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Cover Story - Growth Planning
Who's Lesley Blackner?
Meet the woman whose ideas are hated by every business group in Florida.
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'Divine intervention'
Blackner lacks the support of two prominent environmental groups, Audubon of Florida and 1000 Friends of Florida. Blackner suggests both are in the pockets of developers. Both dismiss the aspersion. Charles Pattison, 1000 Friends' president, says the piecemeal referendums envisioned in Blackner's amendment would work against comprehensive solutions, undermine legislative support of the state's growth-control law and lead to NIMBYism on schools, landfills, affordable housing and infrastructure improvements. Every growth decision, he says, would hinge on who has the most money to spend -- usually developers -- and become "a public relations campaign. Who has the best sound bites will probably be the one who gets approved."
"Even if we don't make the '08 ballot, that doesn't mean Hometown Democracy is dead." -- Ross Burnaman
Charles Lee, Audubon's advocacy director, says, "At first blush, this is a really easy petition to sign. I signed it." But Audubon, after lengthy discussions, decided Hometown Democracy raised too many questions without solid answers. For instance, what would prevent cities from bundling objectionable projects with environmentally worthy changes in single up-or-down votes? Audubon also worries that the amendment would channel developers, anxious to avoid a comp-plan referendum, into building projects in areas with already vested development rights, projects that could be environmentally worse and based on dated practices and poor designs. Comp plans in much of rural Florida allow one housing unit per five acres and, says Lee, "the sprawl of ranchettes environmentally is one of the worst land-use patterns you can have."
Blackner does have the backing of some local Audubon chapters, the Florida Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club's Florida chapter and Save the Manatee Club. Her allies also include the strongly anti-immigration Floridians for a Sustainable Population, a Pompano Beach-based group that opposes amnesty for illegal aliens and favors cutting U.S. legal immigration by 75%. Its president, Joyce Tarnow, says Florida's population already is 10 million to 11 million people higher than can be sustained. Hometown Democracy is a tool for curbing overdevelopment, she says.
