The Florida Chamber of Commerce predicts Florida’s population will hit 26 million by 2030, an increase of more than 3.5 million residents. And as the people pour in, so, too, does their money.
“They’re literally making cash registers ring,” said Chamber president and CEO Mark Wilson. “That puts dollars in local governments. Our tax collection is hitting record revenues.”
But as competition for housing grows and more pressure is put on schools, the environment and infrastructure, some experts worry that sprawling development will lead to more crowded classrooms and roads and polluted waterways.
“The thing about growth, if it isn’t properly planned, it’s not going to pay for itself,” said Paul Owens, president of 1000 Friends of Florida, a not-for-profit organization that advocates for growth management, and a former Orlando Sentinel editorial page editor.
How should the growth of Florida be managed? And who should shape the future of the state?
These questions sit at the heart of the Florida 2030 Blueprint, a research project by the Chamber meant to guide Florida’s development over the next decade. The blueprint calls on businesses, local governments and private organizations to tackle 39 goals from job training to environmental protection.
According to the Chamber, Florida will take on an additional 50 million visitors each year by 2030, on top of the already 130+ million tourists that visit annually. Florida will need an additional 1.6 million jobs, and roads will have to handle 3 million more cars.
The Chamber breaks down its forecast by county on its website thefloridascorecard.com. Orange, for example, is expected to gain more than 400,000 new residents by 2030 and will require 262,667 new jobs, it says.
Owens says the condition of Florida’s roads today should be enough to raise concern. “There are very few communities in Florida where traffic hasn’t gotten worse,” he said.
Water quality is another realm where Owens sees the conflicts with growth.
“It’s pretty easy to connect the dots between doing a poor job on managing growth and water quality problems,” he said, referring to issues such as blue-green algae blooms and red tides that have plagued the state’s rivers and coastlines.
While social and environmental advocates often talk about growth in terms of impacts, Wilson sees the influx as an opportunity. “I fundamentally reject the idea that (growth) is a bad thing,” he said.
Wilson points to Florida’s economy, which just since the blueprint was written four years ago, has gone from the 17th largest economy in the world (if Florida were an independent nation) to the 15th.
“We’re bigger than Mexico now,” Wilson said.
That’s ahead of schedule for the blueprint, which aims to see Florida become the 10th largest economy, putting it ahead of South Korea.
Owens says proper growth management shouldn’t get in the way of economic development; it should enhance it.
“Reasonable controls on growth are not bad for the economy,” Owens said. “They limit the costs we incur when we don’t properly control growth.”
Wilson agrees that growth needs direction. “As we unite the business community, we want to make sure we grow the right way and that we do it with purpose,” he said.
The blueprint looks to do this without the typical state controls public policy advocates often call for, such as tighter environmental regulations or higher impact fees. Wilson points to the fact that the top five states people move to Florida from are New York, Illinois, New Jersey, California and Pennsylvania, all states with strong regulations and an income tax.
“We’re gaining $2 million in income every hour,” Wilson said. He said California and New York lose $1 million in income per hour.
The blueprint instead looks to the private sector to step up on issues such as children in poverty.
“The way we’re going to cut childhood poverty isn’t going to be through some federal mandate,” Wilson said. “It’s through businesses adopting a zip code.”
The Chamber works with businesses, local governments and other organizations to identify and adopt zip codes high in child poverty and work for localized solutions.
Florida Blue, for example, has adopted five zip codes throughout the state, including 32805 in Orlando.
Owens supports the idea of private investment in public issues, but he is skeptical of a system without public supervision.
“It’s the trust but verify approach,” he said. “If you want to empower local groups or private groups to take the initiative, that’s terrific. But there should be some sort of oversight to make sure that they follow through.”
For Owens, issues such as childhood poverty or reading levels (another benchmark for the blueprint) can be traced to Florida’s history of sprawling development, which he says stretches the ability of public services. “The more you stretch services, the less efficient they are, and the more expensive they are,” he said.
Wilson acknowledged that some metrics, such bringing up children’s reading levels, should have been handled before now.
“We failed the plan,” he said. “Why did the voters allow that to happen?”
1000 Friends of Florida also issued an outlook with a horizon of 2070. The report sees dire consequences if development isn’t reined in, such as one-third of the state becoming paved. “That’s going to create all kinds of problems for water quality and flooding,” Owens said.
“If properly planned, we could certainly reduce the impact of 3.5 million more Floridians,” Owens added. “It requires steering that growth toward already developed areas that have the infrastructure in place to handle it, rather than a hands-off attitude that you see in a lot of parts of Florida.
Wilson agrees that planning is key, just not controlled by government.
“If people think that politicians over the next 10 years are going to do the right thing, and businesses and residents don’t need to focus on early learning or water or infrastructure, then we’re going to end up like Illinois or New York,” he said.
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