Where have we gone wrong? Why does it often take an hour and

a half to commute between Naples and Fort Myers? And why are water resources

endangered in a region that annually gets drenched with one of the highest

amounts of rainfall in the United States? With the help of some local experts

in planning and smart-growth efforts, we’ve uncovered the five biggest growth

mistakes we’ve made in Lee and Collier counties. A look at the past may provide

lessons for the future.

1. Lack of effective leadership involved in preparing for

growth.

Most people assume the problems lie in infrastructure, such

as transportation, sewage treatment, potable water and education. “We’ve

overstressed it; but that’s not the problem—it’s a symptom,” says Wayne Falbey,

chairman of the Southwest Florida District Council of the Urban Land Institute.

The real problem is population growth, which is a natural force. “It’s like

rain or wind or lightning,” he says. “There’s not much you can do about it

unless you can find ways to deal effectively with it.”

By and large, leaders have failed to understand and accept

that growth can’t be fought, but that it must be prepared for, Fabley argues.

The leadership void has resulted in a dearth of long-range vision to define the

best development practices for the region. If such planning had been

implemented long ago, Falbey says, residents would not be battling massive

traffic problems, and affordable housing in Collier County would not mean a

quarter-million dollars and up.

Wayne Daltry, the executive director of the Southwest

Florida

Regional Planning Board who has been named Lee County’s

Smart Growth director, says past wrong moves, such as separating land

management from water management and failing to build

neighborhoods around community facilities such as schools, have stressed the

region today.

2. Watering down the Lee County comprehensive plan.

One of the biggest mistakes took place in the early 1990s

when county leaders watered down

the Lee County comprehensive plan, says Bill Hammond, a Florida Gulf Coast

University professor and long-time environmental educator.

The result? High standards in water management and

conservation, to give just one example, were reduced to minimal criteria

required by state and federal regulations. Now the region is seeing the legacy

of those changes: crowded roads and other overburdened infrastructure.

Permitting processes and regulations have resulted in “detrimental

rather than protective” development, Ham-mond says. For example, only high-end

developers now can afford the extra cost to leave trees in place or to create

good water–retention systems.

In addition, poor development practices and South Florida Water Management District rules

have resulted in mismanagement of water resources and over-draining of the

region, Hammond says. Daltry adds that digging the region’s drainage ditches

too effectively has contributed to water shortages and an unbalanced ecosystem.

Look at the frogs—or lack thereof. Since the 1960s, the

region has lost about 90 percent of its native frogs, which have been replaced

by non-native species that require less water. “If we could get the frogs back,

we would know our hydrology is healthy again,” Hammond says.

Lee County in particular has neg-lected to conserve more

green space, Hammond contends. The more a community grows, the more public

services are needed. “Every acre we can purchase in the public interest means

lower taxes in the future,” Hammond says.

3. Ineffectual development choices.

Heavy regulation and not enough incentives for better

development practices have discouraged developers from building in urban areas,

hindering smart growth, our experts contend. Instead of focusing on undeveloped

lands, local governments must encourage infill development in Cape Coral,

Lehigh Acres, Dunbar and other communities where infrastructure is in place and

where revitalization would be a boon. “We’ve done all regulation and almost no

incentives,” Hammond says. “The balance has to shift so it becomes very

attractive to do the right thing.”

Newer developments have failed to use community facilities

as the basis for neighborhoods. “We could wish that schools were in the middle

of the thing rather than shoved out beyond the wall,” Daltry says.

4. Letting community apathy reign.

Apathy contributes to the problem. Most people assume that

someone else will take care of things. Others “just don’t care. As the average

net worth of the greater Naples area resident goes up because of the cost of

housing, their mindset is such that they figure, ‘If I have to send my man to

Fort Myers to buy groceries, I’ll do that,’” Falbey says.

Once long-range plans are in place, the community must ante

up to implement them, he says.

5. Poor road planning.

Historically, a road goes in, opening an area for

development, and then the land is rezoned to fit the development demand. “Power

brokers have always been able to use roads as a stimulus for development and

getting zoning changed,” Hammond says. “That’s a practice that creates poorly

planned communities.”

U.S. 41 and Interstate 75 might not be so congested if

traffic heading for Florida’s East Coast were funneled from Tampa to Miami,

rather than through Southwest Florida, Daltry says. These roads were designed

to bring that traffic through the region, but now highways have become clogged.

“We ruined our road capacity. We ruined our water. We oversold our land,”

Daltry says.

Congestion on U.S. 41 and I-75 could have been avoided when

the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council recommended alternate

north-south routes a decade or more ago, Hammond says. “Now it’s going to be a

holy war to get a road across the Corkscrew Marsh system because we didn’t plan

20 years ago for good transportation networks,” he says.