MY VIEW: Your property rights may be changing

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If you live in an unincorporated part of Orange County — meaning outside of the many cities and municipalities throughout the county — your property rights may be at stake. 

Normally, if there is going to be a change in the way you can use your property or that may affect your property values, you would be provided notice and the opportunity to address the proposed change. In fact, it is state law that you be notified and be provided your constitutional right to due process. 

Unfortunately, a small body of non-elected officials may be circumventing this right. Even more unfortunate: This may be the first time you’re hearing about it.  

Over the last few months, a small, five-person subcommittee of the Orange County Charter Review Committee — the Sustainable Growth and Charter Clean Up Committee — has been quietly meeting and contemplating some pretty significant changes to our county charter (our county’s “constitution”).  

The goal of these proposed charter amendments is simple: to freeze unincorporated Orange County in time and prevent new housing, businesses and innovation. Specifically, these amendments, among other things, circumvent our County Commission’s role in planning decisions by making it much more difficult for the commission to approve housing, zoning changes, or to execute or change already-complex joint-planning agreements with city governments. If they became part of our charter, it would become next to impossible for cities to expand their services, for large and agricultural property owners to adapt to an ever-changing economy, and critical infrastructure investments (electric grid expansion, water lines, etc.) that the county has already made will become sunk costs, lying unused for generations.  

These changes could take place without a charter amendment, because the comprehensive planning process, required by state law, provides a more appropriate and established vehicle to make these changes. So, why do it this way? Because the Charter Review process doesn’t require the same level of public notice or input. Individual property owners don’t have to be notified, hearings don’t have to be conducted with the same specificity, and the public in general doesn’t have the same opportunity to engage.  

The Sustainable Growth Committee has operated with reckless disregard for public input, with very little notice or publicity. The Charter Review Committee’s bylaws specify each committee meeting must have at least two business days' notice, with meeting announcements to be “posted on all available social media and digital channels.” A recent meeting of this committee had to be canceled and rescheduled for a lack of proper notice. No meeting in recent history has been given any publicity on social media. If you want to catch up on what has been said or decided, good luck. The audio recordings (there are no video recordings available) don’t show up until a couple of weeks after the meeting.  

Beyond the lack of notice to individual property owners, the committee also has failed to include larger organizations that should have had a seat at the table. These include groups such as the Orange County Farm Bureau, the Orange County Cattlemen’s Association or any of our local Realtors associations. The Orange County Board of County Commissioners established an Agricultural Advisory Board, with the stated purpose to “assist in the review and analysis of Orange County rules, regulations and ordinances affecting the agricultural industry.” To date, this advisory board has not been informed or included in any of the discussion around these charter amendments. 

While this may be the first time you’ve heard about it, it’s not too late to stand up for your property rights and engage. Let the CRC know that you’re watching. Demand this unconstitutional and potentially illegal process be conducted properly — not behind a curtain. 

S. Scott Boyd, a sixth-generation agricultural producer, has served as the past president of the Orange County Farm Bureau and is a former Orange County commissioner. He remains actively engaged in farming across Orange, Lake, Hendry and Collier counties.