State (of Florida) dismantles growth-management laws

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/22/2226826/state-dismantles-growth-management.html

For a generation, a sharp and sometimes controversial line has contained Miami-Dade’s explosive urban growth like a gasket, largely insulating the county’s fragile agricultural hinterlands, surviving wetlands and two national parks from subdivisions and commercial-strip development.

Now the days of holding the line on the Urban Development Boundary — the focus of some of the fiercest local battles over growth and the environment — may be drawing to an end.

Measures approved by the Florida Legislature with little scrutiny or debate in the waning moments of this year’s session would dismantle the state oversight that has acted as the principal brake on repeated efforts by the county commission to breach the line for new development.

The measures, almost sure to be signed by business-friendly Gov. Rick Scott, would significantly water down the state’s 25-year-old growth-management system, giving counties and municipalities far greater freedom to amend the local comprehensive development plans that are meant to control suburban sprawl. The UDB, which runs along the inside of the county’s western and southern edges as well as its southeastern coastal fringe, is a key feature of Miami-Dade’s comp plan. Development outside the line is limited, in most areas, to one dwelling per five acres.

passing laws that harm the environment.

Will the Everglades be impacted by this?

out to be an easy sell, just bring lots of dump trucks with fill-dirt to raise up the elevation where you want the housing to go. You will probably be living on a man-made island. I've seen places in my Central Fla. county (Seminole) where this has actually been done with some success.

Fla. swamp land deals were all the rage back in the 1960's. Just be convincing that global warming is a fantasy and
it's all very lovely to have some natural wetlands in view of your backyard.

The new phrase is "Jurisdictional Wetlands". The swamp land is illegally cleared during the dry season when sold.

In any case, all it takes is an unusually active series of hurricanes and then the new owners will want the Fla. state government to protect their investment somehow (by asking for money from the same political group -- Rethugs who will have enabled the coming disasters in the first place). Obvious conflicts of interest all over the place.

I would hope the insurance industry will not be so stupid.

I haven't met one, single voter that supports this man or admits to voting for him. He is nearly universally despised as far as I can tell. He also seems not to give a shit. #sadstate

nt

If they sell the houses for $35K.