Notes from Seminar: Planning Challenges of the 21st Century - Effective Planning in an Anti-Government Environment

RE-POST FROM MAY 2008

As mentioned, last Friday I took part in the above seminar sponsored by the Palm Beach County Planning Congress, Treasure Coast and Broward Sections of the American Planning Association of Florida and the College of Architecture, Urban and Public Affairs of Florida Atlantic University. It was held in the City of Boca Raton's magnificent public meeting building. See following slide show. Imagine having this space in Lake Worth for our public meetings!

A new requirement went into affect this year by the American Planning Association (APA). Members of APA have long ago been able to achieve certified status by taking an exhaustive test. If passed, you are then a "certified" urban planner - a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). I became certified in 1991 while working for the City of West Palm Beach. The new requirement is that in order to retain your certification, you need to accumulate continuing education credits. We were fortunate that this seminar was approved for 4 credits. You need a total of 32 within a two year period. So we will be having more of these, among many topics, in order to meet the requirements. Notably, Joan Oliva, Executive Director of the Lake Worth CRA and member of the Broward APA section was also on the seminar committee.

Here is the agenda and introductory write-up related to the seminar (excuse my chicken scratchings):




Well, let me tell you this, if you thought we are in deep, we are. In the introduction, we find that the mismatch between wages and housing costs is increasing. We also realize that makes our whole regional economy ore fragile. Many acknowledge that Florida must focus on the high tech sector in order to compete in the 21st Century. But the short term fixes seem to be taking the forefront and not the fundamental long term changes that are needed to attract that sort of labor market. As the introduction says, tax cuts seem to be the answer to every problem.

The speakers unanimously echoed those concerns and sounded alarm bells. One left with a very dim view of the actions and probable outcomes by our elected officials and policy makers of all stripes.

Dr. Jaap Vos, PhD says that the public sector must communicate better. It needs to explain what it does and why. Issues need to be addressed, not just the problem of the day or the need to win the next election. The public sector needs a long term vision and has to get the guts to say "no." He emphasized that we no longer have money to throw at the problem, so we will need the creativity and guts to do things differently.

During the question and answer session, I asked the panel about how we can be proactive as planners to address the boiling discontent amongst supporters of the Hometown Democracy Movement. Dr. Vos gave the best response in citing an example. He talked about a project in Miami's Overtown district and a public hearing attended recently. He recounted how the developer team got 45 minutes, the organized - lawyered opposition got 45 minutes and everyone else in the room got 2 minutes. He said that somehow we have to bridge the divide and make those that feel left out of the process have a voice at the table. Maybe our new medium and the one you are using right now is part of the solution.

Especially depressing was the talk given by Kelly Skidmore, State Representative of District 90. She was very disappointed about the results from the last legislative session, citing big cuts in education ($330 million) and nursing homes ($164 million) as the worst examples. The leadership is adamantly opposed to any attempt to increase revenue - including a proposed $1 per pack tax on cigarettes. With the resulting federal tax benefit in addition to that tax, that would have yielded $1.14 billion. The State of Florida is now #50 in per pupil funding in the United States with the $114 per pupil reduction as a result of the cuts in education. This goes in the wrong direction if we want an educated and educable workforce.

Skidmore declared that a "long term plan for Florida does not exist". Forget about a state income tax, she says. Instead we have a property tax structure that is based upon value of property and not the ability of someone to pay. Eventually, given the skewed income distribution, people will have to move. According to Skidmore, the tax system of this state does not fit the needs of the future and will not support our current needs. She pointed out that the housing slump also dampened the substantial market for household goods which produced markedly lower sales tax revenues. Lastly, she says it is obvious that the leadership is all about "emptying state government offices" - period.

Paul Schofield, AICP, Manager of the Village of Wellington, gave a planner's perceptive, as that is his professional background and only recently assumed the manager position. Do you realize that Wellington's population is 58,500!? Multiply that at least by two to find the number of cars roaming our east/west streets each day. They really have no employment base, but for service industries. He commented that two thirds of the village is essentially a traditional planned unit development and the other third is an equestrian community. According to Schofield, the two do not talk to each other well.

In addressing the needs made real by the passage of Amendment #1, they developed a "business model re-evaluation" of how the Village of Wellington does business. They created a hierarchy of four levels from the cannot-live-without to choice core businesses to quality of life services to add-ons - giving an example of each. By the way, he included planning - especially comprehensive planning - as an essential cannot-live-without service. As a result, over $60 million of their formerly proposed capital improvement projects are eliminated. He said that their budget is done for this year, but the County can't tell them what their tax base is cause the values are still dropping!

The other speaker that I thought had a lot to say and is worth sharing is Dr. Ned Murray, Phd, AICP. He is Associate Director of the Metropolitan Center with Florida International University. His mantra was that sound fiscal policy can only emanate from a sound economic policy. You have to plan for an employment base that produces something to sustain your communities. One of the most important things he said that applies to Lake Worth is that you cannot have so-called sustainable communities without sustainable economies. He cited examples where the entire region is slipping back into a "resort" economy. Those condominium units that start at $500,000 are being bought up by Europeans as second homes - given the weakness of the dollar and the lack of any economic base to support those prices.

In order to get out of this cycle, we have to understand the importance of economic development - but especially industrial development. He said that is one of the more difficult areas in Planning as it takes a lot of patience, but the rewards can be great. He warned about the elimination any land zoned industrial because once it is gone, it's not coming back. He pointed out that almost all of the industrial land in the South Florida region is found 1 mile east or 1 mile west of I-95 - hello Park of Commerce! We also have to focus on conditions that create and enhance the competitive advantage of our local economies. We are all interconnected and have to acknowledge that as it relates to a community's position in the regional economy. Lastly, he said that one answer is mixed-use/transit-oriented development in support of industrial development.

WOW! Great minds think alike - Look at the Lake Worth Road corridor, the charrette that took place last fall and our Park of Commerce.

And two final depressing statistics from Murray: They estimate that each of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties lost at least 5,000 jobs each since the year 2000. Income growth in Palm Beach County over that time on a per capita basis increased by only .86% annually.

As far as the other speakers, they all represented their communities well and communicated their progress in meeting the increasingly complex and dire conditions of local governments. They are doing their homework and their leadership is aware. They are pro-actively attempting to address the challenges that will be faced in the 21st Century.

One last item: Questions from the audience came up concerning how the State is addressing the impact of global warming and all the attendant consequences that may have for the State over the next Century. The panel expressed that only now is some preliminary discussion taking place, but nothing concrete and not very much.

We can only hope for leadership here in Lake Worth that will do its best to meet these challenges.