IN YOUR CORNER

Martin County is designated as one of five Sustainable Communities in Florida. The County has adopted a “vision” of our future, including where land development should take place in the County, through sustainable community workshops. Martin County’s adopted “vision” shows development inside the existing urban services boundaries, and undeveloped green space in agriculture or preserved lands (except for Indiantown) in the middle and west county.

There are many reasons taxpayers should support this future. Compact development is more efficient than suburban sprawl, saving taxpayers higher costs for government services. New residential development at the fringes of suburbia generally does not pay its share for services, so overall cost of government increases faster than population. Obvious effects are more roadway congestion at key intersections, more road construction and maintenance, and increasing demand for urban services further from existing urban centers.

Our Comprehensive Plan allows one residence per 20 acres over the entire county outside the urban service boundary. The real estate market is hot for 20 acre “ranchettes” in Martin County. In 2001 there were 638 ranchettes outside the urban service area covering more than 13,000 acres. The Growth Management Department reports that since then another 486 units on over 7300 acres have either been approved or are in the pipeline for approval. All the agricultural land outside the urban service boundary that our “vision” shows being green is destined for the worst form of suburban sprawl, very low density residential land use, an ecosystem consuming development pattern, all fully consistent with our Comprehensive Plan.

This happened in Palm Beach and Broward counties, where agriculture land was legally divided into smaller acreage parcels and sold to individuals for “rural” equestrian communities. These residents demanded and eventually received urban services from county government. Once the services are extended, and the ranchettes converted from native land to pasture, those closest to the urban fringe were redeveloped into typical suburban subdivisions. The political rationale is these lands are already requiring urban services, but not paying enough taxes, so increased density increases the tax base and tax revenues. This is a pattern of land consumption that we do not want in Martin County, and that most residents falsely assume the Comprehensive Plan protects us from.

It is unrealistic to believe that land development regulations will preserve the overall ecology of central and west Martin County if it is subdivided into private parcels of 20 acres each. A tour of existing ranchette lands, including the new subdivisions, suggests that native uplands and wetlands are not and will not be protected and preserved per the urban rules in a rural ranchette setting.

In 2000, the Taxpayers Association established an ad hoc committee to investigate these issues. We learned that a number of techniques have been successfully used in other locales to deal with the problem of suburban ranchette conversion of the agricultural community. Many of these have been developed by organizations such as the American Farmland Trust, founded to preserve agriculture lands. We reported our findings to the County in a White Paper and requested the County Commission address these issues.