The Department of Community Affairs' presence in Southwood would come to an end under tentative plans to move remaining personnel downtown as the agency shuts down, shifts focus and folds into Gov. Rick Scotts newly created economic development engine.
DCA Secretary Billy Buzzett told the News Service Monday that the plan would have DCAs community planners and others move to the Collins Building, a stones throw from the governors office as part of parallel and interrelated efforts to shut down DCA as a freestanding agency while melding its planning functions into a newly created Office of Economic Opportunity.
Following legislation passed earlier this year, DCA will technically cease to exist this coming Friday, a termination sought for the past several years from some business groups and lawmakers who argued the agency had outlasted its usefulness as the states growth police.
Seeing its authority vastly increased following the passage of state growth management laws in the 1980s, DCA has come under fire from the Republican-led Legislature, which has said the agency has hindered investment in the state by duplicating local oversight and inserting itself in squabbles that have little statewide impact.
Meanwhile, lawmakers approved the creation of the Office of Economic Opportunity, which will be housed in the governors office and will consolidate the work of several agencies including DCA and the Agency for Workforce Innovation. The new agency is slated to be up and running by Oct. 1.
Responding to environmentalists concerns that growth management will be smothered in an agency focusing on job growth, Buzzett said hes confident DCAs planning role will dovetail well under the Office of Economic Opportunity umbrella.
Florida is a unique place, Buzzett said. One of the things that make it unique is the environment and the quality of life. That is mission No. 1 in community planning: to protect those things and have an orderly sense of growth. I think the two can complement each other.
Tom Beck, who has overseen the staff changes in DCAs planning office, is expected to become the director of the Division of Community Planning, leading a staff of 31 planners and analysts who will continue to review comprehensive plan amendments and oversee growth decisions in areas of critical concern and developments of regional impact.
Im very comfortable we have the right skill set and the right level of professionalism to fully and completely implement the law, Buzzett said.
The tentative plans would move planners and staff into the Collins Building, taking space that will be vacated by the Agency for Workforce Innovations learning initiative staff, which has been transferred to the Department of Education. Those employees will likely be relocated to the Turlington Building or office space at the Northwood Mall on North Monroe Street.
I find that people work better and work more effectively if they are under one roof, Buzzett said. We want to make sure we are not only as efficient as we can be but also as productive. Were looking at doing that. Whether we physically can do that is another question, but were going to try.
Some of the space occupied by DCA in the Southwood complex will be taken over by the Division of Emergency Management, but Buzzett said the agency will likely not need all the available space. The Department of Management Services will oversee any transfer of tenancy from any and all locations.
As for Buzzett, former vice president of strategic planning for developer St. Joe Co., he said he plans to conclude his duties of winding down DCA and gearing up the new economic development agency by late 2011 and return to the private sector.
