Hometown Democracy

What is Hometown Democracy? The Florida Hometown Democracy amendment will change the Florida Constitution to require that changes to local government comprehensive plans (and adoption of new plans) be subject to a referendum vote of local voters as the final step in the local approval process. Currently, such votes are only made by county and city commissioners.

Recently I have been working on a regional visioning project which placed a significant amount of power in the hands of the community to make decisions about future development in their communities. Although the agency I was working for provided a quick 1 hour crash course in planning and also provided each table of participants with about 25 GIS layers of information (including infrastructure, future roads, environmental information, floodplains, etc.) I found that more often than not emotion ended up playing a larger role in the decisions of where future development should occur moreso than what seemed like a logical place for increased density.

I believe that the community does have a right to participate in the planning process but I am afraid that if the Hometown Democracy amendment passes then a large constituency of uninformed individuals will be making planning decisions. I would be more apt to using a system where planners are placed in positions where they are held more accountable than they are now for decisions that aren't always in the best interest of the public, which is who we are here to serve.