The Miami Herald Editorial

Posted on Thu, Jan. 19, 2006

A better approach to urban planning

OUR OPINION:
REGIONAL COUNCIL HAS SOUND ADVICE ON UDB LINE

Far too often the debate over moving Miami-Dade County's Urban Development Boundary line is cast in the narrow framework of growth vs. the environment. The issue is much more complex. It involves calculating proposed projects' impact on traffic congestion, schools, drinking-water capacity, and park and recreation resources, to name just a few elements of good urban planning. This is why it isn't just environmental activists who oppose expanding the UDB. Soccer moms, business owners, nurses, lawyers, mechanics and others who are fed up with traffic jams and crowded schools oppose moving the line, too.

Busier roadways

The South Florida Regional Planning Council used all the planning components when it evaluated nine applications to move the UDB -- and found all the proposals wanting. Instead of alleviating congestion, as applicants' lawyers argued, some of the projects would further congest western Miami-Dade's already busy roads.
The council, an advisory panel to the state Department of Community Affairs and the governor, says that seven of the projects are inconsistent with local and regional growth-management plans. It approved the other two applications with reluctance and only because this will allow those plans to be readdressed later.
The 19-member council also -- commendably -- gave the thumbs down to a proposed change to the county's planning rules that would greatly expand the amount of open land for single-family home construction. The change was au thored by the Latin Builders Association and the Builders Association of Florida.
The council's thoughtful approach to growth management contrasts with that of the Miami-Dade County Commission. In December, the commission transmitted the applications to the DCA without recommendations despite strong public opposition. The applications, now being analyzed by the DCA, will be returned to the commission for a final vote, most likely in April.

How to pay for services?

The county planning staff recommended against moving the UDB, saying that there is plenty of land inside the line to accommodate growth. Nobody has figured out how the county will pay for the added infrastructure, police officers and firefighters that UDB expansion would create.

The council recognizes what the County Commission majority didn't: None of these projects can be considered in a vacuum. Incrementally, they would add up to a lot more cars on the road and a need for more classrooms, for starters. Previous county commissioners who did not look at the big picture for 20 years created the much-deplored sprawl in Kendall and its environs -- where a lot of those fed-up commuters now live.