The M word

Bonita Springs, the small city in south Lee County that is at the center of the region's future growth, enacted a one-year development moratorium in December on open lands east of Interstate 75. It's the first community on the Gulf Coast since the recession to enact what some see as the nuclear option of growth management.

During the boom years, anti-growth activists, not-in-my-backyard residents and environmentalists effectively promoted moratoria on development to stall new construction. Pressured by these forces, local politicians used this tactic to avoid making the tough decisions to approve new development while appointing task forces and other citizen committees to delay growth.

Now, just as the economic recovery is taking hold, the use of the moratorium is back in political vogue.

Developers on the Gulf Coast are watching the battle in Bonita Springs because the area has become the center of growth in the economic recovery. Hertz is moving its corporate headquarters to nearby Estero and development is heading north from Collier County, where land is becoming scarce. Significant developments are located nearby: three super-regional malls, 14,000-student Florida Gulf Coast University and Southwest Florida International Airport, where a second runway is planned.