Considering that builders seem to write the laws in Tallahassee and that our county government is usually willing to let landowners - at least rich, powerful landowners - turn their pastures into subdivisions, you may have given up on the idea of government having any control over development.

Then, last month, there was a responsible decision in Tallahassee. This has led to another responsible decision in the county Planning Department.

And now, maybe, there's hope that growth management isn't quite dead yet.

It started with Tom Pelham, secretary of the state Department of Community Affairs, who stood by one of the main principles of Florida's development laws: If a local government wants to change its comprehensive plan to allow more houses, it must prove they are needed for future population growth.

Marion County didn't do this when it approved a subdivision in the horse country outside of Ocala, Pelham said.

Gov. Charlie Crist and the Cabinet not only agreed with him on Sept. 15, when it rejected the development; they also backed his insistence that the need for new houses be calculated a certain way.

I'll spare you the details and say only that this forced the developers of the proposed Quarry Preserve project to refigure whether Hernando County really needs what they want to build in the mostly played-out Florida Rock Industries quarry 6 miles north of Brooksville: as many as 5,800 houses and apartment units.

Add that to the number of houses that could be built on land already set aside for housing across Hernando, and you get a total of 71,344. That's more than two times as many as the county needs, or, in planning terms, a "needs allocation ratio'' of more than 2-to-1 - the generally accepted (and very generous) maximum the county allows.

Along with the county planners' opinion that the developer, Brooksville Quarry LLC, probably undercounted the number of existing residential lots in the first place, this has led the Planning Department to an obvious conclusion: Hernando doesn't need all those new houses, and therefore probably doesn't need the Quarry Preserve.

Planning director Ron Pianta says there are some things to like about the Preserve. It's planned as a complete city, with land set aside for industry, offices, affordable housing and wildlife corridors, along with - and what city would be complete without them? - three golf courses.

It would just be too many houses, too far from the nearest existing population center, Brooksville, Pianta said.

It's sprawl, in other words. And if you want a quick lesson in the cost of sprawl, consider the expected price of road improvements needed to serve it and a few smaller projects planned for that part of the county: $132 million.

The developers "haven't demonstrated the project is consistent with a number of planning principles,'' the report says. At least it says that now.

It's only a recommendation, and it invites the developer to try to disprove its conclusions on Oct. 12, when Brooksville Quarry goes before the Planning and Zoning Commission, and on Nov. 10, when the County Commission will vote whether to recommend this comprehensive plan change to the state.

So we just need a couple of more responsible decisions.