Ireland: The battle over growth has become no contest

Whatever happened to the notion of limited growth in this county? It seems to have disappeared as a community goal without much debate.

The traditional format for grappling with growth issues was once elections. Starting in the 1970s with the election of Dwight Shellman and Joe Edwards in the county and their allies in the city, the community responded to the explosive population growth with attempts to slow down the resort juggernaut. In the 1960s, the county population measured by the census more than doubled from 2,381 to 6,185, a 160% increase.

Bitter but decisive elections followed and the next decade saw the population growth slow to a “mere” 67% rate. Minimum lot size and growth management quotas began to take effect and the once possible buildout to 100,000 was taken off the table. Maybe.