Florida made the cover of the
Wall Street Journal on Saturday with this headline:
“Is Florida Over?” The article, written by Conor
Dougherty, included a Hal Mayforth cartoon depicting a
confused and exasperated Florida peninsula with
out-stretched arms pleading to little humans as they
jumped off of it.
The story basically explained that Florida has become
far too expensive for many people to live here and other
southern states are now luring baby boomers approaching
retirement age with cheaper housing, lower taxes and
lower insurance costs.
What went wrong? Let’s blame Mother Nature, at least for
some of it anyway. She virtually ignored South Florida
throughout the 1970s and ’80s, only to later barrel a
few hurricanes our way — beginning with Hurricane Andrew
in 1992 and culminating, so far, with Hurricane Wilma in
2005. The storms didn’t scare potential residents away,
but the jacked-up insurance rates that followed them
did.
Yet, most of the blame for inflated Sunshine State
housing costs belongs to, well, us. That is, the
citizens of the great state of Florida. We allowed our
governments to kowtow to the building and insurance
industries, the very industries that induced higher
taxes and higher insurance rates. As Miami Herald
columnist Carl Hiaasen told Dougherty: “Florida is in
the business of cramming people into real estate for
absurd prices.”
In case that quote were not enough, Hiaasen spelled out
his point further in a Sunday column headlined “Land-Use
Initiative Facing Sneaky Tactics.” In it, he describes
how Tallahassee lobbyist John Thrasher is trying to
defeat the Florida Hometown Democracy amendment, a
grassroots initiative to allow residents of communities
to approve or reject comprehensive plan changes through
a “deceptive and slimy letter” claiming developers would
benefit. In reality, he explained, most big developers
are supporting Thrasher to defeat the amendment because
the last thing these guys want is an amendment requiring
voter approval for any comprehensive plan changes that
include the massive up-zoning of entire neighborhoods.
Hiaasen pointed out that taxes have risen throughout
Florida because of poor planning. “What really causes
taxes to soar is the need for increased services due to
overdevelopment and overcrowding,” he wrote. “Bad
planning means that the public ends up paying dearly and
repeatedly for more roads, fire stations, police
patrols, water treatment plants and schools.” In other
words, the old argument many politicians continue to
make, that a luxury high-rise community will help pump
money into the tax rolls, is bunk.
Yet, according to the Wall Street Journal
article, many of the recently built Sunshine State
schools open up below capacity. Florida’s population,
while still growing, is not rising as fast as it once
did. People no longer want to move to Florida, including
Miami-Dade County.
But that won’t translate to lower tax bills. The past
approvals of high-rise projects and new communities
still mean higher property values in the eyes of the
Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser’s Office. That
means higher assessed values and, thus, higher taxes —
so high, in fact, that the Florida Legislature’s
mandated property tax rate slashes have done little for
the pocketbooks of primary resident homeowners. And they
have done little for other property owners who continue
to face the brunt of property tax hikes.
In short, we are trapped in a vicious cycle of higher
costs and lower demand for Florida properties. Yes, we
have predominately good subtropical weather, something
that ensures the state will always draw those seeking a
life free from snow and oppressive foreign governments.
Florida will continue to be an attractive tourist
destination. But if the cost of living continues to
climb, our great state will be truly be a nice place to
visit that’s too expensive to live in.
