The Miami Herald

MIAMI-DADE

Reject requests to move the UDB

Posted on Tue, Apr. 22, 2008

By RICHARD GROSSO
richard@evergladeslaw.org

On Thursday, the Miami-Dade County Commission will consider three requests to change its laws and move its urban development boundary (UDB) west into 180 acres of farms and wetlands. The county sent these proposals to the state late last year for information and comments, and the state's report told the county clearly that these proposed changes to its comprehensive plan would violate state law. County planning staff also strongly recommends denial. The commission should deny each of these amendments.

For almost 30 years, the UDB has been the central feature of the county's plan for ensuring that development in the wrong places doesn't require current taxpayers to subsidize fiscally unsound development, doom its important agricultural industry, preclude the crucial restoration of Biscayne Bay and the Everglades, and tip an already diminishing quality of life over the edge.

The reasons are clear:

• The monumental costs to taxpayers to build and maintain infrastructure like schools and roads farther west.

• Billions of dollars in existing infrastructure deficits.

• Already nightmarish traffic.

• The adverse impacts of urban development on farming and Everglades restoration.

• The worst drought in history taxing our water supply.

• An existing housing glut -- the result in no small part of past ill-advised land use decisions.

The county should maintain its current plan and stop the bleeding. It should affirm a long-term commitment to maintaining the urban boundary and heed the finding, in its own recent study, that county taxpayers would save $8 billion if the UDB were maintained until at least 2025.

In 2006, developers and their lobbyists responded to the broad-based Hold The Line coalition with claims of a housing boom that required new land-use approvals. But 10 of 11 proposals to move the line were denied or withdrawn, for many reasons -- virtually all of which are even stronger today, particularly a debilitating housing glut.

The current applications would require taxpayer subsidy of new infrastructure and increase crowding at a time of painful budget cuts that are hitting the neediest the hardest. Some would destroy wetlands; others farmland. Two requests were rejected in prior years. The new promises to help build (but not maintain and staff) roads and schools raise long-term recurring costs and increase the likelihood of even more neighboring developments.

None of these new developments is needed. County planners have documented an existing supply of land to meet projected growth needs for at least 15 years. Maintaining the UDB would increase the chances of a payoff from the county's major investments in community redevelopment areas and modern transit systems. Moving the line would hurt those efforts.

Don't waste public resources

Many other local governments in Florida are moving toward much stricter curbs against sprawl. Coupled with serious problems in housing markets, infrastructure deficits and unfunded backlogs, this is the time for the county to reaffirm its long-term commitment to maintaining the urban boundary.

There is no need, given the current situation, to waste any public resources on the further state-level analysis of these proposals, which would only confirm what everyone already knows: Miami-Dade should maintain the current UDB, save taxpayer money and protect the public interest.

Richard Grosso is general counsel of Everglades Law Center.