Florida Hometown Democracy is deceptive
VIEWPOINT
By Carol Saviak

A deceptive campaign is underway to strip Florida landowners of their private property rights. A special interest group, Hometown Democracy, Inc., is working to garner support for a Constitutional referendum that it claims will stop unwanted development and redevelopment from occurring in our state.

However, there's something that this proposal's proponents aren't telling citizens: If it's approved, every land owner in Florida will find his or her individual property rights severely compromised.

Under Florida's dysfunctional and overly centralized system of land use planning, property owners who want to use their land in a manner of their choosing can't do so without first obtaining two separate land-use labels approved by state and local government entities.

Owners must obtain a zoning label from their local government. They must also obtain a future land-use label that allows their intended use. The latter label may require not just one but two layers of approvals in a process involving both state and local government entities. This process can take several years and tens of thousands of dollars in attorney's fees to obtain.

Despite these hurdles, thousands of land owners exercise this option every year and are granted labels that will allow them to exercise their inalienable rights to own and use their property as they see fit.

The Hometown Democracy initiative proposes to add even greater costs to the financial and cost-of-time burdens currently imposed upon landowners. This initiative would force all property owners requesting changes in their future land use labels to win popular support via public referendum.

This would essentially turn every Florida land-use decision into a political popularity contest. Popular land uses, such as large homes on multi-acre lots, might be readily approved by a majority of voters, but practical but unpopular uses, such as gas stations, apartments, grocery stores, churches, and any number of other essential services might have little hope of winning a majority of the popular vote.

Much more disturbing to anyone who has read anything about the founding ideals of American government is the fact that this proposed referendum seeks to replace our American system of representative government with a form of direct democracy over property rights.

The authors of the U.S. Constitution designed our representative form of democracy to check government's power and to protect the rights of individuals and minorities from domination by self-interested majorities.

This anti-growth referendum now disguised as a measure aimed "returning power to the people" will have the opposite effect. All Florida landowner will lose their current ability to seek a fair hearing on their land use classifications and instead will be forced to bear the incredible burden of waging a political campaign simply to assert their property rights.

Voters may face a profound ballot question in 2008: Do you want to stop growth in Florida if the price is trading away your own private property rights and destroying the foundation of individual freedom so fortuitously granted by our nation's Founders? Let us hope the answer will be "No!"

Carol Saviak is an adjunct scholar of The James Madison Institute, a non-partisan policy center based in Tallahassee, and is the Executive Director of the Coalition for Property Rights.