Stuart News
Rich Campbell: Development turns politics upside down

By RICH CAMPBELL
columnist
April 8, 2007

There will be a special reading of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" at the Martin County Commission on Wednesday.

Not really.

However, if you attend the 1:30 p.m. meeting on the Atlantic Ridge Preserve project, you may think you've tumbled down a rabbit hole and discovered a strange, new world.
At the very least, you're likely to hear and see things that rarely — if ever— occur at commission meetings:

• Staunch environmentalists supporting a project that involves moving the primary urban services boundary and clustering. Say what!?
  
  
• A "pro-growth" commissioner — Chairman Michael DiTerlizzi, who vowed during the 2000 election never to move the urban services boundary — being asked by slow-growth proponents to break his vow (this one time) and support the Atlantic Ridge project. ("We promise not to hold it against you.") Right.
  
  
• Slow-growth proponents urging pro-growth commissioners — the latter of whom have been lambasted and skewered by the former, and targeted for defeat in 2008 — to approve comprehensive plan amendments for the project.

I'm not making this up.

"What a curious feeling," said Alice.

What has turned politics on its head — at least momentarily — in Martin County?

Atlantic Ridge Preserve: a proposed development of 650 homes on 400 acres off Bridge Road in Hobe Sound.

If Alberto Micha, the property owner who wants to develop Atlantic Ridge, had only asked the county to move the primary urban services boundary — without providing any major incentives — this project would have been stillborn.

But Micha and Morris Crady, the planner representing Micha, have crafted a truly tantalizing proposal.
In exchange for moving the urban services boundary and clustering development on the aforementioned 400 acres, Micha has offered to give the county the vast majority of the larger tract: 2,360 acres. This land — environmentally sensitive wetlands and uplands valued at $70 million — is strategically located between the east and west sections of Atlantic Ridge State Park. Acquiring this site would connect the two properties and give the county a conservation/preservation windfall — one the county could then leverage to acquire additional conservation land.

How important is this property to environmentalists? Florida Forever, the state's land-buying conservation program, recently upgraded the Atlantic Ridge ecosystem to its "A" list of key acquisition projects.

The usual suspects on the side of slow growth — former county commissioners Maggy Hurchalla and Donna Melzer, and others — have voiced support for the Atlantic Ridge project, as have a number of environmental groups and organizations.

The ingenuity of this proposal has forced slow-growthers and environmentalists to justify their support for the project. After all, they've steadfastly opposed both clustering and moving the urban services boundary in the past.

Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could.

Atlantic Ridge has also created a predicament for DiTerlizzi, who says: "It's a good project. It's innovative. I really would like to vote for it."

But he adds: "My oath was to show the citizens of Martin County that I'm serious about managing growth. And if we move the urban services boundary once, I believe we'll move it over and over again."

DiTerlizzi is searching for some way to alter the proposal so he can vote for the project while remaining true to his oath. He offered one possible solution: drafting site-specific language for this project that would allow increased density and water/sewer in the secondary urban services boundary.

Here's one of the many ironies at the center of the Atlantic Ridge debate: DiTerlizzi made an oath never to move the urban services boundary — in part to counter criticisms from Melzer and other slow-growthers that his position on growth and development was nothing more than political rhetoric. Now, these same political opponents would like to see DiTerlizzi break his promise — at least in this one instance — and approve the amendments!

Folks, it doesn't get any better than this. Up is down. In is out. The time-honored parameters governing the growth debate in Martin County have temporarily been suspended.

Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would ever happen in a natural way again.