Martin County is designated 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” is of a compact developed area along the coast, inside the existing urban services boundaries, and retaining 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, which saves taxpayers money 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 at least one unit per 20 acres over all of the county outside the urban service boundary. The real estate market is hot for 20 acre “ranchettes” in Martin County, with several thousand acres outside the urban service area recently converted to this development pattern, and more in the planning stages. The Growth Management Department reports there are now 638 such ranchettes outside the urban service area, covering more than 13,000 acres. All the agricultural land outside the urban service boundary that our “vision” shows as being kept green may be headed for the worst form of suburban sprawl, a very low density land use and ecosystem consuming development pattern, which is fully consistent with our Comprehensive Plan.

This happened in Palm Beach and Broward counties, where agriculture land was first legally divided into smaller acreage parcels and sold to individuals for “rural” equestrian communities. These residents then demanded and eventually received better services from county government. Once the services are extended, and after the ranchettes are converted from native land to pasture, those closest to the urban fringe were reassembled and developed into typical suburban subdivisions. The political rationale is that these homes are already requiring services but not paying enough taxes, so increased density increases assessed valuation and enhances tax revenues. This is exactly the pattern of land consumption that we do not want in Martin County, and that most residents falsely believe we are protected from.

It is unrealistic to believe that our strict 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.

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 consumption of the agricultural community. Many of these have been developed by organizations such as the American Farmland Trust, founded to preserve agriculture lands.

In the past we in Martin County have generally purchased land within the urban service area outright to prevent development. This technique was used in purchasing the Seawind property (Atlantic Ridge), Seabranch site (south of Cove Road, east of A1A) and the former Spices project in Jensen, among others. We also plan future purchase of significant land outside the urban area, including the Allapattah ranch and Pal Mar lands, among others.

There are some major problems with outright public purchase of vacant land: the land is seldom maintained properly, subject to rapid exotic plant invasions, illegal dumping, and insufficient funding in general. Private persons and entities tend view land management differently than government, and agricultural and conservation interests with control of large acreage are often more effective stewards of land.

Also, outright purchase means the land is removed from the tax rolls, and all of us then pay more taxes. More significantly, the land is generally removed from agriculture production. It is easy to overlook how important farm revenues are to our community economy, but these revenues are multiplied many times over in value because farm products are more like basic industry products than services, and just as worthy of keeping in terms of economic sustainability as new industry is worthy of attracting. The secondary benefits of agriculture in providing open space and wildlife habitat are generally undervalued by most of us.

In Virginia, the local government carefully studied these issues and established that at a minimum, a farm must be 40 acres in size to survive economically, and subsequently down-zoned their agricultural land to that density. The same approach was used in a California county to set the minimum agricultural lot at 60 acres, however, in California the development pressure was so great that an entire rural county north of San Francisco was consumed by subdivisions of 60 acre lots. It remains to be seen whether these lots will be converted to higher densities in the future, and what the consequences to taxpayers are.

In New Jersey, large areas of the “Pine Barrens” were condemned and purchased by the state. This is a rather strong measure, and not one we advocate, but may be applicable under some circumstances.

Maryland has used conservation easements and purchase of development rights in critical rural areas to reduce the threat of over development. These are both successful and proven techniques, though limited to willing sellers and available funding.

Proposals such as transfer of development rights (TDR’s) in which a private market is established to sell units from agricultural or environmentally sensitive land to urban infill locations have been touted by academic theorists, but have not been successful in the real marketplace. Recent attempts to use this approach in Palm Beach County to protect the ag reserve lands do not designate where the transferred units should go, and may be a case of too little too late.

Martin County could raise funds to purchase residential development rights over agricultural lands that now allows one residence per 20 acres. The County could then relocate those units to our Community Redevelopment Areas, and sell them to encourage redevelopment or urban infill housing.

For example, there are about 10,500 more units allowed over 211,000 acres of agriculture in Martin County at 20 acres per unit. Perhaps each unit allowed on a 20 acre lot is “worth” $15000 more than the value of the land for agriculture uses. If so, purchase of all of these units would cost $160,000,000, about ten years of one cent sales tax. The County might sell these units to encourage urban redevelopment in older areas of the county along the coast, and use the proceeds on parks, libraries, bicycle paths, and related improvements to raise the quality of the coastal urban areas and especially the designated Community Redevelopment Areas.

Existing impacts fees and tax rates are less for these 20 acre ranchettes than for homes in the urban services area. The County might adjust these fees and taxes so that this type of sprawl pays for itself, using economic forces rather than regulation to reduce development pressure outside the urban service area. Certainly, the County must evaluate the real cost of providing services to this type of development as part of any program to alter the current Comprehensive Plan with respect to these lands.

Any of these techniques should be evaluated for taxpayer benefits versus cost over time. For example, it may be less expensive in the long run for the County to purchase certain lands outright and lease them back to agriculture interests, even though lease payments would not cover the entire purchase cost, than to let the same land be developed at one unit per 20 acres and then subsidize schools, fire and police services, etc at the suburban fringe.

There are about 58,000 units in the unincorporated County today on residential land, with a maximum planned buildout of 83,000 units. The average residential density inside the urban service area at buildout will be less than one unit per acre, even if all 10,500 units allowed on agriculture land were transferred to residential land. In other words, our overall planned density is very low by any standard.

The taxpayers’ interests are not served by allowing the central and west county to be consumed by the land use patterns presently allowed in our Comprehensive Plan. It is time to recognize this and deal with it intelligently. However, we must improve the Comprehensive Plan, not just outside the urban service area, but inside it as well. The vision of Martin County contained in the Sustainable Community Plan cannot be attained without both protecting green space, and encouraging redevelopment closer to the existing urban service centers.

Within the urban services boundary, County rules do not allow mixed development uses, or the density necessary to support redevelopment and infill. Our development rules encourage low-density gated communities and development patterns that require many car-trips to reach necessary services. The rules discourage redevelopment of old developed areas closer to existing infrastructure. In short, our county development rules are based on and result in suburban sprawl inside the urban service boundary, and should be improved.

Finally, any measures to genuinely protect land outside the urban service boundary must come to grips with the idea that there may be a bright line we do not want to cross with more land development, ever. This may or may not be the existing urban services boundary, but if we accept that the boundary can move, then it will move, and probably again and again. If we determine that there is a final line, we should make it real, and treat the property owners on both sides of the line fairly, and the taxpayers of Martin County fairly.

The future development pattern allowed under the existing Comprehensive Plan, and the consequences for taxpayers, are of great concern to the Martin County Taxpayers Association. We urge our County Commissioners and community leaders to extend our initial research on these issues, as represented in this white paper. There is no point in having a sustainable vision that is precluded by the Comprehensive Plan. A formal planning effort with extensive community involvement is necessary, and it should be begun promptly.