South Florida & Broward County
Southeast Florida spans four counties (Miami-Dade, Broward, Monroe and Palm Beach) encompassing 109 cities, including Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. The locality—the fourth largest urban area in the country and the fastest growing region in the U.S.—is home to 5.8 million residents and is projected to grow to 6.5 million by 2030. Tourism and agriculture are southeast Florida’s major industries, owing in large part to the appeal of its coastal beaches and tropical climate. Indeed, the region’s unique natural resources—which includes the Everglades National Park—and significant coastal development activity including major air and sea ports has led Southeast Florida to comprise one-third of the state’s economy.
Like Southeast Florida generally, Broward County’s top industry is tourism; in 2015, the County welcomed a record-breaking 15.2 million visitors who pumped nearly $14 billion into the local economy. In addition to the warm, sunny weather, the county attributed its appeal to its diversity of recreation opportunities including parks, public beaches, yacht basins, fishing, golf, tennis, thoroughbred racing, jai alai, and water recreational facilities. The county—characterized by its flat and low-lying landscape—is comprised of 24 miles of densely-developed coastland, and a total “developable” area of 431 square miles.
Historically, Broward County’s growth followed a surburban model: car-friendly, widely disbursed, single-family home neighborhoods. As the population grew, though, Broward urbanized. Nearly 2 million residents live in the county’s 31 municipalities and officials anticipate significant population growth—235,000 new residents—by the year 2040. As a result, the already-urban county is becoming more densely settled. “We don’t really have a choice about densifying because the county is completely, basically built out,” explains Jason Leichty (Environmental Projects Coordinator, Broward County), Environmental Projects Coordinator for the county. Barbara Blake Boy, Broward County Planning Council Executive Director, agrees. “One third of our county is urban, two-thirds is the Everglades. So that is our boundary. That’s why we always say we’re ‘sea grass to saw grass’ for the urban area,” she says.
Making Broward Affordable
Broward County officials acknowledge that a significant portion of its population has difficulty affording housing, noting that between 2003 and 2007, rapid housing price appreciation led to a severe lack of housing affordable to those in moderate to lower income brackets. Indeed, in 2014, a Broward assessment of affordable housing concluded that nearly half of all households in the county spent more than 30% of their income on housing. The same study also found that 54% of residents held low-paying service sector jobs, earning an average of 50% of the state’s median household income.
According to the non-profit Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), no more than 45% of household income should be spent on housing and transportation. CNT’s Housing and Transportation Affordability Index shows that as of 2015, Broward County's housing and transportation cost index was 65%, making it one of the most expensive areas in the country.
In drafting its 2016 planning documents, Broward County noted its intention to review redevelopment proposals with an eye toward reducing housing and transportation costs. The county noted that the private sector was increasingly unable to meet demand for affordable housing, due to higher land costs. But the county was developing plans to address the issue, releasing a draft strategy: “[Broward County’s strategy will be to] support private, non-profit, and governmental sector development of housing which utilizes construction techniques affording significant costs savings, while meeting the Florida Building Codes, including resiliency to hurricane-level storms. Modern manufactured/modular/prefabricated construction techniques may afford significant savings for housing costs in comparison to traditional techniques used in south Florida, such as concrete block construction. Such housing units may have an appearance and safety features generally no different than units constructed using more common methods, and may include a variety of density types, including multi-family.” Indeed, county officials were considering developing an Attainable Housing Density Bonus Program to promote the development of smaller, less expensive housing options such as efficiency and studio apartments.
While committed to protect rural and estate communities and single-family neighborhoods that cannot support additional population growth or development, the county also wants to “efficiently accommodate population and economic growth.” To that end, the county supports new and re-development within municipal downtown areas, emphasizing the importance of building “live, work and play” communities—those that offer multi-modal transportation options, a broad range of housing, open and green space and recreation. Boy notes that the county has developed policies to promote densification along transportation corridors.
Preserving Open Spaces
In 2014, the Broward County Commission initiated a comprehensive evaluation and update of the Broward County Land Use Plan, called BrowardNext. The effort called together the municipalities as well as “affected and interested” stakeholders to address land use vis a vis anticipated population growth in the county. The most urgent regional planning issues for the county, according to Leichty were climate change resilience, targeted redevelopment along transportation corridors, multimodal transportation, natural resource protection enhancement, and attainable housing opportunities.
Broward County had a long-standing commitment to natural resource conservation and preservation, which it viewed as an important engine for economic growth. The county was also committed to providing recreation and open space areas, viewing this as important to both residents and tourists and in keeping with the region’s “tropical and resort character.” The county also noted that open space and recreation areas drive economic growth by making the community a “more attractive place to live and work” and contribute to the sustainability of the environment by providing “natural habitats for wildlife and vegetation.” To support this, the County set an open space requirement (excluding the Everglades) of a minimum of three acres of local parks and three acres of regional parks for every 1,000 permanent residents. Also, Broward specifically encourages the preservation of existing public and private open space areas, including golf courses; Provide for an interconnected, countywide system of greenways, bikeways, blueways (water trails for recreational use) and equestrian and nature trails within Broward County.
Restoring the Everglades
Two-third of Broward County is comprised of Everglades National Park, the largest subtropical wilderness in the U.S., located in the westernmost part of the county. The park, comprised of 1.5 million acres of wetland, is home to endangered plants and animals such as the manatee, American alligator and Florida panthers and displays a vast diversity of flora and fauna through its nine distinct eco-systems: freshwater sloughs, marl prairies, tropical hammocks, pineland, cypress, mangrove, coastal lowlands, marine, and estuarine.
Starting in the early 1900s, about half of the original Everglades was drained and developed for urban settlement or transformed into farmland. Everglades National Park was established in 1947 to conserve the natural landscape and prevent further degradation of a portion of the Greater Everglades, but decades of development and water diversion endangered its ecosystems. In 2000, a $7.8 billion, 38-year project to reverse the negative impact of the drainage and development on the flow of water and fragile ecosystems was authorized by President Clinton. Restoring water flows through the Everglades is critical mitigate the effects of sea level rise and saltwater intrusion.