PALM BAY, done in the spirit of concern for the public welfare

If running the economy of Brevard County, and in particular Palm Bay, were done in the spirit of concern for the public welfare it might be done a little differently than it currently appears to be. 

 

Specifically, two HUGE sectors of governmental responsibility seem to be completely ignored, except as required specifically by the letter of the law.

 

1.       The effect of development on the economy.  The science being applied here seems to be monolithic: “Development is good because it stimulates the economy, therefore let nothing stand in the way of development.”  Scientifically, that is a completely unsupported theory, the only science here coming from the rather uneducated (in the field of socio-economics) clique of capitalist big frogs in a small pond or wanna-be’s.  Consider a drop in home prices as a factor which extends way beyond the holdings of this vested power block.  You, as a home owner, have lost 1.7% of the value of your home in the last month.  If your home was worth $100.K that means your economy POOF! Lost $1,700 in value.  Multiply that times the number of homes (let’s say 20,000) that comes to $34,000,000.00 in one month.  So the citizens of Palm Bay lost $34 million dollars last month.  (The actual statistics suggest the probability of  closer to double that amount.) The dominating wisdom we are to accept is that the development of new homes is somehow going to improve our situation.  What is not discussed  is how this could factually come about.  Do you believe that BUILDING MORE HOMES WILL INCREASE THE VALUE OF YOUR HOME OR HELP STABILIZE ITS VALUE?  If you believe that, you might be interested in trading your house for some blankets and beads.  It is time for a moratorium on new construction until the FULL economic  impact is scientifically addressed in a credible manner. It is obvious that to permit building of  more homes is to intentionally  keep existing home prices down.  Yet do you see your  personal loss offset by anything the City is doing?

2.       The contribution of development to Climate Change and the related impact on the economy and much more.  The science being applied here is less than monolithic.  It is Out-To-Lunch.  It’s crisis management, let’s deal with it when it becomes a problem.  Traffic consumes fuel, consumes our time, generates pollutants, creates heat, and roadways carve up the community endlessly.  Yet streamlining traffic to improve the situation  (new roads, lanes, etc.) becomes compromised immediately by permitting new shopping centers and developments to adhere themselves like parasitic ticks right at the core of those improvements.  The result is that the roads are just as slow as before the improvements, and the initial purpose for spending the taxpayers money has simply been switched to providing cheap and instant accommodation to any developer who wants to build.  The square feet of asphalt just keeps exploding, the runoff just keeps increasing, the water consumption just keeps going up, the amount of sewage just keeps expanding.  The dominant theory seems to be that we can just keep doing this forever and no one can stop us.  But the garbage dumps fill up, the aquifers gets depleted,  the temperature keeps increasing (because of the pavement, roofs,  traffic and the destruction of trees), and the wildlife keeps being driven off.  The noise and light pollution keeps increasing, and  that scenario does not begin to take into account the addition effects of the very real climate change that is affecting us from global sources (more severe hurricanes, sea level increase, changes in rainfall and temperature, etc.).

 

It’s apparent that governmental leadership in our corner of the world is lacking some important qualities, and perhaps the only method we can apply to protect our future is to amend some of the LAWS AND CODES OF OUR COUNTY AND CITY to force compliance from the governing bodies.  How? What could possibly succeed?  Maybe this would have some effect:

 

1.       Impose impact fees to new developments calculated in direct proportion to that development’s true impact on the community.  STOP USING TAXPAYER MONEY TO IMPROVE A LOCATION (ROADS-UTILITIES-SCHOOLS) BEFORE A DEVELOPMENT IS BUILT SO THE DEVELOPER CAN –LIKE A PARASITE- PIGGYBACK ON THE TAXPAYERS BURDEN FOR FREE.

2.       Establish an independent environmental review agency, not to compete with existing environmental agencies, but with a clear charter to co-ordinate the activities of the multiple agencies and departments currently responsible growth and development, holding them up to a standard of conditions including quality of life and sustainability, which must be addressed before a development can be allowed to proceed.

3.       Mandate that the existing budget exists to provide evenly distributed services to the current residents of Palm Bay. Any appropriation not directly servicing or not evenly servicing the existing residents of Palm Bay must be paid for by the beneficiary of that service.  The citizens of Palm Bay will not be asked to assume responsibility for any bonds or other future forms of indebtedness.