[chopchop0]

Originally Posted by mango23

Do you have any thoughts on this of your own beyond repeating a paid for advertisement?

I little common sense.

Do you have any thoughts of this on your own besides what a leftist editorial tells you?

I understand FL has a problem with overdevelopment, but this was poorly thought out legislation. There is no funding for it nor a system as to how it would be enforced. The legislation would have been a bit more palatable if a way to pay for it was included in the amendment. A common sense approach would have been a surcharge on any new development projects to fund the initiative.

It's not a suprise that a variety of newpapers in FL have come out against this. In its current form, Amendment 4 was written in la la land and is not based in reality.

Btw, overbuilding didn't lead to FL's problems. Overbuilding was actually a symptom of a broken system with the federal reserve issuing cheap cash combined with fannie mae/freddie mac artificially expanded the secondary market for mortgages. Now with credit markets as tight as they are, developers are in a world of hurt at the moment.

[♥♥PRINC3Ss♥♥]

Yes to 4 & 8

[Swimmom32]

Def no to amendment 8...

[doggiebus]

I voted yes on 4, we have some county commissioners in Miami that would love to move the Urban Land Boundaries further into the Everglades. And right now some of the commissioners are thinking more about their wallet and less about what is right for the environment

Another example, a huge partial of land near a friend of mine was sold from a farmer and bought by a developer. The Developer had the land zoned from Agriculture to Residential without the knowledge of many of the surrounding homeowners. I really hate how things are done, it's like it is almost hush hush don't let the people that live near by now because they will not want this complex in their neighborhood. Of course they had HUD supporters four years ago supporting the switch, but not the actual residents that live around that land. Well now a low income apartment complex is being built near my friend. The neighbors tried to fight it last year yet it was too late. So I voted yes, I want things like this to be on the table, since our commissioners aren't thinking about us.

[beachmouse]

There's a good amount of horse...barn door with Amendment 4, not just from a historical perspective, but also current developers rushing through change requests so that they're in the appropriate queue to not have to go before voters if 4 does pass.

Which has actually been rather interesting if you're been paying attention to what the players have been doing, and what they've been asking the (surprisingly overworked despite no shovels going to ground anytime soon) planning departments to approve. There's a 1,000 acre parcel adjacent to where I work that just went through the process. No plans to do anything with the parcel any time soon, they just wanted it to be easy to make a move on the project somewhere around 2013ish when they've finished up a couple other projects in the area.

The residential density for it is also way, way higher than previous projects- typically 3,000-5,000 square foot lots for this when they've typically done higher developments on at least a third of an acre. I wouldn't be surprised if they went high density residential now even if they aren't 100% sure that's the direction they want to go because if 4passes, it's probably going to be far easier to get a switch from high density to low density residential to pass than to get approval to go from low density to high density.

[chopchop0]

Amendment 4: Florida voters reject "Hometown Democracy" initiative - OrlandoSentinel.com

[Gatornation]

Luckily I live in one of the few places in FL that doesn't have horrible sprawl and urban planning. Good luck for more of the same to the rest of you.

[mango23]

Originally Posted by chopchop0

Do you have any thoughts of this on your own besides what a leftist editorial tells you?

I understand FL has a problem with overdevelopment, but this was poorly thought out legislation. There is no funding for it nor a system as to how it would be enforced. The legislation would have been a bit more palatable if a way to pay for it was included in the amendment. A common sense approach would have been a surcharge on any new development projects to fund the initiative.

It's not a suprise that a variety of newpapers in FL have come out against this. In its current form, Amendment 4 was written in la la land and is not based in reality.

Btw, overbuilding didn't lead to FL's problems. Overbuilding was actually a symptom of a broken system with the federal reserve issuing cheap cash combined with fannie mae/freddie mac artificially expanded the secondary market for mortgages. Now with credit markets as tight as they are, developers are in a world of hurt at the moment.

Thank you for the well thought and logical response. Just repeating fear mongering sound bites does no one nay good. You are right, although well intentioned, the amendment was so poorly done as to make it almost imposable to be implement if passed. Builders by the way and I used to be one, are just money whores who will seek money and build regardless of the worthiness of the project. They are in the business of building and as long as the money keeps coming they will build. When it runs out they will move on leaving unfinished jobs as you see all over south Florida now. They don't usually lose money because they work with OPM and when it dries up they move on.

[TB Fla]

Its a good thing 4 didn't pass. I heard the town of St Pete Beach already passed a similar law and it crippled their economy.

[ferret111]

Originally Posted by TB Fla

Its a good thing 4 didn't pass. I heard the town of St Pete Beach already passed a similar law and it crippled their economy.

St. Pete Beach is a bit of a different case. There's no sprawl since the city is built-out. All future developments go up, not out. Condo towers ruin the aesthetic appeal of the beach. Look at Sand Key and some of the Redingtons.