About This Project
The project sponsor, Lesley Blackner from the Florida Hometown Democracy/Amendment 4 initiative (floridahometowndemocracy.com) was often asked during the campaign to explain how the rubber-stamping of endless residential development hurts Floridians in the pocketbook. PriceOfSprawl.com is a tool to allow taxpayers to make that assessment for themselves. Amendment 4 would have given voters a vote on certain development projects in their communities. It was defeated in November 2010.
Janet Stanko worked on the Amendment 4 campaign. She developed the research presented in PriceOfSprawl.com. The information was obtained from local, city and national sources. PriceOfSprawl.com is the first tool to pull all this information together and make it available to the public. Given government’s reluctance to acknowledge the harmful fiscal and environmental consequences of Florida’s traditional “anything goes” allowance of development, some of this information was difficult to obtain.
Given recent cutbacks in city and county staff, this information may become impossible or at least much more difficult to obtain going forward.
Purpose of this project:
1. To publicize the hidden costs of infrastructure and services resulting from over-development. Taxpayers pay these costs, but they are rarely even discussed when new development is approved.
2. To ensure new developments pay for themselves.
3. To publicize the ongoing decline in Florida’s drinking water supply due to over-development.
