President’s Hoot

Planning Growth.

Many of us moved to this beautiful county because of its greenery, ease of traffic flow, business and cultural opportunities, and caring and fine people. However, we are worried that what we moved here for is rapidly and irreversibly disappearing before our eyes. Before it is too late we need time to catch our breath and think clearly. We need to amend the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, increase our impact fees, and update our county tree ordinance, which currently is weaker than the Town of Indian River Shores, the cities of Sebastian, Vero Beach, Tallahassee, and Gainesville as well as Brevard and St. Lucie counties. We appreciate a visioning process so that we can carefully consider what we want for our community. There are reasons to have orderly growth to avoid undue strains on our pocket books and to protect our natural resources. We need to make thoughtful choices about our county’s future.

The reasons why we should consider holding up large site permits for a few months:

1. The choices our planning and zoning and the county commissions make now will have lasting impact on all our futures. If land is paved over, it will be too late.
2. We know that while the county commissioners are reconsidering these factors, some businesses may speed up development to avoid coming into these revised fees, rules and regulations.
3. Big developers have big profits as they build, but do not provide sufficient funds for resulting community growth. Impact fees need to be raised.
4. Outside developers are coming in with big money and they are creating immediate jobs, but when paradise is paved over, those jobs will be taken with them.
5. Founding leaders of this county had great foresight in limiting heights and development so that Indian River County is a wonderful place to live. Let us continue that leadership.

Poor planning is causing the following:

1. Multifamily housing being placed right next to our agricultural lands is harmful by exposing so many people to the noise and chemicals produced by agriculture, and at the same time this may prohibit agriculture from using chemicals to do their job. Then agriculture is lost and even more multi family housing is placed next to agricultural lands.
2. Compact and high-density three units per acre are built directly along our most important river, the St. Sebastian River. County staff is recommending the filling of important tributaries, which should be restored. This goes against the funding that we put into buying buffer preserves to protect the River and money to demuck the Indian River Lagoon and the St. Sebastian River two of our most important waterways, which produce many of our jobs. Their importance to our economy, and their beauty are the reasons we live here.

Concerns about limiting grow for a brief time period:

1. Planned growth can in fact increase tourist and business job opportunities and at higher livable wages. Citrus groves are rapidly being turned into uninteresting cloned developments.
2. The Chamber of Commerce states that 40-50 million dollars will be lost with a moratorium of 6 months. The monies are not lost but will only be delayed so that the people living here who have the jobs will be living in a beautiful place, not just convenience stores, gas stations, and subdivisions with no additional infrastructure or roads for getting to work and providing for proper fire and police protection or education of their children. This long term planning will eventually attract people to come visit and bring in far more millions of dollars.
3. Ginn’s interim growth control measures are not across the board on all construction. Only new projects and then not commercial and industrial complexes, plus all the developments that have already been approved are in the pipeline.

What about jobs?

The Chamber of Commerce, developers, and some realtors feel that the economy is more important than the county’s ecology or our quality of life. They say the economy is now run by construction and that it is jobs, jobs, jobs being fueled by their industry that account for everything we have. Not true- only 10% of jobs in the county. Limited growth control will not cause long-term problems. New developments introduce problems.

1. Housing is a commodity driven, cyclical industry. We have had tremendous housing growth in the last year because of low interest rates, low taxes, and low impact fees, but at some point there will naturally be too many houses, which will result in a slow down, and there will then be layoffs at that point even if there is no moratorium. At that point, it will be difficult to protect even Indian River County people searching for jobs. Out of county and state will be able to go elsewhere, but it will be more difficult for locals to move to other jobs outside of the county.
2. A limited moratorium on development outside the Urban Service Area is already in effect.
3. A limited controlled growth on large developments might even protect local workers on smaller subdivisions.
4. Many of the construction jobs will become maintenance jobs or will be jobs available for additions or modification of houses already built. It is now difficult to get remodeling done, as there are not enough workers.
5. There are still jobs in the pipeline- probably 9 months at least. In some subdivisions it takes at least 9 months to start building a home after the contract has been signed. Thus the impact will not be immediate to local jobs.
6. We do not feel that jobs should be the only reason to hold the county hostage from acting to protect the quality of life and a healthily environment. There is not enough infra structure (schools, police and sheriff deputies, jails, fire stations) to support the present growth.

It is sad that our pioneer families who have contributed so much to our community over the years are now selling their property for what seems like a lot of money to them, while out of county developers make more money for only being here briefly and not contributing to our community. In fact, degrading it. We can have both a strong economy and a strong ecology. It will take some increases in impact fees and amendments to our comprehensive land use plan. Let’s work together as a community on these issues in an efficient manner to make this paradise.

Richard H. Baker, President (March 2004)