BikeWalkLee would like to thank the 2013 Local Planning
Agency (LPA) board members (remaining - Jim Green, Noel Andress, Mitch
Hutchcraft; leaving - Wayne Daltry, Roger Strelow, Ann Pierce, Steve Brodkin) for
their commitment of enormous amounts of time and energy spent last year to
better Lee County’s future. We also welcome
the four new members appointed for 2014 (David Mulicka, Dennis Church, Rick
Joyce, James Ink).
As the LPA begins its 2014 work, it might be helpful to
provide our readers with some background about what the role of the LPA is and
is not. Members of the LPA have unique
roles as defined by statute, legal precedent, and guidance documents. As
outlined in the Florida Planning Officials Handbook, elected officials (e.g.,
BoCC members) are the policy makers and the LPA members are appointed to work
within the policies and ordinances formally adopted by the BoCC. As the Handbook states (p. IV-2-3), elected
officials “are responsive to constituents' interests and subject to election
campaigns that encourage attention to immediate concerns rather than to long
range problems. Planning commissioners
and boards exist independently to balance this tendency. They do so by
emphasizing the long range interests of the community."
According to the Handbook (p. IV-3) it is the BoCC's responsibility to appoint the
members of the LPA and to create a capable LPA with a balance of experience and
expertise...."However, the Council [i.e., BoCC] then needs to
leave the Board [i.e., LPA] to do its job." "They [LPA
members] work within already established policy and do not change policy based
on public comment....It is their role to apply the given ordinance...it is not
their role to change what is or is not permitted." The Handbook (p. IV-4) goes
on to say, "If the Board [i.e., LPA] tries to set policy or the Council
[i.e., BoCC] tries to interfere with the application of the ordinance or fails
to value the technical advice of the Board [i.e., LPA], confusion and trouble will follow."
LPA members are charged with serving the citizens of Lee
County by upholding those citizen’s expressed wishes as embodied in the
Comprehensive Plan. The LPA is to maintain public trust in being the ‘keeper’
of the adopted Comprehensive Plan, which in the state of Florida, is law. As the protectors of the Comprehensive Plan -
the legal document containing the culmination of input elicited from thousands
of individuals and organizations within the County- the LPA is obligated to assess all new amendment and
change requests to their degree of compliance with the existing Plan, and make
their recommendations to the BoCC accordingly. They are also obligated to keep
this Plan up-to-date through periodic Evaluation
and Appraisal Review (EAR) and rewrite
processes.
Lee County is nearing the end of this updating process and
will hopefully produce an exemplary Comprehensive Plan that accurately reflects
the voice of its citizens. The 2010-11 EAR process produced an award-winning document
distilling those many citizen voices into clear and unambiguous goals to bring
the vision of a Livable Lee to reality.
These goals have now been incorporated into the "Lee Plan: New
Horizon 2035", which has been going through extensive committee review,
element by element, for two years, with final reviews scheduled to be completed
in March 2014.
As expressed in the EAR, the citizens want Lee County to
preserve that which makes this a great place to live while working towards a
stable and diverse economic future. They want a distinct differentiation of growth
patterns, rates and densities within defined urban, suburban and rural areas
with pattern-specific transportation choices, safely connecting people to
places. And last, they have stated that the unique character of their
communities and neighborhoods should be maintained and protected.
It is now the job of this current LPA to ensure that the
final document remains true to its origins – a Comprehensive Plan borne of open
cooperation, vigorous citizen input and sound long-term vision.
One of BikeWalkLee's 2014 priorities is for the BoCC to
adopt the 2035 Horizon Plan, consistent with the EAR, this year.
Click here to read the 1/3/14 BWL blog: Updated Schedule forNew Horizon 2035 Lee Plan Review, including links to BikeWalkLee's written
statements on the land use and transportation elements.
Report by Darla Letourneau
No comments:
Post a Comment
BikeWalkLee is not responsible for the validity of any comment posted at this site and has the right to remove any comment at any time.