To address the financial cost of growth, local governments in Florida must establish and implement a "concurrency management" system. This is a financial planning tool that requires local governments to have in place certain public services and infrastructure, such as roads, sewer, water, solid waste, drainage, parks and recreation, mass transit and schools, at an acceptable Level of Service (LOS), "concurrent" with the impacts of new development. If these services are not there, the development is not supposed to occur.

The focus of the concurrency management system is not on the developer to supply infrastructure, although developers can be required to pay impact fees. Concurrency management focuses on the local government to plan for the public services and infrastructure needed to serve new development. Therefore, while many local governments collect impact fees to offset the cost of providing new services, or require dedication or exactions, and development generally cannot occur if infrastructure is not in place, the concurrency management system should not be looked at as a growth control program.

There are drawbacks to concurrency. For example, we learned that if we required development to locate on roads with good flow at peak time, we unexpectedly encouraged development to move to where the good roads already existed, which was in the suburbs and rural areas. Thus, the concurrency management system for roads at least, has been criticized for furthering urban sprawl and discouraging urban revitalization.

2005-2006 has been a busy one for the Downtown Sebring CRA. MJA Consulting has been working with the CRA to develop design standards, guidelines and implementation stratigies.

You can view some of these standards at the MJA Consulting LLC website: www.mjaplan.com

Michael Joachim, after 17 years as a sole proprietor last fall, took the big step up to incorporate MJA Consulting, LLC. Michael had for years sought out the assistance of talented and creative consultants. Taking advantage of retirements, Michael has Alan Klose, a 30-year veteran of Winter Haven , and Tracy Mullins, an internationally known geographer/planner.