Voters have spoken

[Ozzy]

Maybe there is some hope for cp habitats

Quote[/b] ]Vote limits building in swamp

11/02/04
By PETE SKIBA
Daily Commercial Staff Writer
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GROVELAND

City voters demanded the Green Swamp not become a rooftop jungle in an overwhelming vote to amend the City Charter to limit development in an area the state calls critical to the Floridan aquifer.

A second charter amendment to extend City Council members terms from two years to four years went down to defeat by a vote of 1008 to 451, according to unofficial final results. By a vote of 1067to 407, voters handed developers and a pro-growth City Council a resounding setback to plans to build in the swamp.

The amendment garnered 72 percent of the vote to reduce housing density in the Green Swamp from an average of three dwellings per acre to one house on every five acres. The amendment is retroactive to Feb. 1 and that caused developers to react.

An attorney for the developers, Banyan Construction and Development Inc. and Lanor Land Trust, said the legal battle would continue despite a ruling Oct. 29 that allowed amendment of the ballot.

�I think this grants the residents of the City of Groveland a voice in whether the city expands into the Green Swamp Area of Critical State Concern,� Lake County Citizen Coalition leader Rob Kelly said after the hearing.

The Coalition of Lake County and Groveland residents collected 195 signatures on a petition to place the amendment on the ballot.

The amendment has survived a series of legal challenges. In April the Coalition submitted three proposed city charter changes for a referendum and the City Council fought back. It asked a judge to declare the petitions invalid.

Rather than fight in court the Coalition reached a settlement. It dropped two amendments and the city put the Green Swamp amendment on the ballot.

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http://www.mywebpal.com/news/partners/701/public/news586299.html

 

[herenorthere]

So 100 homes can sprawl across 500 acres instead of only 33.  The same same thing happens everywhere.  It would be better from an ecological perspective if they required 100 homes be clustered on 33 acres with the remaining 467 protected.

Most (all?) of the time these things are passed, a lot of the people voting for a larger minimum lot size aren't as interested in protecting a swamp as they are in demographic issues.  Such as keeping out the unwashed masses and slowing the population growth of school age kids.  That's the view of this skeptic, who hope's he isn't a cynic.