An
11th-hour vote by the Legislature last month could undermine
Jacksonville's tree-protection laws in some of the city's
fastest-growing neighborhoods, city attorneys have decided.
The Right to Farm Act, added to a bill about citrus canker on the
day lawmakers adjourned, could stop City Hall from controlling tree
cutting on more than a quarter of the land in Duval County.
If signed into law, the change would affect more than 200 of
Duval County's 774 square miles of land -- property whose owners get
tax breaks for running tree farms, including land near the growing
neighborhoods off Butler Boulevard.
That could mean that land being sold for development could be
clear-cut despite laws protecting large old trees, according to an
analysis of the bill by city attorneys.
Others who have studied the measure, Senate Bill 1114, disagree
over whether it reverses existing tree laws or merely stops
communities from imposing new ones.
But Jacksonville city attorneys told City Hall officials they
probably would have lost a recent court fight about clear-cutting if
the law had been in effect then. And any interpretation of the bill
would scuttle a tougher Jacksonville tree law that neighborhood
activists have been trying to pass through a November referendum.
"It's another one of these . . . sneak attacks on the state and
local government's environmental protections," said Bill Brinton, a
lawyer and activist who is part of the referendum drive.
The new rules would be felt statewide, and national and state
environmental groups are lobbying Gov. Jeb Bush to veto the bill,
which also includes controversial limits on farmers' liability for
pesticide pollution.
"It's probably as big a groundswell of environmental opposition
as anything . . . this year," said Charles Lee, vice president of
Audubon of Florida. A coalition of about 40 groups seeking
restoration of the Everglades has voiced its opposition, as have
groups concerned with beautification.
Farm support
The state's largest farming group is pushing Bush to sign the
bill.
"If local governments continue to regulate agriculture, there
will be no agriculture in this state, period," said Phil Leary,
government affairs director for the Florida Farm Bureau Federation.
Leary said the Right to Farm Act won't have the effects critics
claim and was only supposed to stop duplication of government red
tape. He said the farm bureau had agreed to tone down parts of the
act because of concerns from county and city governments and had
thought almost all governments were satisfied.
Tree laws have been a contentious issue in Jacksonville for
years. Popular with many voters, tree laws have been criticized by
developers. Last year, Mayor John Delaney spent months fighting with
homebuilders and their supporters on the City Council to get passage
of a revised law that afforded some protection to trees in new
residential developments.
The city had a stiffer law on the books for years but exempted
homebuilders through an administrative rule that lawyers later said
was illegal.
Jacksonville City Hall is worried about the farming bill but
isn't pushing for a veto, said Susan Wiles, chief of staff for
Delaney. She said Delaney normally doesn't lobby the governor except
to protect funding for local programs.
Delaney phoned Bush last week to ask, unsuccessfully, for his
support of a $25 million allotment to preserve land along Butler. He
wrote Bush last year, asking him to veto a bill on new developments
using septic tanks, but Wiles said she can't remember any other
statewide issues where that has occurred.
Wiles said city officials have talked to the Florida Association
of Counties about concerns over the bill, but association general
counsel Lee Killinger said the group hasn't taken a stand.
Greenbelt affected
The farming act applies to any land that has a special low-tax
agricultural designation, called greenbelting, that's given to
farms. About 239 square miles of Duval County -- close to 30 percent
of the land -- has greenbelt exemptions, most of it for tree
farming.
The act prevents communities from writing regulations for
agricultural or tree-farming activities if a state agency already
requires farmers to follow rules, called best management practices,
designed to make farm operations environmentally friendly.
State agriculture officials already have management practices for
tree-farming, so local governments couldn't write their own
regulations about which trees could be cut.
The city's tree law did just that in cases where a landowner was
getting ready to sell his land for development. The city used a list
of criteria to decide whether the land was a bona fide farm and
applied its tree protections to anyone who didn't meet those
standards.
In a widely publicized case in 1998, city inspectors ticketed a
man who clear-cut 38 acres in Mandarin. The owner, Kah Lee, had a
greenbelt exemption but also wanted to develop a 44-home subdivision
on 16 acres.
Lee sued the city in Circuit Court and lost last year, with a
judge ordering him to pay a $100,000 fine the city originally
assessed.
After the Right to Farm Act passed, city Deputy General Counsel
Tracey Arpen wrote a memo that the bill "could significantly impair
the city's ability to enforce existing ordinances and rules on farm
operations."
Arpen added the city would probably have lost the lawsuit brought
by Lee if the act had been in effect then. Leary said city lawyers
are just misreading the law, and that it applies only to future
regulations.
Jacksonville homebuilders weren't aware of the farming act's
potential impacts on their business, and are looking into how it
affects them, said Arnold Tritt, executive vice president of the
Northeast Florida Builders Association. Despite last year's fight
over city regulations, he said builders generally want to preserve
many trees because they add to homes' value.
City inspectors plan to keep citing people who break the tree law
whether or not the the state bill is signed, said Building
Inspection Chief Tom Goldsbury.
He said it was likely someone might challenge the inspectors'
actions in court, and that a judge could ultimately decide how far
the city's authority extended.
