Backpage editorial
By Robert M. Weintraub
Stone pillars stand amid barren fields like
monoliths of an ancient culture; iron gates
eerily similar to the those in the opening scene
of “Citizen Kane” lead to — nothing! This is
what meets the eye as one travels across C.R. 210
between the Intracoastal Waterway and
Interstate 95. This is Nocatee. The controversial
“New Town” carved out of 14,000 acres of forest
in northern St. Johns County and southern
Duval County was to have 13,000 residential
units, 30,000 residents, 4 million square feet of
office space, 1 million square feet of retail space,
nine schools, alibraries, fire departments, police
substations, county annexes.
Five years later, Nocatee has 500 houses
huddled in small groupings, in various remote
corners. There is one grocery store and a small
handful of other shops sitting forlornly in the
middle of a large, clear-cut field where
thousands of trees once stood.
Nocatee’s development was controversial,
approved only after a lengthy lawsuit filed by
the Sierra Club resulted in a compromise.
Concerns ranged from environmental
degradation, water conservation, taxes,
schools and traffic. Nocatee was a “leapfrog
development” because it would create a sizable
population in an otherwise rural area.
Nocatee is not a victim of the recession; it is a
cause of it, one of the many unfinished
developments that litter Florida like so much
confetti. Sales began in 2005, two years before
the collapse, but the competition was stiff as
similar communities were being developed and
expanded everywhere: Rivertown, a few miles
away in St. Johns, The Villages in Marion
County, Trinity and Bridgewater in Pasco, Eagle
Creek in Orange, Ordoba Ranch, a few miles
from Tampa, and so many more, most of them
still far from meeting their developers’ dreams.
Travel down Amelia Island’s First Coast
Highway and you pass The Enclave, an
unfinished quadrangle with 20 units standing
where some 100 were planned. Only two homes
are owned by individuals; the other 18 units are
owned by two banks which took over the
property when Summer Beach gave up on the
development, which had promised to be one of
Amelia’s finest.
The former Hampton Lakes in Yulee, where
749 homes were planned in the $600,000 range,
has gone through foreclosure and the developers
who have taken over now plan a quite different
community of $200,000 homes. And the story
goes on, from community to community.
Florida played its full part in the subprime
excesses. It ranked first for mortgage fraud in the
U.S. in three of the past four years. In the fourth
quarter of last year, more than 25 percent of all
mortgages here were behind on at least one
payment; more than a fifth were at least 90 days
behind or already in foreclosure. The effect on
the state’s overall economy has been huge. In the
year to April 2009, Florida’s population fell for
the first time in recent memory, by nearly
57,000; in a normal year, Florida would be
expected to grow by 200,000 to 400,000.
Jobs have evaporated, particularly in
construction, property and finance; the
unemployment rate was 11.7 percent this
summer, about 2 percent higher than the
national average. Florida has an almost two-year
inventory of homes for sale — some 300,000
homes — which has forced resale prices down
by 40 to 50 percent.
Economic growth through residential and
commercial development has ended, probably
forever. This is called a “paradigm shift,” a
change in a fundamental model of events. For
example, the railroad barons thought they were
in the railroad business, not understanding they
were in the transportation business; the advent
of the automobile, buses, trucks and airplanes
ended the railroads’ rule of commerce.
Sean Snaith, an economist at the University
of Central Florida in Orlando, reckons that
Florida’s economy faces “a long and protracted
climb out of a deep hole,” with unemployment
remaining high until 2012. It will be 2014 before
Florida’s payrolls recover to pre-recession levels,
he predicts.
Nationally, economists are saying that at the
country’s current growth rate — 1.5 to 2 percent
— it will take seven years to work off consumers’
and homeowners’ heavy debt load. Not until that
debt load is paid down can we hope to get back
to any normalcy, they say.
Given this depressing outlook, the First
Coast and Florida as a whole must move
away from reliance on residential and
commercial development to keep pace with
the paradigm shift taking place; the old
formula is no longer effective.
But county and state governments fail to
grasp this. County and city commissioners
and their planning boards (dominated by
developers, land speculators and their fellow
travelers) continue their “build, baby, build”
mantra. Some commissions are actually
eliminating impact fees and reducing
permitting costs to stimulate more home
construction in the midst of a housing glut.
Developers — like the old railroad barons —
continue to feel they are kings of economic
growth and reject the cold reality of arithmetic.
They are dinosaurs, and unless state and local
leadership recognizes this and takes appropriate
action, Florida has little chance of economic
recovery any time soon.
Local and state government spending in
Florida went from $93 billion in 2002 to $151
billion in 2008, as government diverted $58
billion a year from the economy.
(Unemployment went from 3.3 percent to 12
percent as a result.) Much of this increase
was necessary to provide services to the new
developments, because they do not pay
for themselves.
It is because of this uncontrolled, unplanned
development, much of it opposed by the public,
that the Florida Hometown Democracy
movement was born. Amendment 4 on this
November’s ballot is the result. Fed up with the
refusal of government to listen to public
concerns and the control of state and local
government by developers and land speculators,
the public is prepared to approve this
amendment to the Florida Constitution that will
give them a vote — veto power — over land-use
changes to the comprehensive plans that all
counties and cities are required to have.
But developers, land speculators and their
government minions — trying desperately to
keep control despite the economic math — are
conducting a $12 million campaign to discredit
Amendment 4 with nonsensical arguments.
One is a gross misrepresentation of the
Florida Supreme Court opinions that approved
Amendment 4 for the ballot. Those opinions
clearly state that only land-use changes to
comprehensive plans will require referenda.
Opponents keep saying all changes will require a
public vote — traffic controls, emergency
evacuation, air and water quality, recreation —
which is nowhere to be found in the court
opinions (floridahometowndemocracy.com).
Another scare tactic is that Amendment 4
will cost jobs. The overdevelopment that crashed
the economy caused the job loss. Housing for
100 million people can be built in Florida right
now without a single land-use change or need
for a referendum, so there are plenty of jobs in
construction and allied industries available … if
there were only home buyers.
But we won’t see much new construction
until the inventory of 300,000 homes is worked
down. Nocatee, Rivertown and other failed
communities will not be able to recover — if
ever — until consumers reduce their debt. This
is the reality of the paradigm shift. Florida must
find new ways to grow its economy.
Since our state and local governments do not
understand the dynamic or causes of this
paradigm shift, the voters will have to take some
control. The answer to “build, baby, build” and a
sick economy is the Hometown Democracy
Amendment, Amendment 4 on the Nov. 2
ballot. It will give citizens a seat at the table on
decisions that affect their neighborhoods, their
communities and their quality of life.
Robert M. Weintraub lives in Nassau County
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