DELTONA BONA FIDE

COMMENTARY

Is Volusia County ready for the future?

Doug Horn

January 31, 2007

The quick answer to this is a resounding, “NO!”

Now before you jump up and down and say I’m wrong, let’s remember that “past performance predicts.” Let’s look at some past performance:

In 1983 Maytown-Osteen road was scheduled to be paved “next year.” That got done in 2003.

In 1983 the visionaries said that Orange County was nearly build out, then it would be Seminole County’s turn, then would come Osceola county, then "watch out!" - because the growth from the south would jump the river and it would be Volusia’s turn.

The leaders of Volusia County said we needed to get ready. We needed to plan for our future growth. We needed to plan roads. We needed to put in conservation areas to prevent them from becoming developed. We needed to do all this because we didn’t want to become another Orange County, we didn’t want International Speedway Boulevard (ISB) to turn into another 436.

So what happened? Orange County built out. Seminole County built out. Osceola County built out. The growth jumped the bridge. And now, strangely enough, ISB in Daytona and Saxon Blvd in Orange City looks like 436 in Orange County.

Builders came to the County. Most brought reasonable development. Some didn’t.

The voices of reason were washed out by the extremists who believed that the only way to protect the future was to prevent all growth. They failed to work with those who need places to live and businesses who wished to place their businesses here.

As a county, instead of getting all interested parties to come to a happy medium on the issues the extremists on both sides failed to agree on anything in 20-years. As a result, nothing was put in place that would really maintain the quality of life we all value so much.

Roads were not built. Existing roads have not been maintained. As a County we have failed to attract the kinds of businesses we have wanted to attract. In fact it seems that almost every time we were close to attracting a potential asset to the County, such as a major mall or good paying jobs, we shot ourselves in the foot by running them off.

"What about Volusia Forever?" you ask. It was a good idea, but not a well thought out plan. As such it has been ineffective in accomplishing its stated goals.

The land that has been purchased through Volusia Forever has, in some cases, NOT been purchased outright by the taxpayers. We have instead purchased only the development rights. This means that for a very nice sum of money - courtesy of the tax payers - the owner has agreed to not develop the property and to not sell it to developers. At the end of a set period (typically 20 years) the property and the associated development rights reverts back to the owner.

Much of the remaining land that has been purchased is land that is so wet or so sensitive that it would cost too much to develop now, if ever.

Another shortcoming of this plan is that the County predetermined what land it wanted to purchase for this “environmental corridor” then sold the idea to the voters as if it was a done deal. The plan assumed that the land owners would be “willing sellers.” It failed to take into account that the owners might be willing to sell, but would want to sell to the highest bidder.

The plan also assumed that the selling price would be the assessed price as determined by a county appraiser - not the market value of the property.

What initially seemed like a lot of money generated by a small increase in our taxes, immediately turned out to be not enough. More recently, the County realized the need to generate more money to get ahead of the market and to purchase the properties they wanted. In order to have enough cash to make competitive offers, the County decided that instead of using the cash generated each year by the tax increase, it would make more sense to borrow against the money.

Unfortunately, they implemented this solution too late in the game, and by the time the money was in place real estate prices in the area had gone into the stratosphere. Once again, Volusia was too little too late.

Is it too late to turn things around and make plans for the future? No, not by a long shot!

Can we maintain the quality of life we want in Volusia County? Of course we can!

What will it take to make it happen? Cooperation and compromise.

Can Volusia plan for the future? Hard to tell, but past performance predicts. . .

Doug Horn is a former Commissioner and Vice Mayor of Deltona and can be reached at dhorn@deltonabonafide.com

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