Environmental Intersection by George Lindemann

Re the March 7 editorial, Hands off our water: I would like to address a few key points regarding discussions with our partners to find a new site for the Miami-Dade County Fair & Exposition, which currently is located on land adjacent to our Modesto A. Maidique Campus.

Particularly, I’d like to emphasize that FIU has never proposed to move the Urban Development Boundary or pursue incompatible land use outside of it. This university has always been committed to protecting the natural resources of our region. Indeed, our faculty is made up of some of the foremost experts on Everglades restoration and protection. Our sole purpose has been to find an available and agreeable site for relocation of the fair, so that FIU may grow into the 86 acres the fair currently occupies, just south   of FIU’s campus. The Bird Drive Basin site also presents an opportunity to establish a new legacy park for area residents on the rest of the property.

The Bird Drive Basin property, located about six miles west of campus, was originally acquired by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) for the purpose of water management and conservation. As we explored — together with county and fair officials — 16 possible new locations for the fair, we learned that the SFWMD had placed the Bird Drive Basin property on the surplus land list. In November 2011, we began discussions with them about the possibility of relocating the fair to a section of that property.

We look forward to ongoing talks with Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez, county commissioners, state legislators and fair officials as well as a public process to find a win-win resolution that will allow this community’s only public research university to grow, prosper and provide access while preserving the fair and protecting our precious natural resources.

Mark B. Rosenberg,

president, FIU

 

 

Florida may be the Sunshine State but it’s the drinking water in our underground aquifers and wetlands as big as the Everglades — serving as bird and wildlife habitat and helping cleanse rainwater back into aquifers, rivers and lakes — that has enabled millions of people to move to this paradise we call home.

As the Legislature moves at warp speed to end its 60-day session by Friday, three issues crucial to South Florida’s ability to grow responsibly and prosper with sufficient clean water are in play. Legislators should restore funding to water management districts, keep their hands off Miami-Dade County’s urban development boundary and provide land for expansion of Florida International University’s medical school at the current fairgrounds in southwest Miami-Dade without putting into jeopardy environmentally sensitive land now being eyed for new fairgrounds.

Fund water districts

After decades of new developments putting pressure on Florida’s water supply, wise state leaders in the 1970s, led by then-Gov. Reubin Askew, created land planning agencies and five regional water districts based not on political power plays but on the state’s natural watershed areas. In 1976, Florida voters approved giving district boards, appointed by the governor, the authority to raise taxes to buy land and manage the water supply in their area. The districts have been instrumental in ensuring there’s enough water before any new massive developments can pop up, and that floodwaters get directed away from existing homes and businesses.

Then last year the Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott — in the name of “economic development” — stripped the state Department of Community Affairs of most growth planning duties, decimated Everglades restoration projects and gutted regional water districts’ budgets by lowering their tax rates, crippling budgets statewide by $703 million. That sent almost 600 of Florida’s top scientists, engineers, flood managers and planning experts packing. All that pain, and the typical taxpaying property owner saved $20 to $40 a year.

Now there’s a chance to restore the five districts’ tax rate cap, but SB 1986 carries meddling strings that would require water districts to get their budgets, at all stages, approved by the Legislative Budget Commission. Such legislative interference not only diffuses accountability away from the governor’s office, where the buck should stop, but injects another political layer on water use decisions that should be based on science, not on what pricey lobbyists say is right.

Restoring funding is a desperately needed first step in getting water resources back on track. A second step would restore water districts’ ability to pay for projects through the sale of bonds. But budget leaders should butt out of micromanaging water policy.

FIU expansion

An amendment that would force a land swap to help FIU’s medical school expand to land around the current fairgrounds south of the campus sets up a conservation nightmare. The problem isn’t the expansion, but the swap that would turn over 350 acres of wetlands in the Bird Drive Everglades Basin for a new fairgrounds far west. That land was bought by the state to protect wetlands and water recharge areas and prevent flooding. As Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez points out, fast-tracking is not advisable. That land is not the right fit for parking lots and buildings.

Miami-Dade UDB

At least a move by Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, to require only a majority vote by local governments to change long-term growth plans has died. For now. The change would have meant that Miami-Dade’s urban development boundary — which protects taxpayers from willy-nilly growth in the county’s far western fringe near the Everglades — could be changed by a simple majority instead of a super majority commission vote as Miami-Dade now requires.

Stop meddling with local control, legislators.

A short-lived legislative attempt that would have made it easier to move Miami-Dade County’s urban development boundary died Monday morning in the Florida Senate.

The Senate’s rules chairman found that the proposal by Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, a Fort Lauderdale Republican, was out of order because it was not directly related to the legislation she was trying to amend.

Bogdanoff’s amendment would have required a simple majority of the commission to approve any change to the county’s comprehensive development — including any shift to the UDB. Bogdanoff proposed on Friday to add the language to a short bill, HB 4003, repealing an unfunded urban infill grant program.

Bogdanoff’s amendment was not germane to that bill, ruled Sen. John Thrasher, a St. Augustine Republican, saying it “introduces a new, unrelated subject that is not natural and logical.”

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez sent lawmakers a letter Friday opposing Bogdanoff’s effort as an attempt to undermine the county’s unique local powers.

Last week, the mayor proposed requiring an extraordinary supermajority — three-fourths, or 10 of 13 commissioners — to sign off on any changes to the invisible boundary that limits development bordering the Everglades.

The county currently requires a two-thirds majority — nine of 13 commissioners — to approve any change to the UDB.

When she presented her amendment Friday, Bogdanoff argued the few counties and cities that impose supermajority requirements on development trample on property owners’ rights.

A short-lived legislative attempt that would have made it easier to move Miami-Dade County’s urban development boundary died Monday morning in the Florida Senate.

The Senate’s rules chairman found that the proposal by Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, a Fort Lauderdale Republican, was out of order because it was not directly related to the legislation she was trying to amend.

Bogdanoff’s amendment would have required a simple majority of the commission to approve any change to the county’s comprehensive development — including any shift to the UDB. Bogdanoff proposed on Friday to add the language to a short bill, HB 4003, repealing an unfunded urban infill grant program.

Bogdanoff’s amendment was not germane to that bill, ruled Sen. John Thrasher, a St. Augustine Republican, saying it “introduces a new, unrelated subject that is not natural and logical.”

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez sent lawmakers a letter Friday opposing Bogdanoff’s effort as an attempt to undermine the county’s unique local powers.

Last week, the mayor proposed requiring an extraordinary supermajority — three-fourths, or 10 of 13 commissioners — to sign off on any changes to the invisible boundary that limits development bordering the Everglades.

The county currently requires a two-thirds majority — nine of 13 commissioners — to approve any change to the UDB.

When she presented her amendment Friday, Bogdanoff argued the few counties and cities that impose supermajority requirements on development trample on property owners’ rights.

On the heels of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s declaration last week that he will push to strengthen the urban development boundary, a countermove has sprung up in the Florida Legislature that would weaken the county’s protection against urban sprawl on its western and southern fringes.

State Sen. Ellyn Bodganoff, a Fort Lauderdale Republican, put forth an amendment to a House bill on Friday that would make it easier to shift the UDB by requiring a simple majority of the commission to approve any change to the county’s comprehensive plan, which guides development.

But Gimenez protested, calling the move an attempt to undermine the county’s unique local powers.

On Tuesday, at his first state-of-the-county address, the mayor said he would work to bolster the UDB by pushing to incorporate into the county charter a requirement that an extraordinary supermajority — three-fourths, or 10 of 13 commissioners — sign off on any changes to the invisible boundary that limits development bordering the Everglades.

The county currently requires a two-thirds majority — nine of 13 commissioners — to approve any change to the UDB.

Gimenez sent a letter Friday to each member of the Miami-Dade legislative delegation — along with Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, and House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park — blasting the legislative move as an interference with Miami-Dade’s Home Rule Charter. He said it “potentially threatens precious wetlands.”

“They are trying to usurp local authority,” the mayor told The Miami Herald. “It strikes me as funny that soon as my state-of-the-county address calls for strengthening the UDB, this crops up.”

(An incarnation of the amendment surfaced Monday, a day before Gimenez’s speech.)

In the letter, the mayor said denying Miami-Dade residents the ability to require a supermajority vote to amend the UDB would be “denying the people of Miami-Dade County the ability to govern themselves on this issue of local concern.”

EMAILS CIRCULATE

Local environmentalists circulated emails over the weekend urging supporters to call Bogdanoff to oppose her amendment.

The most recent effort to move the UDB came two months ago. Miami-Dade commissioners, acting against the recommendation of county planners, sent the state an application by Ferro Investment Group II to allow business and office development on 9.9 acres designated as agricultural on the southeast corner of Southwest 167th Avenue and 104th Street, outside the UDB.

Ferro Investment’s pro-bono lobbyist is lawyer Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, also a Republican state senator from Miami. Diaz de la Portilla, a former county commissioner, said the project has no relation to Bogdanoff’s amendment.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “The Ferro application has nothing to do with that.”

Diaz de la Portilla noted he helped create Miami-Dade’s community councils to give neighbors a say on proposed development. He also backed requiring that a two-thirds majority of commissioners approve UDB-related applications if they burdened public services. That condition has since been eliminated, he said, adding that he favors Bogdanoff’s amendment to even the playing field for property owners.