Tag Archives: Planning

2011 Revisions to Florida’s Planning/Development Regulation Acts

Posted on June 3, 2011 | Leave a comment

NOTE: See the Summary of 2012 Florida Legislative Changes Related to Land Development Regulations article for information on 2012 legislative changes.

Governor Scott signed House Bill 7207 on June 2, 2011, which is the bill that makes the largest number of changes to Florida’s growth management statutes (and administrative rules). This bill, with several others, makes the broadest and most significant changes to Florida’s growth management/planning/land development statutes seen in over twenty-five years.

Click this link – HB 7207 enrolled– for a PDF copy of House Bill 7207 and here – Chapter 2011-139 Laws of Florida – for the official Laws of Florida version. Be warned – they are long and may take a while to load.

Other bills also make changes to chapters 163 and 380, F.S., the two major planning/development regulation chapters. These other bills are:

The bills also include other provisions that have nothing to do with chapters 163 or 380, so you may need to do some wading to find what you are looking for.

I have written an overall summary review of some of the major changes to the growth management laws and individual reviews of the sections of Part II of chapter 163 with major changes. Click the links below for the review articles:

This is a list of the sections of Part II of chapter 163, F.S., with the status of the sections under the legislative changes and related review articles available.

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Posted in 2011 Florida Statute Amendments of Development Regulations

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Make them the star – why land development regulations are (the most) important.

Posted on January 6, 2011 | 1 comment

Florida is a state that, despite some fears about the 2011 amendments to the planning/growth management provisions in the Florida Statutes, has a strong emphasis on planning and land regulation; one of the strongest in the nation. But how to translate that strong emphasis into a functioning reality is the real issue.

I believe that, in the translation of that planning emphasis, each local government’s land development regulations are the most important part of the land planning and regulating effort. Comprehensive planning gets all the attention from the planners and the individual applications get the attention from everyone else, but it’s the land development regulations that should be the star.

What good is comprehensive planning if there aren’t regulations to implement it? How can individual applications be decided fairly and consistently if there aren’t good regulations to guide the decisions? The land development regulations (aka: the zoning code, the land development code) are where the rubber meets the road, where the real world happens. If they don’t work well, the objectives of the planning and the intentions of the regulating don’t get implemented. Good planning decisions are dependent on good planning regulations.

But, more often than not, the land development regulations are relegated to the background. The writing of them is often viewed as not as important as other tasks and is left up to people who don’t have the information or support they need for the job. Because codes often have regulations that are internally inconsistent, confusing, or don’t fit the jurisdiction’s situation, the exact wording is interpreted or glossed over to make it work, or ignored all together.

For those that need to use the regulations – whose property is being controlled by the regulations – poorly drafted, confusing, or improperly grounded land development regulations leave them without any idea what the rules are and what they are supposed to do, or not do. These property owners’ representatives sometimes have only a moderately greater knowledge of the details of the code or believe that the details of the regulations are not where they need to focus their attention, often resorting to political solutions instead.

Citizens that wish to address individual applications are often intimidated by the sheer size of the code or confusing terms and, rather than the code being a resource they can use to make their points, it is ignored in favor of tried and true methods such as packing the room with opponents or presenting multi-page petitions. The decision-makers often aren’t much better off and, without clear procedures and standards, fall back on gauging the amount of opposition, acting on their personal feelings about the matter, or making the most politically expedient decisions.

The purpose of this web site is to try to help change the perceptions and the function of Florida’s land development regulations. I hope that, through the information and resources provided here, with thoughts, comments, and questions from you, we can start to turn around how land development regulations are perceived and how they work – to make them the star they deserve to be.

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Posted in 1. Introduction

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