The Bradenton Times
Saturday, March 27, 2010

 

TALLAHASSEE- It’s no surprise that the Florida Association of Counties voted yesterday to oppose Florida Hometown Democracy/Amendment 4, a citizen’s reform which will appear on the November ballot.

 

“These are the same politicians who keep changing their community’s master plans over and over to accommodate their land speculator friends,” said Amendment 4 founder Lesley Blackner.

In just two years (2007 to 2009), commissioners around Florida voted to change local plans to allow a staggering amount of overdevelopment -- 520,000 more houses, 1.2 million more people, and 1.3 BILLION more square feet of commercial and office space.*

That’s on top of the ample land that was already approved in local plans for future development – enough to add 80 to 100 million people to today’s population of 18 million.

“There is plenty of land already set aside in local plans for development,” Blackner said. “If a speculator chooses to build outside a community’s already-designated development boundary, we’re saying, let’s vote on it.”

“We’re trying to bring people power into this process,” Blackner said. “Some politicians are threatened by that.”