A little more than nothin’ Report
Thank you for reading this a little more than nothin’ report. I was able to get out kayak fly fishing for a few hours on Wednesday! Hooray for me!
I spent some time writing letters to my state legislators this week, something I (and most of you reading this, I suspect) should be doing much more frequently. Here’s why, from the Florida Native Plant Society –
Land development is consuming native plant habitat at an alarming rate. Minimizing the loss of that habitat by controlling where and how development occurs is one of the few tools available to us for conserving native plants and other sensitive natural resources. If you believe the development industry itself appears to be calling most of the shots, you are not mistaken. The Legislature has been progressively eroding the Home Rule authority of our local governments, including the ability to preside over land use decision-making, through “preemption”, whereby they take that authority away from your local elected officials – often at the behest of developers.
The Florida Legislature is considering a series of bills that threaten to end the last remaining vestiges of your local government’s authority to manage growth and development, and with it your ability to have any influence over the future character, livability and environmental health of your community. If you are outraged by the evident absence of any real control over development in Florida – you haven’t seen anything yet!
The three bills summarized below may, collectively, be the knock-out punch that effectively ends meaningful growth management in Florida:
Senate Bill 354 (by McClain) and House Bill 229 (by Melo) entitled Blue Ribbon Projects.
Talk about a misnomer! This would allow anyone who controls a contiguous land area of at least 10,000 acres (more than 15 square miles) to bypass all comprehensive planning, zoning and land use regulations if they agree to reserve 60 percent of the land area for environmental protection, agriculture, recreation and/or utilities development. The entire “reserve area” could be agriculture. Undevelopable wetlands would count as environmental protection. Development rights would be vested for at least 50 years, allowing creation of entire new cities without ANY control by elected officials or input from residents. If this sounds like a bill that developers who have already consolidated ownerships larger than 10,000 acres wrote for themselves, that’s because it is.
SB 686 (by McClain) and HB 691 (by Botana) entitled Agricultural Enclaves
Owners of parcels less than 1,280 acres that have been in agricultural use for at least five years, and that adjoin developed parcels along at least 75 percent of the property line, can apply to the local government to be certified as an Agricultural Enclave. If the certification is approved, the property owner can develop single-family residential housing equivalent to that allowed on adjacent parcels and the local government cannot enact or enforce regulations that are more burdensome than for other comparable uses or densities. For a parcel less than 700 acres in size, only 50 percent of the parcel boundary must be subject to planned development to be certified as an Agricultural Enclave. If any boundary area adjoins an urban service area, the service area is automatically extended to encompass the Enclave. In effect, an Agricultural Enclave is granted development rights equivalent those on adjoining parcels already approved for development without any local government oversight or public comment.
SB 718 (by McClain) entitled Water Management
This legislation would prohibit local governments from adopting any ordinances, regulations or policies related to water quality or quantity, pollution prevention, or wetlands protection and preempt such authority to the state. Meaning local governments could no longer choose to be more protective of their water resources and wetlands than the state. It would also repeal requirements for the water management districts to conduct land management reviews on lands conservation lands they own and manage.
The cumulative impact of these bills would be an expansion of urban sprawl, accelerated loss of agricultural land and wetlands to development, more degradation of water quality, and loss of habitat for native plants and wildlife. We have an opportunity to stop these bills before they advance all the way to a floor vote in either the Senate or House of Representatives.
Phone or email your legislators and tell them:
1. You object specifically to Senate Bills 354 (Blue Ribbon Projects), 686 (Agricultural Enclaves) and 718 (Water Management) when addressing your senator, and House Bills 229 (Blue Ribbon Projects) and 691 (Agricultural Enclaves) when addressing your representative.
2. You object to the legislature’s continuing preemption of local government authority to manage growth and development, and to be more protective on their natural resources than the state.
3. The legislature’s erosion of growth management, and the sprawl it is inducing in Florida’s rural areas, is in direct conflict with their stated objective to support agriculture and maintain our base of agricultural lands. Sprawl = Loss of Agriculture!
Contact information for your legislators can be found at https://www.flsenate.gov/Senators/Find
and https://www.flhouse.gov/FindYourRepresentative . A quick phone call or email at this early stage of the legislative session may help stop these bad bills before they gain any traction. Be sure to identify yourself as a constituent!
Here is one of my letters, verbatim-
Representative Plasencia,
I hope this finds you well.
I am writing to you as a concerned constituent. What am I concerned about? Specifically, I object to almost everything about House Bills 229 (Blue Ribbon Projects) and 691 (Agricultural Enclaves) .
I object to the legislature’s continuing preemption of local government authority to manage growth and development, and to be more protective on their natural resources than the state.
The legislature’s erosion of growth management, and the sprawl it is inducing in Florida’s rural areas, is in direct conflict with their stated objective to support agriculture and maintain our base of agricultural lands. Sprawl = Loss of Agriculture!
These bills will only speed up the continuing paving of Florida. I hope that you will do what you can to prevent these terrible pieces of legislation from becoming law.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
all the best
John Kumiski
If you are a Florida resident, please make time to write and send similar letters to your legislators. Copy mine if you want to! They may side with the developers anyway. If you don’t write, they certainly will!
OK, Fishing!
I was supposed to go with my bride to a meeting on Wednesday morning. They had their wires crossed, and I didn’t have to go! I loaded up the kayak (which was harder that it was just a few weeks ago) and off I went!
At mid-day the boat was lovingly launched into the Indian River Lagoon. The water was lower than it had been, but was still pretty turbid. Paddling was harder than it had been, too. The only time I’ve ever thought paddling was hard was going into winds of 12 knots or more. This day I was in a protected area, and it was like plowing through molasses. As I got warmed up it did get easier, though.
Since it was the warmest day in a while, I thought I’d see happy fish everywhere. The water was cold, and in most places lifeless. I saw exactly two redfish tailing. I had a cast at one, and thought he took the fly, but he was blowing out because the fly landed on top of him.
The birds, on the other hand, were spot on. Lots of green herons and anhingas. Big flocks of glossy ibis, and smaller groups of white ibis. Coots all over! The usual herons and egrets. All of it way awesome, with the nice warm sunshine.
I loaded up at about 3 PM, fairly spent. I would say that while I’m no longer under the influence of that evil virus, I have hardly recovered from it yet as far as regaining what strength I had. Maybe next week….
That’s the little more than nothin’ report. Hopefully I’ll have a “more realer” report next week!
Every day is a blessing. Don’t waste it- Go fishing! Go paddling! Go walking! Stay active!
John Kumiski – https://spottedtail.com
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