A year or two ago, it appeared that nothing could turn the tide against the "vision" of pro-development politicians and powerful developer interests to tear down and rebuild the barrier island of Broward County for their own profit. But the future of coastal redevelopment in South Florida is less certain now, and possibly more complicated.

It would be premature to declare the war over. Still, much has happened on both sides of the issue which could change who controls redevelopment and how quickly the bulldozers come to level the traditional landscape of some of Florida's beach neighborhoods. Redevelopment is being rethought:

1. There is growing public opposition to the more ambitious plans of developers and borderline tactics used by their political allies at City Hall. Grassroots activism has proven it can successfully counter backroom influence and campaign financing of wealthy special interests in some cases. Local activists, once put down in the media as stupid, negative and reactionary, have become significant players in local politics.

2. RAC applications from Deerfield Beach and other coastal cities are dead in the water. County commissioners have asked the Planning Council to take a new look at the Regional Activity Center concept as an instrument for redevelopment. RACs would give local officials greater authority in land-use determinations.

Update: On January 14th, 2004, the Broward County Planning Council recommended that all RAC applications for the barrier island be rejected. The matter now goes to the Board of County Commissioners, which is expected to approve the recommendations.

3. County officials are skeptical about local redevelopment plans and about the way CRAs are being used. CRAs are supposed to assist in the redevelopment of slum and blighted areas for the betterment of the people who live in these districts. CRAs are being audited by Broward County.

4. In 2002, voters in Deerfield Beach enacted charter amendments that would limit redevelopment in the coastal area to existing land-use standards. The vote (75% for) is the clearest possible indication that residents are wary of redevelopment plans for the beach area. Attempts by a group of disgruntled citizens, encouraged and possibly aided by city officials, have failed to overturn the charter amendments in court, so far. Now some developers have joined the lawsuits and commissioners have stated that they may order a new referendum election to repeal the 2002 amendments based on the fear that new rounds of litigation could prove costly to the city.

Update: The developers' suits were dismissed. The suit by the Citizen Opponents continues.

5. Pompano Beach and Fort Lauderdale electors ousted pro-development commissioners in their most recent municipal elections. Will Deerfield politicians be the next to get the ax?

6. City officials refused to acknowledge the 2002 charter vote even in the face of the overwhelming voter support for those proposals. Then, they tried to end-run the County in the State Legislature. A Deerfield Beach city lobbyist got lawmakers to attach a rider to pending legislation that would limit Broward County's role in oversight of redevelopment. The effort was killed by an astute legislator. The lobbyist said this is what the city wanted.

7. Deerfield officials also charged ahead with "TIF" projects under the auspices of the CRA. These ventures will cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Projects include streetscapes along Hillsboro and Ocean Way. Some ask, who will benefit?

8. A workshop of local officials and interested parties on June 25th, 2003, on the role of city and county governments in redevelopment gave few answers, but raised a bewildering array of issues and concerns from different sectors. A large part of it comes down to who will have the final say over redevelopment proposals in South Florida.

9. On October 14th, 2003, county commissioners adopted measures which increase the county's role in approving new construction on the coast; specifically, the commission will require compatibility reviews which examine the impact of development on the barrier island.

County commissioners want more oversight. They say that redevelopment is a regional concern and that development of the coastal regions may be going too fast and too far without considering the impact of such development on residents' access and use of the beaches. They also worry that CRAs are being misused and are siphoning off public funds that should be in their coffers, to be spent on dubious projects by the cities.

A recent audit of the CRA in Hollywood by county auditors raised a number of questions concerning its proper administration. The auditors charged that the CRA in that city was not consistent with the purposes for which such agencies are authorized to be created, and that public funds were being used as incentives to developers and not for the benefit of residents. Hollywood officials, incidentally, vigorously opposed the new rules adopted by the county requiring compatibility reviews. They say the measures undermine local government.

As in Deerfield Beach, the Hollywood CRA covers affluent beach districts and is administered by the city commission ex officio and not by an independent board.

What really happens is that cities like Hollywood and Deerfield Beach create CRAs in beach areas to attract developers. TIF money is used for "improvements" that facilitate redevelopment. Residents of the CRA have little or no say about how these funds will be used. In fact, old residents may be squeezed out of the area by increasing tax rates they can't afford.

Cities, however, want to control redevelopment and think the county is a hindrance. Local politicians are magnets for campaign cash from developer interests. Some may have personal positions in redevelopment. A lot of people don't trust their local officials to act in the public interest and welcome "interference" from the county.

Political activists say that redevelopment does not serve the public interest and that citizens should intervene to insure that excessive development does not occur. There is a state-wide movement to place control of land-use comprehensive plans in the hands of voters.

All of this is complicated by issues like annexation and what this will mean to cities like Deerfield Beach and by the redistribution of power within Broward County as unincorporated areas are pulled into the cities.

The strong mayor idea for the County has fizzled and Sheriff Ken Jenne is clearly emerging as the de facto executive in Broward County. There is even speculation that the next move will be to consolidate the three South Florida counties into a regional authority dominated by powerful politicians like Jenne.

On the other side, there is talk of disbanding the counties altogether. Municipal services functions now performed by the counties could be provided by area service compacts between the cities. This would also end oversight of land-use policies and CRAs by county officials.

The rarely asked question in this complicated debate is whether government should have any role in redevelopment other than to protect the rights of property owners against people whose constructions would effectively deprive them of the lawful use and enjoyment of their own land and houses.

Whether cities are protective or proactive depends on who is in charge in the current setup. Local governments can draw land-use maps that encourage development or adopt comprehensive plans that limit development. A more limited role for government in land-use regulation as an alternative approach to public policy is the position most consistent with the ideals of liberty and liberal democracy.

But in practice there is not room in the same town for such political ideals and the ambitions of developers. There is an underlying premise in the question of redevelopment that people can either be bought out or forced out of their property. In other words, a land owner can do what he wants with his property, but not if it conflicts in some way with some higher social purpose.

The higher purpose could be the "vision" concocted by city planners for the redevelopment of its beach area or it could be the traditional landscape of the community in the same area. Again it depends on who is the dominant force at the time.

In this view, ownership of land is not a right at the same level as life or liberty. It is a conditional right granted in consideration of what the public interest might be in the present and future use of that land.

Thus it is not so preposterous for the City of Hallandale Beach to pass an ordinance that would compel landowners to sell their property to developers who already own 70% of the land in a certain area. There was a time when such a law would have been unthinkable.

We harken back to the fact that "ownership" may have some emotional significance to most of us who own land, but no literal meaning within the framework of the common law. The ultimate owner of land is the State, or Sovereign, and thus, the ultimate uses of land are those which the State or Sovereign directs.

This fine distinction does not mean too much to us in the daily use of our houses -- we are for all practical purposes the lords of our manors -- but it does mean something when we decide to convert our house to a filling station or condominium.

We either are going to be told we can't do that or we are going to have to persuade, influence, or bribe political authorities who act for the Sovereign to gain permission to do what we want. Whether what we want to do encroaches upon our neighbor's legitimate rights is less a factor than the public interest as defined by politicians.

This in essence is what we are doing in Deerfield Beach right now. We are replacing mom-and-pops and private houses with overscaled condominiums, because they fit the redevelopment model set out by the city government. What these projects will mean to other property owners or even the general public in the future is secondary.

We live in a statist environment when it comes to land-use policy. A hands-off policy would leave it to market forces and reciprocal rights to decide the issue of redevelopment of any given piece of land. But this is not the way it is anymore. Redevelopment is at the bottom an economic issue and the economy is largely directed these days by government. Up there, it's called monetary policy and rulemaking. At the state and local level, it's called economic development.

In this environment, it would be very difficult to adopt a laissez-faire stance on redevelopment at the local level. The state imposes upon local authorities the requirement to write comprehensive land-use plans and creates incentives for cities to adopt proactive measures like CRAs and RACs to encourage development.

In fact, what cities like Deerfield Beach are doing with respect to beach redevelopment, with or without the support of voters, is not inconsistent with the principles of sustained growth that have worked their way into public policy. Assimilation of sustained or "smart growth" ideology into official policy has been given impetus by environmentalist groups bent on preserving wetlands, farmlands, and the Everglades.

The city does not have to specify the uses to which a given piece of land shall be put in the future in order to achieve redevelopment, but it can encourage certain uses by "improvements" in the infrastructure which would favor and facilitate those uses. This is one way in which the city's economic development function is carried out.

In Deerfield Beach, the city plans to reroute the main artery through the beach section, A1A, by creating a separate northbound lane which would run east along Hillsboro Boulevard and then north through what is now the Howard Johnson parking lot. What purpose does this project serve?

The public argument for this proposal is that it will help ease the traffic problem along the infamous "S" curve which winds through the business district. It does not take a traffic wizard to figure out that it more likely will make the problem worse by creating a bottle neck at the already congested intersection of A1A and Hillsboro Boulevard, where northbound cars would turn. Another bottleneck could be created at the north end of this project near the pier, where the southbound lane would split off .

The real purpose of the A1A project is to set the stage for further commercialization in the area south of the business district and east of the current A1A right-of-way. The city intends to remake the central beach by rerouting A1A and building a large parking structure on the Main Beach Parking Lot.

This will certainly mean more traffic and negatively impact nearby residents. Commercial development in that area probably would not occur if it were left to market forces without the "improvements" planned by City Hall.

Comprehensive plans and other land-use regulations also serve the cause of tradition and preservation under certain circumstances. The charter amendments ratified in the 2002 election made it more difficult to win approval of new construction projects, but by making it almost impossible for city commissioners to change the existing land-use rules.

In the context of local politics, "pro-development" means friendly land-use management policies at City Hall and new infrastructure to encourage redevelopment. The pro-development group is willing to use public money to benefit private interests and equates the public interest with its own.

Grassroots political activism has succeeded in part because it has inspired and mobilized citizens who want to preserve the quality of life that already exists in the community. Nonetheless, in politics the operative fact is that money equals power.

Redevelopment is potentially worth billions to developers, contractors, architects and investors. Campaign money given by developers to influence politicians is a drop in the bucket compared to the ultimate return.

The bottom line is that it is very difficult to get people into office at the local level who are not in the pocket of developer interests to some extent.

Pro-development can also make a compelling case on the ideological side. The argument that redevelopment of an area like the beach will expand the city's tax base and thus be good for the whole community resonates with many people. Likewise, the mythology and rhetoric of "smart growth" -- or sustained growth -- sounds very good when it is applied to truly run-down neighborhoods which could theoretically benefit from redevelopment.

However, in this particular reality, the Beach CRA, the rhetoric does not apply. In Deerfield Beach, the CRA is a fraud and this sets the stage for more political corruption, not the betterment of people's lives.

Right now, who controls redevelopment of Deerfield Beach hangs in the balance. Developer interests may have suffered some setbacks, but they are not going to give up easily. Too much money is at stake.

Any assessment of where we stand in the matter of redevelopment must conclude with the fact that a pro-development axis still controls city government. The next logical step is to replace them with public officials who are not influenced by developer interests. Then we can proceed with rethinking redevelopment policy in Deerfield Beach.