I was hoping after hearing that Charlie had caved in and signed SB 360 in secret that it was really not as bad as we thought. Then I read Howard Troxler's column, and yes, it is just as bad as we thought it was.
From the St. Pete Times and a favorite columnist:
Crist signs growth bill, sells Florida down the riverIn the defining moment of his career Monday, Gov. Charlie Crist sold the state of Florida right down the river. He did it in a gutless fashion, too, waiting until the close of business to send out a brief announcement that he was signing Senate Bill 360.
Look. If you're going to destroy your state to get elected to the U.S. Senate, be proud of it. Do it at a news conference. Surround yourself with bulldozers and smiling developers. Order a cake.
But apparently he couldn't quite fit this one in with all those other bill-signing ceremonies he's been racking up:
The battle for Florida is finished now. It's over.
"Tough noogies" for most of us.
So if you live in a "dense urban area" in Florida — which this law brilliantly defines as more than ONE PERSON PER ACRE …
If you live in any of Florida's biggest counties, including Hillsborough and Pinellas, or in one of more than 200 Florida cities … If you live anywhere that your local government labels as a "community redevelopment area" …
Or even if you have the misfortune of living where somebody wants to build a "job creation project" …
Then tough noogies for you.
This is a terrible law which will make it easier for developers to do whatever they want.
The bill rewrites Florida's 25-year-old growth management law, principally by allowing developers in the most urban counties to add more housing developments without expanding roads and by allowing counties and cities to designate new urban areas that also would be exempt from certain road-building requirements.
..."...
"The new law is designed to make it easier to build new residential housing, even as Florida wallows in a glut of housing caused by the foreclosure crisis.Crist signed the bill in private with no public ceremony. His press office issued a terse news release that attributed no quotations to Crist endorsing the legislation. Florida's growth management act gutted.Yes, Charlie probably had nothing at all to say about that signing. What does a governor say when he just sold his state to developers for a very long time.