Why Florida can’t let go of sprawl
The
suburbs march on
By
Alan Farago Read Spanish Version
From
Counterpunch.org
Some
people are burying their cash in backyards. The wealthiest developers
in Miami are burying their cash in a plan to build a small city in
2014, at the far western frontier of Miami-Dade County edging toward
the Everglades, called Parkland.
Into
the headwind of the biggest crash in housing values since the
Depression, the owners of Parkland are winding their way through
Florida’s planning approval process. To understand how poorly the
public interest is served by Florida’s growth rules, you need
patience and a willingness to follow the worst forms of development
through its initial stages to conclusion.
Today
Parkland is 1,000 acres of farmland outside the Urban Development
Boundary purchased by a group of politically influential developers
at sky high prices during the late stages of the housing market
bubble. Today they are seeking a zoning change to move the urban
growth curb obstructing their development. If they get their way, a
small city of 18,000 residents will grow when the market revives. […]
Of
the Parkland supporters scrounged up to appear at County Hall [last
week], one spoke exactly to why bad development encroaching to
Everglades "restoration" must be stopped. […] "There
is nothing out there." In other words, there was nothing there
before the new suburbs. Now that we are there, with our two cars,
satellite dishes and Mediterranean roof tiles, give us something more
than row crops for neighbors. Not vegetables, or tropical fruit, or
avocado groves; give me parks and schools for my children, and movie
theaters to escape for all of us.
Only
a few miles from Parkland is some of the most egregious examples of
suburban sprawl in the nation. People stuck in cars, in unremitting
traffic, living in flood plains underserved by infrastructure with
mounting fees and taxes, who tend to think that the maladies of
modern life are the inevitable costs of progress — they are not.
They are the function of deliberate decisions socializing the cost
and risk of bad planning in order to maximize the profits of
developers and the entire supply chain of the real estate industry;
from the lowest rung of local zoning to the highest ether of Wall
Street where laying off risk provides an opportunity for wealth
generation through the securitization of debt, including projects
like Parkland and dozens of others.
Parkland
was the big show in the main ring of [last week’s] Planning
Advisory Board (PAB) meeting in downtown Miami. The board is
comprised of political appointees, representing the 13 single member
districts in Miami-Dade County. They are appointed by the county
commission, and in their demeanor and performance represent the
composition of the unreformable majority of the county commission;
whose incumbency and insularity is as guaranteed as AAA rated debt by
Moodys so long as the campaign finance system is dominated by
interests who profit from zoning decisions in farmland — interests,
in other words, like Parkland.
The
PAB is only one step on the way to approval, but an important one
leading to a vote by the full county commission in a few weeks.
By
the time the Parkland proposal was heard, it was nearly one in the
afternoon; most of the assembled crowd at County Hall had been in
their russet movie-style seats since early morning. In one section
you found African Americans supporting the project who had little to
gain or to show for the day but a few dollars and a dinner for
coming. In another section, Hispanic advocates who similarly earned
more than goodwill for their presence. Few had a clue what they were
bearing witness to, neither apparently did the mainstream media in
attendance.
Their
presence was for the public record; for the former, in the eventual
case of lawsuits against the plan, and for the latter — the media —
another chance to miss reporting the origins of the housing debacle.
Scattered
throughout, a handful of civic minded and conservationists convinced
— with good reason — that putting 18,000 more residents in the
position to demand more flood control is another nail in the
Everglades coffin, whose nails already weigh in aggregate more than
the coffin itself. None, however, mentioned that 2014 is within one
mortgage cycle of sea level rise predicted for South Florida.
The
public hearing unfolded as an entirely pro forma routine, a charade
of well-rehearsed places. Why should such a predetermined outcome
take hours to complete, when judging from the result, the votes of
the board members could have been as easily submitted scribbled on
post-it-notes right away?
Parkland
is only a few miles from Everglades National Park, the centerpiece of
the largest environmental restoration effort in history. To date $8
billion has been spent on various pieces that may or may not connect
up to anything that looks like a tangible result, depending mostly on
whether big industrial-scale projects like Parkland or a massive
"inland port" planned for western Palm Beach County, take
root in the landscape before anything resembling restoration takes
place.
A
day earlier, at a meeting in Tavernier at the head of the Florida
Keys, a meeting of Everglades agency staffers allowed a reporter to
write, "The first eight years of a two-decade schedule to
restore the Everglades and Florida Bay have produced few tangible
changes, experts acknowledged Tuesday." Not that any of the
Parkland developers have much to boast of [for] their own industry’s
tangible results in the past eight years. […]
Lacking
any other idea how to reclaim their investment, Parkland’s owners are
pushing forward on a wing and a prayer that what doesn’t work in 2008
will rise Phoenix-like in 2014.
The
PAB meeting took hours to complete, with approval assured by the
developers’ lobbyists who watched the proceedings on live video feed
— Ramon Rasco, former organizer of the Homestead Air Force Base
fiasco and chairman of US Century Bank, Sergio Pino, Ed Easton, both
Bush loyalists, and Rodney Barreto, Governor Charlie Crist’s
appointed chair of the Florida Wildlife Commission. All [are] members
of good standing of the Latin Builders Association, the South Florida
Builders Association, the National Association of Homebuilders, the
Chamber of Commerce, and appealing charities.
Parkland
is being called a "green" development. But it is "green"
the way that a chameleon is green in the grass. It is green by
folding its nature to camouflage its real interests. At this point in
our nation’s narrative, being green is a good way to play into the
mainstream without attracting attention to the fact that the very
developers who used politics to inflate the toxic housing bubble in
Florida need another tactic to pump the air back into ether.
County
planning staff — all good and solid professionals — advised the
Planning Advisory Board to deny the project. But the minds of the
appointees had been made up long before the meeting began, never mind
what the professionals had to say in objection. When the public
hearing was closed it was clear that the appointees minds had been
closed long before it even began.
After
all, even if the 18,000 future residents never materialize, or
materialize only in small numbers, someone will need to do their
accounting work, the real estate deeds and titles, someone will need
to lay the water pipe, and if it’s not me — the thinking goes —
then there are always other government agencies whose approval is
more necessary than mine. […]
The
planning board member representing the district in question, Jay
Sosna, offered a motion to "deny and not transmit," that
would have had the effect of shutting down Parkland. Sosna tried to
alert his colleagues on the dais to the burden of congested roadways
in the area, the plight of commuters who spend up to three hours a
day in cars commuting twenty miles to work downtown and back at
night, but his words dropped like a stone in a well.
The
motion to deny and not transmit failed on a count of 7-3. A second
motion, by Al Maloof, to "approve and transmit" was quickly
approved by the same margin. It was over.
The
matter is headed to a public hearing on December 18th at the full
county commission. The outcome is likely to be approval, or the
developers would not be marching forward. The only drama left is
whether the Parkland will emerge with a margin of victory to override
a mayoral veto by Miami Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez.
It
is dispiriting to see how these predetermined outcomes rule the day,
even in the teeth of the worst housing market crash since the
Depression.
The
only frisson during the entire session occurred after the public
hearing had closed when a representative of the planning department
stepped forward to offer an analysis of the alarming rate of
foreclosures in the county. It was a point that several opponents had
emphasized from the speaker’s podium to refute the need for more
housing; hence no need to permit another city closer to the
Everglades. Tens of thousands of foreclosures dot Miami’s urban
landscape, within the Urban Development Boundary. Why build more
until all the available housing is absorbed by the marketplace?
The
developer’s main argument — faulty statistics by county planners in
assessing available housing stock to the year 2018 — is wrecked by
the volume of foreclosures and abandoned homes in Miami Dade. This
moment of reality intruding was more than the Parkland lobbyists
could bear.
You
had to be in the front row to witness what happened when county staff
introduced a matter, off the meticulously planned script for the
proceeding, planned by a dozen highly paid lobbyists, lawyers,
engineers and planners. It was as though an Indian had stepped off
the Reservation.
Suddenly,
the lobbyists began squirming. Jeffrey Bercow, the developer’s lead
lawyer/lobbyist, standing watch at the podium began stiffening in
several directions at once, attracting the attention of his allies on
the dais. The chair of the Planning Advisory Board, compliant to a
fault, quickly shut down the offending voice, cutting him off less
than a minute into his explanation, in mid sentence.
In
the end, not even a Depression could obstruct the approval of more
suburbs edging to the Everglades.
The
end game for Parkland may be predicted by events unfolding in an
administrative law court room, with respect to two 2005 applications
to move the Urban Development Boundary: The county commission
approved, the mayor vetoed, the commission over-rode, the state of
Florida rejected, and in a few weeks those applications are headed to
court and possibly, later, to the 3rd District Court of Appeals where
they would be heard by a panel of judges appointed by the governor.
Here
is the bottom line: the Miami-Dade County Commission is being used as
a cudgel to beat up on the office of the governor, lead today by the
amiable Charlie Crist, and the state planning agency. Notwithstanding
Crist’s eternally sunny disposition, the enmity is the smoldering
remnant of Jeb Bush’s two terms as governor, largely supported by
Miami-Dade’s developers like the owners of Parkland.
But
times changed. The lead corporate partner of Parkland is Lennar
Homes, a shrunken production home builder leading the charge to
Congress, grousing for subsidies and bailouts. Lennar and its private
partners are determined to party on like it was 2005 — with
taxpayers help. It used to be called the free market.
There
is no better argument for Florida Hometown Democracy — a citizen’s
petition initiative to amend the Florida constitution giving voters a
choice and vote on projects like Parkland — than spending a few
hours listening and watching the Kabuki Theater that passes for
growth management in Florida. But the owners of Parkland hear the
drumbeat, and if they have their way –and if bankruptcy doesn’t come
first — Parkland will be on the books and grandfathered before
voters have a chance.
Alan
Farago,
who writes on the environment and politics from Coral Gables,
Florida, and can be reached at alanfarago@yahoo.com.
