Another Major Cabinet Victory for Growth Management
December 8, 2009

Thank you to those of you who called the Governor and Cabinet members regarding the Balsamo and Lantana Farms cases.  In another important victory for growth management, Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Cabinet today voted unanimously to order Palm Beach County to rescind two comprehensive plan amendments that would have increased density for these two properties.  Both cases involved inappropriate conversions of rural lands for urban and suburban development. 

This important order follows on the heels of two other significant Cabinet rulings protecting urban service boundaries in Miami-Dade and Marion Counties.  As with the Miami-Dade and Marion County cases, today’s decision reinforces and upholds the importance of urban boundaries as a growth management tool, the need for overall consistency with the goals, objectives and policies of the comprehensive plan, and the necessity of demonstrating fundamental need prior to granting density or intensity increases.

1000 Friends of Florida and Rosa Durando were represented by the Everglades Law Center’s Richard Grosso on the Palm Beach County cases.  In addition to this important Cabinet ruling, these cases are also significant because they overcame the difficult “fairly debatable” legal test to determine that the land development regulations authorizing the increased density were not in compliance with the local comprehensive plan.