighborhood should have “no negative impact.” Instead, the commission could decide if it was “compatible.”
Wouldn’t you rather see the protection up front saying you weren’t going to have the vacant residential land next door rezoned for a gas station if that could have “negative impacts” instead of leaving it to the commission to decide if they thought the rezoning was "compatible?"
Commissioner Ed Ciampi said Commissioner Sarah Heard was a bad colleague for warning people that the chapter 2 deletions would dramatically decrease protections for neighborhoods, environmental resources and taxpayers.
But that is exactly what the deletions do. They remove the objectives and policies that implement the overall goals of the plan, including:
Objective 2.2C: Martin County shall ensure that all official actions of the county support and further a safe, healthy and ecologically balanced St. Lucie River Estuary and Indian River Lagoon, which are natural resources vital to the economy and quality of life of Martin County and the Treasure Coast.
Staff found that “problematic.”
They also found fault with other areas that direct:
Even if you don’t worry about your neighborhood or your environment, you should care about what these changes will do to your taxes and public services.
The four commissioners who voted for the changes want you to believe that nothing bad is happening.
ONLY YOU CAN CHANGE THAT.
Ciampi says he will ignore protests from “the usual” no-growthers.
Watch the video. Call, write and meet with commissioners.
Only if all the people who like living here get personally involved do we have any chance of changing their minds and saving the Martin County Comprehensive Plan.
Defining our vision. Protecting our quality of life.
There has been a great deal of misinformation circulated recently about proposed changes to the Martin County Comprehensive Growth Management Plan (Comp Plan). Here are the facts.
The Comp Plan is not being gutted.
We are not eliminating vital protections. Protections remain in place.
There is no proposal to remove policies from the Comp Plan that have made Martin County what it is today. What is proposed to be removed is the differing language in Chapter 2 added nearly 30 years after the original Comp Plan was adopted.
In 2021, the Florida Legislature passed HB 59 and on June 29, 2021, Governor DeSantis signed into law what is now codified as Section 163.3177, Florida Statutes. This law requires each local government to adopt a property rights element into its comprehensive plan and consider private property rights in local decision-making.
In 2021, the Florida Legislature passed HB 421 and on June 29, 2021, Governor DeSantis signed into law an amendment to the Bert J. Harris, Jr. Private Property Rights Protection Act. The law broadened the definition of “action of a government entity” to include adopting or enforcing any ordinance, resolution, regulation, rule or policy.
On November 16, the Martin County Board of County Commissioners will meet and discuss incorporating the legislatively mandated property rights element into our Comp Plan and changes to Chapters 1 and 2 necessitated by the Legislature’s actions in 2021. This will be the 3rd publicly noticed hearing to discuss these changes. Residents are invited to come to the meeting and participate in this public process.
The Comp Plan was adopted in 1982. It is the long-term plan for Martin County, defining its vision and providing policies protecting our quality of life. The policies in the Plan are what allow us to protect our environment and maintain orderly and balanced growth. Having consistent language throughout the Comp Plan is critical in legally defending those policies and keeping the protections that are so vitally important to every Martin County resident.
When an amendment to the Comp Plan is proposed, especially the addition of a new chapter, staff reviews other chapters of the Plan for consistency with the amendment and for consistency with Florida Statutes. As a result of that review, changes were proposed for Chapter 1 (Preamble) and Chapter 2 (Overall Goals and Definitions.) In that review, staff noted that language from Chapter 2 differed from language in other chapters of the Comp Plan.
The language contained in the current version of Chapter 2 is not what created Martin County’s vision and is not what protects our vision for the future. That language was adopted in 2013 and did not become effective until 2016.
Our intention is, and always will be, to implement sound planning practices that put Martin County in the best position to defend these principles and policies that have defined Martin County’s vision for decades. The addition of the Chapter 19 Property Rights Element brings Martin County into compliance with one of the 2021 changes to state law by the Florida Legislature by including the statement that “private property rights shall be considered in local decision-making.” The amendment to the Bert J. Harris, Jr. Private Property Rights Act expands the ability for property owners to challenge local government land use decisions. These changes by the Legislature send a clear message to each local government about local decision-making.
Considering the added emphasis, the Florida Legislature is placing on property rights, staff recommended removing text from Chapter 2 that may be problematic. Some policies can only be fully understood if the reader knows to look in both Chapter 2 and another chapter of the Comp Plan. Then the reader must interpret which language is the most restrictive. This lack of clarity may result in a challenge asserting that private property rights have not been considered. The lack of clarity weakens the county’s Comp Plan and increases the likelihood of challenges against Martin County’s long-loved protections.
It’s not as simple as just adding the property rights element. We must be vigilant in safeguarding the protections provided in our Comp Plan. We must make it legally defensible. We must protect our taxpayers from costly legal proceedings that could arise. We owe that to our residents.
It seems that the State of Florida, under Ron DeSantis is very pro growth. They are probably also tired of being bogged down with constant lawsuits from property owners. After all, they are the mediators of 67 counties and a multitude more municipalities. They also review all the governing documents, zoning changes and major projects as well. All that adds up to quite a payroll. I imagine a plethora of new tax revenue with a significant cut in expenses would make for a healthy State budget. That would look good for an administration.
Maggie helped write much of the comp plan so it is understandable that she is defending it so vigorously. She was a commissioner for nearly 30 years. She must have seen a thing or two in that time. Still, that sort of bias has to be accounted for.
There was a time when it was difficult to question the anti-growth sentiment in Martin County. Today it is hard not to.
It is the role of politicians and administrators to sidestep issues and paint a rosy picture of the choices they make. You don't change things to keep them the same. Either they are improving the policies of conservation or they are loosening them. It is also the common response of the opposition to spell out disaster. It is no wonder the public doesn't believe what they hear. What assurances do we have that Martin County is being protected? The citizens of Martin appreciate the redundancy in the comp plan. It is a safety net from cunning attorney's that only care about making a buck. After all, we have seen the agenda of the commission. In today's climate, it would prove foolish to trust anything coming out of government. Misinformation is the understatement of the year. We are drowning in a river of it.
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