South Florida's Gloomy Present, Gloomier Future Part 1 — EATING THE EVERGLADES

          Through the normal course of everyday life each species alters the Earth in ways subtle and profound. Typically, it takes well-trained scientists to document and understand the implications of those modifications. But we don’t need a microscope or a well-designed lab experiment to tell us how the human species has changed the face of the planet in our lifetime. From pole to pole, on land and throughout the oceans, the Earth has been irrevocably altered as we have multiplied and prospered through exploitation of material resources. Until not one square mile on the Earth's surface is unaffected by human occupance.

          I'm not interested in preaching, just in recording reality. The Florida of the Calusa is gone forever. No doubt. As are the Floridas of Hamilton Disston, Henry Flagler, Barron Gift Collier Senior, and Ed Ball. The people of the past changed the land then in ways simple and complex, as we continue to do today. Every central and south Florida resident, every tourist, every visitor increases the environmental burden whether they have permanent residences or are only passing through. They all use precious water and mineral resources. And, more importantly, precious land. They all leave behind solid and liquid wastes, hazardous and toxic materials, polluted water and air, damaged environments, and drastically reduced bio-diversity. It's what we humans do. Typically without thought of consequences inevitable. And all too frequently without an iota of concern.

          One of the people who reviewed this post in an early form is a consulting biologist specializing in tropical and sub-tropical botany. Over a number of years we have worked together on several international assignments. She asked me why I seemed so personally upset over what is happening in Florida. Before I could give her an honest answer I had to think about the question and then engage in more than a little introspection. After that I told her it's because I see the tidal wave.

          Although I've worked nearly 40 years as both an urban/regional and environmental planner, the majority of my assignments have been on urban projects. As an urban planner you start by assessing existing conditions. You determine the various strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats; identify a range of appropriate alternatives; and then look ahead, trying as best as you can to see which of those alternatives will provide the most efficacious future. After suitable iterations of the previous steps you select the preferred alternative. Based on those steps, you then prepare what you think is a realistic plan. Sure, there’s a lot of professional judgment involved. No one can predict the future with certainty, no matter what branch of science or magic you practice. Big surprise.

          But unless conditions change drastically for south Florida, the future everyone should see, if they take the time to look, is an enormous wave of human migration. That assessment is not my biased opinion. Numerous reports prepared by objective observers and professional consultants have reached similar conclusions, especially with regard to population growth in southeast Florida.[1]

          Today five plus million people live on Florida’s southeast coast (Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade Counties). But the problem is by 2035 the population is projected to rise to somewhere around seven and a half million.[2] That's an increase of nearly 1.4 million more people who will be living on the southeast coast. In 23 years. Even more are expected by 2050, despite the financial problems of 2008-2009.

          What does that population increase mean in terms of land? Because land is what it boils down to. Not fragile ecosystems, not periphyton mats, not wood storks, not phosphorus measured in parts per billion, but land. Or simply dirt to the powerbrokers. When you consider population growth in a place like southeast Florida, where developable land is spatially constrained, you must never lose sight of the land dimension because it is the single most critical element in the growth equation.

          If 9,000 square feet is used as an estimate for the average household lot in south Florida, that population increase will chew up in the neighborhood of 95,200 acres in residential units alone, or about 150 square miles, not to mention land needed for the accompanying infrastructure, retail, service, industrial, institutional, healthcare, office, distribution/warehouse, parks/open space, public buildings, and myriad other uses.[3] Keep in mind that that acreage calculation is a conservative estimate that could easily be twice as high. Add in land required for the other land uses mentioned above and we’re pushing more than one hundred thousand acres that would be needed by 2035 to accommodate the predicted growth. And remember, that’s based on a conservative population density per acre estimate.

          Another unsettling thought is that the above population growth and development of southeast Florida could not take place without the type of restoration proposed in the CERP. Since even the Corps of Engineers admits that existing southeast Florida conditions are non-sustainable, without the CERP in place the region would rapidly slide into a state approaching chaos, causing the entire economy to teeter and perhaps to collapse. Therefore, the CERP, or something like it, is an absolutely necessary measure guaranteeing that orderly land development and profit taking continue. Which is the only reason the powerbrokers pushed State and federal politicians so hard to adopt the CERP. It is that projected interaction of the environment with the economy that underlies the vision of the coming tidal wave. In other words, if present population trends continue, the Everglades will be destroyed by the coming tidal wave with or without the CERP or even with a substitute restoration plan that is more environmentally sustainable. So, unless things change in terms of population growth or density controls the Everglades and the Big Cypress are toast no matter what based on anticipated population growth and land demand. A truly sobering idea.

          Okay, but what if the present growth trends don't continue? What about Florida's vaunted Growth Management controls? The ones Jeb Bush was so proud of? Surely they addressed this very problem. Well, here’s a little background. As required by Florida's 1985 Comprehensive Plan and Omnibus Growth Management Act, comprehensive plans adopted by local political jurisdictions are supposed to be reliable blueprints that constitute regulatory guidance as to where and how communities will grow. The sad truth is city and county commissions so routinely amend those supposedly "comprehensive" plans that the State's Comprehensive Plan and Omnibus Growth Management Act has become a joke.

          In a critical way, passage of the Growth Management Act in itself was tacit acknowledgement of the past absolute inability and unwillingness of local Florida governments to control unsustainable growth. In other words, local officials routinely pandered to developers and turned their backs on the well-being of their constituents. Another unexpected shock. As a check and balance to poorly regulated local growth and development, the Act created a State oversight role and assigned it to the Department of Community Affairs (DCA). Supposedly, DCA review and input was meant to ensure that developers, not just taxpayers, would foot some of the infrastructure costs associated with growth, including wider roads, new utilities, municipal services (fire, police, EMS), new schools, and additional parks and recreation areas. But don't forget, we’re talking about a law that would require State government bureaucrats to control developers who are best buds with their bosses, Florida legislators. Fat chance of that happening, even on an accidental basis. Author's Note: Only innocents will be surprised to learn that the Growth Management Act was gutted in June 2011 by Republicans in Florida's Legislature to ensure less regulation of land developers and less State oversight of local planning.

          The kicker is comprehensive plans will not work as designed if they can be changed easily. But, maybe they can’t, Readers might ask. Okay, here's a real world example. In 2003 Palm Beach County recorded 1,364 amendments to its Comprehensive Plan, which is a rate of 114 amendments per month or fifty-seven every other week (usually planning commissions meet twice a month). And that’s exactly the problem we’re talking about. Comprehensive plans, which supposedly reflect the will of the people when they are passed, are being changed willy-nilly by votes of city councils or county commissions to accommodate development that may have been inadvisable under other, more rational circumstances, including being under the spotlight of citizen review.

          Let's be specific about what has happened in the real world of local Florida politics since passage of the Growth Management Act in 1985. As a result of a decade and a half of administration of the Act, Florida leads the nation with more than 470 local governments, each with an approved and generally worthless comprehensive plan. Author's Note: And why do I as a professional urban planner think that those plans are worthless? Because even developer-friendly Audubon of Florida acknowledges the problem when it states that "approximately 90 million housing units are already vested in current comprehensive plans approved by some 460 city and county jurisdictions"[4] throughout the State.

          Okay, multiply those 90 million housing units that would be allowed under approved comprehensive plans times 2.46 people, which is the year 2000 State average household density, and you would get a Florida population of 221.4 million. Think about that number and then consider that in 2011 the entire U.S. population is about 300 million. We’re talking about an estimated 221.4 million people living on 58.6 thousand square miles (which would effectively raise the existing state-wide density of 285 persons per square mile to 3,780 persons per square mile). And that was the State’s Growth Management solution. That's not a vicious joke or a purposeful exaggeration, that’s political reality in the Sunshine State.

          In October 21, 1999, even Steve Seibert, the then Secretary of the Department of Community Affairs (DCA), characterized Florida's State Comprehensive Plan and the Omnibus Growth Management Act as “pabulum that means all things to all people.” According to Seibert, neither the product nor the process worked, and that’s from as slick a government “servant” as has drawn breath. And James Robinson, DCA Assistant Secretary, who had to deal with the Act’s shortcomings on a daily basis stated: “It isn’t the language of the law itself, it is simply that it has been ignored or it has been misinterpreted, or that it has just been applied in such a way that it hasn’t really achieved the legislative intent to begin with.” The result is that growth control in Florida is a myth, a lie, or a very sick joke. Pick any of the above choices and you’ll be right on the money.

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[1] Two examples: South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, An Integrated Plan For South Florida Ecosystem Restoration and Sustainability, Success in the Making; April, 1998. And Allan Wallis and FAU/FIU Joint Center for Environmental and Urban Problems, Imaging the Region Report – South Florida via Indicators and Public Opinion, p. 107; 2001.

[2] Estimate prepared by the South Florida Regional Planning Council. Available online at: http://www.sfrestore.org/documents/success/01.htm and at: http://www.sfrestore.org/documents/success/04.htm

[3] Allan D. Wallis et al., 2001. Imaging the Region Report — South Florida via Indicators and Public Opinion, FAU/FIU Joint Center for Environmental and Urban Problems, p. 107. Author’s Note: that acreage calculation in the text above is predicated on each household consisting of 3.00 persons living on an average lot of 9,000 sq. ft. and does not include streets or rights-of-way, which would add 10-15 percent more land to the end result. According to the Report cited in this footnote, in 1995 there were about 2.4 households per acre in south Florida, averaging 18,150 sq. ft. per household unit. So, the 9,000 sq. ft. estimate used above is intentionally very conservative.

[4] Online source: http://www.audubonofflorida.org/action/2004actionagenda/growth.htm