The full-cost accounting concept matches a proposed project's property tax contributions against the costs of services, such as new roads and utilities, provided by a local government.

For example, point out observers monitoring the whole idea, if a mega mixed-use venture in the suburbs paid $50,000 a year in property taxes but it cost the local municipality or county $75,000 a year to maintain services at the area, that proposed mixed-use venture would not get off the ground.

Likewise, if a developer planned a Downtown project where all of the infrastructure was already in place and property taxes either surpassed or matched government maintenance costs, that project would get the green light--the rationale being that the Downtown enterprise would create a better quality of life for residents and businesses than the rural project might out in the sticks.

Tom D. Cook, vice president/development at the Orlando office of Carter & Associates-ONCOR tells GlobeSt.com, "nobody is going to be happy with this one." Still, Cook, who represents one of Downtown Orlando's most aggressive developers, Chicago-born Cameron Kuhn, says, "if the new regs are going to make it easier to build up Downtowns, they will have considerable merit and support."

But that support has to come largely from the state legislators who meet at their annual session in Tallahassee in mid-February. A final report on the subject from a 23-member panel, appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush last July, is due to be discussed by the Growth Management Study Commission in Orlando Jan. 31 before it is sent to the governor.

Getting key legislators to sign off on the report's findings, however, is expected to be the toughest hurdle because one of the study's suggestions is to give local governments the option of using state dollars to promote reinvestment in urban areas. Few lawmakers want to give away that perk, generally reserved for their own constituents.

The push for new growth management direction is being led by Bush who feels the state isn't doing enough to attract more corporate relocations, build an adequate inventory of new schools and provide quality recreation for the 15 million residents.

No other state is utilizing the full-cost accounting concept entirely in its growth management plans. "Don't bet the farm that it won't happen in Florida," Dean Fritchen, a former corporate affairs director at New York's Madison Square Garden and a longtime broker in the commercial division of Winter Park, FL-based Arvida Realty Services Inc., tells GlobeSt.com.

Instant Insights /

New Growth Management Law Proposals Would Make It Easier to Build Downtown and Tougher to Develop in the Suburbs

Related Stories

Recommended For You