Good News! Gov. DeSantis Vetoes Senate Bill 410
Late yesterday afternoon, Gov. DeSantis vetoed Senate Bill 410, a bill that would have further weakened Florida's already crippled laws that attempt to provide for the intelligent use of the state's lands. The margin of passage in both chambers is not enough to override a veto.
In his transmittal letter, the governor cited the provision whereby "a county charter provision or comprehensive plan policy adopted after Jan. 1, 2020, may not impose a limitation on lands with a municipality unless the municipality adopts the same limitation." This broad provision preempts charter county powers and unnecessarily risks frustrating the will of the voters in charter counties" as the reason for his veto.
Had SB 410 been signed into law, it would have facilitated, for example, the River Cross project, thereby undoing Seminole County's longstanding, voter-approved prohibition against intensive development in the county’s rural eastern region near the Econlockhatchee River.
The vetoing of SB 410 doesn't undo the Legislature's dismantaling of Florida's once vaunted growth management laws over the past ten years, including:
- Dismantling of the Department of Community Affairs and making it a division of the Department of Economic Opportunity and eliminating the requirement to demonstrate need for development before changing the Future Land Use Map. (2011)
- Third party language shifting the burden of proof to citizens challenging a license, permit, or conceptual approval. (2011)
- Whittling away at the Development of Regional Impact process that is designed to protect communities affected by projects outside of their city or county's jurisdiction, and agricultural enclave language that entitles owners of enclaves to comp plan amendments that result in up-zoning their property. (2012)
- Language that says natural gas pipelines (which can go from one end of the state to the other) are eligible for expedited permitting and that any challenges to permits for the pipelines have to go through the summary hearing process which diminishes the challenger’s access to due process. (2013)
- Unjustly shifting the risk of doing business from developers to the public by extending permits (again) and limiting localities’ enforcement to the regulations in place when the permit was issued, despite the fact that conditions may have changed and the public interest will be compromised. (2014)
- Intimidating local governments by awarding of costs and fees for a suit that involves what may be expressly preempted, and of citizens who are the only parties with standing to challenge the issuance of a permit as inconsistent with the comprehensive plan. (2019)
The Legislature and the governor have a long way to go before growth management returns to the underlying principle that a comprehensive plan is the law and everything else — permits, zoning, development orders — is subservient to the plan. The current laws benefits developers and robs citizens and communities of the ability to choose what kind of place they want to live in.