Anti-Sprawl Mandates Put Pressure on Budget Plans
If last week's outcome of several anti-sprawl ballot measures is any indication, Southeast voters are more willing than ever to foot the bill for buying up land before real-estate developers can get their hands on it.</br></br>Now comes the hard part: Cities and counties from North Carolina's Research Triangle to South Florida must stretch public dollars far enough to please voters by curbing sprawl but not spend so much that they become too financially leveraged in the process.</br></br>Rising land costs in the region are making that increasingly difficult. Some local government officials project they'll have to spend significantly more than they did in the 1990s to shield only a fraction of the acreage. Land that's most threatened by development tends to be the most expensive to buy. So acquiring even small parcels can rapidly drain a public land-buying bank account, leaving a city or county with little to show for the effort.</br></br>Moreover, developers and property owners, in selling the increasingly scarce land, often attempt to inflate prices, thinking they can turn a quick profit at taxpayers' expense. Land-buying programs "tend to create their own real-estate markets," says Andy Walker, former state director for the Nature Conservancy of Tennessee. With mounting frequency, he adds, cities and counties find themselves having to "play hardball with land speculators who think their property is worth a lot more than it really is."</br></br>In Broward County, officials are primed for tough negotiations after voters last week passed a $400 million bond package to purchase undeveloped land near the Everglades and improve existing parks. Broward County "will walk away" from deals if price gouging becomes an issue, vows Kristin Jacobs, a Broward commissioner.