Under pressure from developers and politicians to “streamline” (i.e. deregulate) growth management in Hillsborough County, a whole slew of changes (mostly deletions) are being proposed to Hillsborough County's Comprehensive Plan.

You can see all the changes online.

Please check carefully the proposed deletions of the environmental protections in the Coastal Management Element (CPA 12-04) and the Conservation and Aquifer Element (CPA 12-05).

Also see the schedule of public hearings for your opportunity for public input.

Planning Commission Hearing:
    Mon. Dec. 12, 5:30, County Center, 18th floor, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd.

County Commission Hearing:
    Thurs., Feb. 2, 2012, County Center, 2nd floor, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd. (Tentative)

For more information, and info on how you can provide input as a citizen or an organization, contact your Planning Commission.

Our Planning Commission reviews development proposals and makes recommendations to our county & city governments about what kind of development to allow where. They help plan how our transportation systems will fit into our communities and whether our natural resources will be protected, or not, as we grow. Several seats are about to open up on this important board.

Hillsborough County Commissioners have been known to fill these seats with their cronies within the development industry — especially if they think no one is watching. (The Planning Commission is currently overweighted with developers.) We need to urge them to appoint Planning Commissioners who will represent the best interests of our whole community — not just developers' interests — as we plan for future growth.

Please urge our County Commissioners to appoint Pamela Jo Hatley to the Planning Commission.

I know Pamela Jo very well. I have consulted her on several planning & zoning issues, and I've admired her in action as she skillfully represented citizen groups & homeowners associations at public hearings regarding planning & land use. I know her to be wise, fair, calm under pressure, skilled in conflict resolution, and eminently well-qualified to represent us on our Planning Commission (see letter below).

We can also count on her to protect the environment from needless bulldozing. She was instrumental in ensuring the protection & preservation of Cone Ranch when she served on the Cone Ranch Citizens' Advisory Panel.

Here's a sample letter to make it easy for you to help support Pamela Jo's application to serve US on our Planning Commission:

____________________________________________________

To Hillsborough County Commissioners:

Al Higginbotham <higginbothama@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Mark Sharpe <sharpem@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Ken Hagan <hagank@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Kevin Beckner <becknerk@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Sandy Murman <murmans@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Victor Crist <cristv@hillsboroughcounty.org>, Les Miller <millerlj@hillsboroughcounty.org>

Subject: Please appoint Pamela Jo Hatley to the Planning Commission

Dear Commissioners,

Please appoint Pamela Jo Hatley to the Planning Commission, as she is eminently well-qualified to represent all Hillsborough County citizens in matters involving planning and land use.

Pamela Jo Hatley is an attorney who practices environmental & land use law, and who is in the process of becoming certified in alternative dispute resolution. As a Ph.D. student at USF she studied urban planning theory & history, and she taught a growth management course in the urban & regional planning program. Her dissertation is focused on citizen participation in community-based planning in Hillsborough County. She is a member of both the American Planning Association and the Florida Planning & Zoning Association.

A strong advocate for citizens & communities, she is open-minded and fair to all sides. Her education & experience in land use law, together with her training in conflict resolution, would make her an invaluable asset to our Planning Commission. Her appointment would help provide balance and preserve public trust in this board.

Sincerely,
Your name & address

____________________________________________________

Thanks to all who wrote letters opposing the rezoning of sensitive coastal wetlands on Tampa Bay next to E.G. Simmons Park, we've won an early victory!

Heading into a buzz-saw of public opposition, the rezoning request has been changed to a more restrictive category than the category originally applied for. The application has been changed to ASC-1(R) — the "R" means "restricted" — and county staff have added a zoning condition restricting the development to 10 houses. This is now looking a LOT better than the original application for an unrestricted ASC-1 category, which had a density of 1 house per 1 acre across all 170 acres — including the wetlands & mangroves!

Although we knew they couldn't build 170 houses on 1-acre lots on top of the mangroves standing knee-deep in the bay, our main concern was that they (or some future owner) could use those "entitlements" in a future rezoning to cluster 170 units into condos on the beach in this sensitive area. Although they can always come back and ask for more in another zoning, now that the new 10-unit cap has been added on, we have been assured by county planners that this zoning will not make it any easier for the property to become a Little-Harbor style wad of condos on the bay.

While there may be good reasons to oppose even 10 new houses on this delicate site, that much is moot given that the Comprehensive Plan years ago gave this parcel a green light for some residential development, and neither the Planning Commission nor the Environmental Protection Commission, nor any agencies have objected to the proposal.

I'll continue participating in the process, along with Sierra Club & U-CAN, because last-minute changes are fairly common at zoning hearings, and if nobody shows up, that condition for a 10-unit maximum could get scratched off.

If you have anything you'd like to tell the zoning hearing master and/or our commissioners, feel free to come join us. (If you do want to speak, download this packet, note these hearing dates, and be sure to jump through all the Party-of-Record hoops.)

But as long as that 10-unit condition stays on, thanks to all your letters, we really don't need to fill the room for the zoning hearing. We'll keep you posted if the zoning takes a turn for the worse and we need a crowd at the final hearing after all.

Please forward this message to anyone you forwarded the first alert to, in order to keep everyone updated.

Thanks, again, to all who care enough about our community and our environment to help!

UPDATE: Now that Norman has been kicked off the ballot for deceiving the public about a half-million-dollar gift from an influence-seeking local businessman, the Times has rescinded their inane endorsement.

Thanks to Mitch Perry at Creative Loafing for calling out the St. Pete Times on their cynical endorsement of Jim Norman for Florida state Senate. Yes, that Jim Norman and that Jim Norman — the one the FBI is investigating.

As Mitch so aptly puts it:

Are you friggin’ kidding me?

The Times' ridiculous recommendation that we should all actually vote for this puppet to pavers & polluters reduces the credibility of all their endorsements & editorials while handing Norman several new quotes he can use to continue fooling voters. How can the Times not be ashamed when Norman inevitably uses his bulging campaign coffers* to boost his reputation with ads that will scream this crap at us:

ENDORSED BY THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES!
The St. Pete Times says "Norman is ... the only serious choice," and "Norman keeps in touch with voters and understands state and local government."

Oh, and we'll get to see that crap in Norman's next campaign, too (over a tiny 2010 dateline) all the way until the final weeks of that campaign when the Times finally comes out with a new endorsement for... God only knows who.

The Times' recommendation is especially stupid given that it doesn't matter at all who we vote for at this point — with no credible competition, Norman has this race in the bag unless & until he's convicted somehow for the corruption he has so obviously dealt in, consistently and constantly throughout his career. So there is no excuse for the Times not to recommend some sort of protest vote or no-vote, as Mitch suggests, rather than make a laughingstock out of themselves and us voters by recommending that we all hand Norman a ludicrously large percentage of the vote to brag about as though he had won a mandate from both the electorate and this newspaper.

Here's my recommendation: Don't vote for Norman. Don't vote at all in that race.

If just 10% of the voters who cast ballots in this election refuse to vote in that one race, it would be a notable statement of no-confidence in Norman, which would not go unnoticed by other state legislators, and might serve to hamper his power in Tallahassee. It would at least tell our politicians and our newspapers that we cannot be led blindly to vote for the worst sort of political hustler, no matter how much money and media is used against us.

*Sidenote: The money is still, disgustingly, pouring in to Norman's pig-trough, 500 smackers at a pop, from developers, phosphate, and other big-money special interests. See for yourself by searching the state's campaign finance database for "Norman." (Before you submit the search form, choose to sort them by date and be sure to delete the default limit of 500 records returned, so you can see them all.)

UPDATE: We won! See my full report on Creative Loafing's news & politics blog.

The Hillsborough County Commission is trying to allow certain influential landowners to "opt-out" of Community Plans. This would set a dangerous precedent that could allow developers to "opt-out" of ALL Community Plans in the county, as well as all manner of Comprehensive Plan policies. The state Dept. of Community Affairs is objecting to this undermining of the planning process, the county Planning Commission objects, and we citizens should object as well.

You can help:

Contact your county commissioners and ask them to protect the integrity of ALL of our Community Plans by removing the "opt-out" loopholes from the 2 Community Plans they are currently considering for the Seffner-Mango & Brandon areas.

Attend the hearing on Oct. 14, 6:00 pm, 2nd floor County Center, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd., downtown Tampa (see flyer for details).

Commissioners Kevin Beckner & Rose Ferlita have stood firm against the opt-outs (thank them!), but Mark Sharpe, Ken Hagan, Al Higginbotham, Kevin White & Jim Norman have so far voted to allow developers to disregard our Community Plans, so we need to convince them to protect our plans.

More information:

• Flyer calling for citizen attendance at the Public Hearing for the first 2 Community Plans to include the "opt-out" provision, with more detail about the issue from the citizens' perspective.

• The State Dept. of Community Affairs (DCA) objections to the "opt-out" provisions

• St. Pete Times article, "Hillsborough shouldn't allow opt-outs from community plans, state says"

• Tampa Tribune article, "Allowing 'opt outs' hurts county planning, advisers warn"

• Tampa Tribune article, "Activists: Exempting some from growth guidelines is harmful"

1000 Friends of Florida has withdrawn their opposition to Amendment 4. They now realize Florida's growth management system “needs major improvement,” and “Amendment 4 may be the catalyst that is needed to promote positive change.”

Amendment 4 opponents like to raise fears about job loss, but 1000 Friends dismisses that red herring, pointing to the state’s 300,000 to 400,000 vacant houses, along with the 600,000 MORE houses that have been approved just in the last two years (!!!) that can now be built at any time, and the 1 billion square feet of commercial space approved but not yet built.

“1000 Friends certainly understands the need to create construction and other jobs for Floridians,” says Board President Victoria Tschinkel. “But in light of such dramatic existing and proposed overdevelopment, this excess capacity will provide construction and related jobs for Floridians for years to come, whether or not the amendment passes.”

1000 Friends now feels that “the existing system is seriously flawed and change is needed, even if that change is less than perfect.”

Vote YES on Amendment 4 – Florida Hometown Democracy – to protect our communities, our environment and our economy.

Good news! The developer has withdrawn their proposal to build what we've been calling Part 2 of the Wimauma Sprawl Project.

This was a prime example of urban sprawl: 1,500 houses in rural Wimauma (in orange on this map) on Bullfrog Creek wetlands adjacent to the Balm Scrub ELAPP nature preserve, outside the Urban Services Area, in an area where major roads are already failing, with no plans and no money to improve them. Since the County Commission approved the equally horrid Part 1 with 1,010 houses, (in red on this map) we were gearing up for a bigger battle. It may be that after many of you expressed your disappointment with those commissioners who voted FOR Part 1 (only Mark Sharpe and Kevin White voted to deny that part) the developer figured they'd better wait until after the election to try to get Part 2 approved.

Big thanks to all of you who were preparing to go to battle in the public hearings to protect our communities, our roads, our wildlife habitat and our wallets — you can stand down for now. And thanks to everyone who sent letters of opposition — you may well have helped warn them off.

Manasota 88 has a long history of standing up to polluters and protecting Florida's environment. They've posted this billboard off of Interstate 75, at mile marker 182 northbound. They say:

There are two sides to every story. Thus far, the public has only been hearing the industry’s side concerning the safety of phosphate strip mining in Florida.

Get the facts at www.ourphosphaterisk.com

Thanks to all who joined forces to support the South Coast Greenway, today the Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) voted unanimously to:

(1) fully fund all 6 segments of the South Coast Greenway, and

(2) raise the priority of this multi-use paved trail into the top 20% of all projects listed in the 2035 Transportation Plan

This is exactly what was requested by several organizations and many citizens across the county, so let's all thank our representatives for listening to us and responding to our requests.

You can thank the MPO board by e-mailing MPO administrator Linda Ferraro and asking her to forward your message to all the MPO board members: ferrarol@plancom.org (Also see this list of the full board, who all voted in support.)

Please send special thanks to these representatives who led the board to this action:

Mark Sharpe <sharpem@hillsboroughcounty.org> made today's motion, including not only the funding, but also the lift in priority. The funding is important, but raising the priority is critical to getting the Greenway built sooner rather than later. Sharpe recognized our disgraceful position as one of the deadliest spots in America for cyclists & pedestrians, and spoke movingly about having attended the funeral of a well-loved & respected retired Admiral who was killed while riding his bicycle just last week, concluding that we must invest in safe cycling & walking infrastructure.

Rose Ferlita <ferlitar@hillsboroughcounty.org> seconded Sharpe's motion and gave a strong report of the MPO Policy Committee's favorable recommendation on this issue. Ferlita chaired the Policy Committee and lent considerable support to this Greenway which connects Ruskin through Apollo Beach and Gibsonton to Tampa in her district.

Mary Mulhern <mary@marymulhern.com> & Linda Saul-Sena <saulsena@aol.com> were staunch advocates leading both the Policy Committee and the Livable Roadways Committee to recommend full funding for the Greenway. These recommendations carry great weight with the MPO board. Both Mulhern & Saul-Sena did their homework on this issue and worked hard to steer these committees our way.

These citizens helped a lot:

Don Schings, chair of the South Shore Round Table, was a very compelling advocate at the MPO Policy Committee meeting and at today's Public Hearing. Lyn Safien & Vera Chapman brought this issue to the attention of the South Shore Democratic Club, and Lyn was a terrific speaker at the hearing. Alan Snel raised awareness through SWFBUD's "Bicycle Stories" blog and wrote a letter from that group. Bruce Marsh & Dr. Hal Ott talked up the Greenway to MPO Board member Kevin Beckner last Friday when he held office hours in Ruskin.

Thanks to everyone who stood up & spoke up for the Greenway at today's hearing: Don Schings, Lyn Safien, Marcella O'Steen, Mike Fite, Gail Parsons, Pam Clouston, George Niemann, Chip Thomas, Peggy Hannon (& me). Thanks to Mike Peterson (SSRT), Sandy Council (RCDF), Fred Jacobsen (SHED Council) & Allen Witt (HCC) who each wrote letters for their respective organizations; and to Tampa Bay Sierra Club for posting the item in their newsletter and on their web site.

The support of all these groups made for a very impressive & effective broad-based coalition:

• South Shore Round Table (an alliance of all the chambers & civic organizations of Riverview, Gibsonton, Balm, Wimauma, Sun City Center, Apollo Beach & Ruskin)
• Ruskin Community Development Foundation
• South Hillsborough Economic Development Council
• SWFBUD (South West Florida Bicycle United Dealers)
• Tampa Bay Sierra Club
• Hillsborough Community College South Shore Campus administration
• South Shore Democratic Club

Finally, thanks to everyone who sent an e-mail to the board members supporting this Greenway. It's a great accomplishment to move government to make a change to a $12-billion 25-year Plan like this, and we couldn't have done it without every bit of the help given by everyone.

Two months ago, funding for the South Coast Greenway had been dropped entirely from the 25-year Transportation Plan, and the on-road Bikeways along Shell Point Road & 19th Ave., connecting the Greenway to south county communities, had also slipped off the list of funded projects. Thanks to the efforts of many citizens and groups, those Bikeways were restored as funded projects, and placed very high on the priority list (#46 out of 505), and the South Coast Greenway is now fully funded, and prioritized within the top 20% of all projects!

__________________

Also see WMNF Evening News report with audio & video.

For background, see this previous article on efforts to save the Greenway; and this one on past efforts to fund the connecting on-road Bikeways.