Developers, state keep putting cart before horse

Traveling from Tallahassee to Broward County last week, I saw plenty of evidence of Florida's biggest problem: overdevelopment.

The lead story in the Tallahassee Democrat's local section on April 6 outlined a Franklin County Commission decision in the Panhandle. The headline read: "Decision May Lead to 3,450 New Homes."

Farther down the road I bought the same day's Ocala Star Banner. It had an article on the approved proposal to build 4,000 new homes outside of town.

Stopping in Port St. Lucie, the newspaper there was reporting about a project with 70 seven-story condominiums.

When I got to Broward, I drove head-on into one of the rewards of development these other towns will soon reap: traffic.

The problem is that new homes, shopping centers and offices are approved before any adequate roads, schools and utilities are constructed. It's the classic cart before the horse.

Florida currently has a $7 billion backlog in transportation needs and $14 billion in water project needs, according to a state Senate study.

"Our quality of life is threatened by a system of growth management that fails to fund critical public infrastructure to support new development," Gov. Jeb Bush said this week.

Everybody in Broward should agree with him.

Bush wants the state to provide $9.5 billion during the next decade -- $1 billion in cash this year, followed in 2007 with a 10-year bond program. He wants new state laws that would forbid any development unless there was an adequate water supply. He would also require adequate roads and schools within three years of any development.

The Legislature will tinker with Bush's proposal, but the members should work out a plan quickly. Every day an estimated 1,000 people move to Florida. Broward is expected to add 700,000 or so people before 2025, the equivalent of more than four new Fort Lauderdales.

I mention Fort Lauderdale because I know of no other place in Florida where the effects of urban growth are more evident. I think downtown Fort Lauderdale is the poster child for bad planning. Following a script written by developers, city commissioners have closed roads while allowing larger and larger buildings downtown. The area is choking on traffic.

What is the City Commission's answer to the crowded roads?

Rapid transit at some undetermined time in the future, say Commissioners Cindi Hutchinson, Christine Teel, Dean Trantalis and Carlton Moore.

But they argue that Fort Lauderdale needs even more people -- 13,000 new apartments -- to justify rapid transit.

Other cities had a different approach. They planned transportation before growth started crushing their downtowns.

Dallas' enviable rapid transit system and the Miami-Dade Metrorail both were built before substantial numbers of people moved in. Dallas didn't even start its system until voters added one penny to the sales tax and earmarked it for rapid transit.

The prudent move in Fort Lauderdale would be to find a way to move people in and out of the downtown prior to approving 13,000 new apartments. The prudent move would be to figure out where children will go to school, where more electricity will be produced and where the water will come from.

The democratic thing to do would be to ask Fort Lauderdale residents if they embrace the vision of a downtown on steroids before allowing all that new construction.