Cooper picks right fight

Last week, two Treasure Coast governments demonstrated the wrong way and the right way to deal with the public impact from development and how to pay for it.

In Martin County, Centex Homes rejected the county's request that it donate 10 acres for parks in a 630-home project Centex plans in Indiantown. The development, to be on 199 acres known as the Gibb Parcel, is the first of three major projects Centex plans to build in the western Martin community.

Don Cuozzo of the Houston-Cuozzo planning firm told the Development Review Committee: "There's just no way we can do it." A Centex official complained that the development is "right next door to a huge park so it doesn't make sense." Both griped that requiring more contributions would drive up the cost of housing in Indiantown. The Development Review Committee approved the project anyway, provided Centex contributes to roads and resolves other minor issues. The Local Planning Agency and county commission must approve before construction begins.

Centex will be Indiantown's major developer, with 1,800 homes planned for an 804-acre area to be reviewed as a Development of Regional Impact and another 431 houses on 162 acres known as Owens Grove. A county staff team is devising formulas for developer contributions, but letting the firm slide on providing parkland would set a terrible precedent. It would give Centex and others reason to duck donating land and money for roads, schools, public safety and other facilities that buyers of the company's homes will need.

In contrast, Port St. Lucie City Manager Don Cooper last week stopped work on a Sam's Club and a Wal-Mart Supercenter at Gatlin and Rosser boulevards in Port St. Lucie because the developer refused to widen roads or install traffic signals near the stores. With expectations that the complex will draw 17,000 cars daily, Mr. Cooper asked planning and zoning board members to delay approval for at least two months. Because rush-hour backups at Gatlin and Interstate 95 already are a problem, Mr. Cooper wants all nearby commercial landowners to share the costs of wider off-ramps at Gatlin, along with a traffic light and other improvements along Gatlin and Rosser.

Mr. Cooper said the traffic the two stores will generate could turn Gatlin's intersections into parking lots if no improvements are made. The Port St. Lucie manager is a tough negotiator. He did not hesitate to ask the city's planning and zoning board members to delay approval of the site plan so city taxpayers would not be "subsidizing the world's largest corporation." Martin County could learn from his take-charge example.