By Carole Hawkins, [email protected]
Ed Lehman for 27 years was an expert in shepherding plans for mega-communities through a state-mandated review process.
Today, that’s a lot like being an expert in 8-track tapes, he says with a wry smile.
Now the planning and zoning director for Clay County, Lehman was formerly director of planning for the Northeast Florida Regional Planning Council.
One of his main tasks there was to review Developments of Regional Impact — huge shopping malls, office parks or major housing developments — for a seven-county area.
Florida required such reviews because of the impact DRIs had on traffic, water, wastewater, affordable housing and schools.
Except now, DRIs have gone away. The Florida Legislature this year eliminated the review process, arguing it duplicates work already done through a county’s comprehensive planning.
It wasn’t a huge surprise to Lehman, who began his job with Clay County on March 31, before the law passed.
DRIs had taken political heat for two decades, Lehman said.
The governor had vetoed funding for them the past five years. Political winds were shifting.
Land planning that was once performed by a strong-state government was now moving into local jurisdictions. Lehman, a career land planner, moved with it.
Flexibility is a necessary part of being a government worker, and Lehman kept his sense of humor intact during the transition.
At a recent builders meeting, Lehman described the five main issues he would address in his new role as “whatever Commissioner Hutchins wants, whatever Commissioner Robinson wants, whatever Commissioner Davis wants, whatever Commissioner Bolla wants and whatever Commissioner Rollins wants.”
In some ways, he said, his new job lets him do more planning than his old one.
Before, when a problem came before the regional council, Lehman would often kick it back to the county, saying it was a local issue.
“Here, everything is an issue,” he said. Like an ordinance Clay recently passed to allow people to raise chickens in their backyards.
Planning is a government function that can appear to be at odds with the interests of builders.
It gets a rap as being a “liberal” type of profession, Lehman said, one of government trying to control people’s private property rights.
But its real purpose is to plan a community so government is not wasting taxpayer dollars on unnecessary infrastructure like water, sewer and roads.
“So really, planning is fiscally conservative,” Lehman said.
Lehman came to be a land planner straight out of college. He received a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from Florida State University.
But he admits, as an undergrad at Pennsylvania State University, he stumbled into the career.
“I majored in all sorts of things. I was one of those undergrads who couldn’t find a major,” he said.
He liked geography classes and thought geography would be his major. But he realized it would be no fun trying to find a job.
“Then I ran across a pamphlet about the 10 best professions to get into,” he said.
One of them was planning. He didn’t know what that was, but he knew geography was related to it.
It brought him to grad school in Florida and a series of early jobs working in traffic engineering and planning in Orlando, Winterhaven and Tampa.
Coming to Clay County was a comfortable choice after his job at the Northeast Florida Regional Planning Council.
He’d had already worked with Clay officials for 27 years and been involved in the county’s comprehensive plan amendments. He knew what kind of development was coming.
Clay County has done a good job, Lehman said, of zoning in areas it believes will be affected by the First Coast Expressway, an interstate loop under construction that will pass through Clay County.
One of the planned areas, Branan Field, is already developing, and another, Lake Asbury, is getting underway. Making sure they progress sensibly will be one of Lehman’s tasks.
Another issue will be what to do about county-planned areas that are near build-out, like Fleming Island. Lehman believes Clay will continue to play a role there in rdevelopment and further urbanization.
Hot spots today for residential development in Clay County are visible — OakLeaf, Branan Field and Fleming Island.
But recent amendments to Clay’s comprehensive plan are a good way to gauge what’s coming out of the ground next.
Look to an area northwest of Green Cove Springs in the Sarasota Springs DRI, Lehman said.
“It’s probably the next growth area, that little stretch there,” he said.