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Miami Herald
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Florida bill could block communities from rebuilding stronger after hurricanes
Florida communities could be blocked from rebuilding stronger after a hurricane, and more than 44,000 Floridians could see higher flood insurance costs this year if Gov. Ron DeSantis signs into law a new bill designed to help the state respond to storms. Senate Bill 180, which passed with nearly unanimous support in the House and Senate, includes some provisions to help storm-weary Floridians, like a streamlined permitting system for rebuilding homes after a hurricane and additional training for emergency management officials. But it also would weaken local efforts to build stronger structures after hurricanes — freezing any tougher rules for at least two years, potentially allowing developers to rebuild homes under the same codes that had failed to protect property. Another provision would mean a bump upwards in flood insurance rates for tens of thousands of Floridians in twelve communities across the state, including Hialeah and Hollywood. But it's the building code freeze that has drawn the most criticism, including from local leaders in Manatee County and other coastal communities — a measure that would potentially block efforts to make homes more resilient and reduce storm damage. 'It's short-sighted,' said Kim Dinkins of 1000 Friends of Florida, a nonprofit planning advocacy group. 'We said that we want to be more resilient. When is the time going to be to do that if you can't do anything right after a storm?' 'It takes a long time to develop these types of policies.' The bill's House sponsor, Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, says the bill is meant to prevent local governments from over regulating in response to a storm. 'When there's a tragedy, people demand action. Lawmakers and policymakers sometimes feel that they need to pass a law to prevent this from ever happening again.' McFarland says the bill has a fix: 'For one year after a disaster, let's take a pause,' McFarland said. 'That's what the thinking was.' Critics say bill could prevent building back better after storms Under the proposed law, local governments across Florida could see sweeping new restrictions on their ability to control how and where development occurs — and how they build back after storms. One part of the bill prevents cities and counties listed in federal disaster declarations for Hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton — a majority of the state — from adopting tougher development rules until October 2027. The ban is retroactive to August 2024, also threatening to undo any recent rule changes. Another part of the bill calls for a similar one-year ban anytime a local government is listed in a federal disaster declaration and lies within 100 miles of a hurricane's path. It could renew each time a storm strikes Florida's coast, a regular occurrence for the storm-plagued state. But most worrying to some local governments is a line that explicitly allows developers, or anyone, to sue a local government if it finds any changes 'burdensome or restrictive.' 'Every single developer in the state benefits from this language,' said Manatee County Commission Chairman George Kruse. Local governments, including New Smyrna Beach, Polk County, and Volusia County, all say the bill would block them from implementing already-approved updates to the drainage plans to keep their communities dry. Rep. Linda Chaney, R-Pinellas, one of the lone representatives who voted against the bill, said in a committee hearing that Lee County had already raised concerns to her about the unintended consequences of this bill. 'Charlotte County also contacted me, saying it's prohibiting them from addressing flooding, sea level rise, resiliency issues,' she said. The fight is already playing out in Manatee Manatee County is a case study for how the bill's freeze on local development regulations could play out across Florida, and one of the bill's sponsors directly cites it as inspiration for the provision. When county leaders recently tried to reinstate local wetland protections meant to prevent flooding and environmental damage caused by development, state agencies claimed that the move would violate a 2023 law known as Senate Bill 250. The law bans 10 counties impacted by Hurricane Ian from passing 'more burdensome or restrictive' development rules until October 2026. 'Clearly, wetlands are important when you're getting flooded all over the place,' Kruse said. But under fear of legal action due to Senate Bill 250, commissioners voted to delay passing the environmental protections. Now, Senate Bill 180 could expand such restrictions onto local governments statewide. Kruse argues the legislation goes too far in limiting how communities decide to build back after storms. He also said it gives the state power to 'supersede and take over control' of community planning. 'Finally, Tallahassee was passing a bill that made sense for once. And then you sneak this in under the cover of darkness … you destroyed a bill,' Kruse said. Manatee County residents voted in a majority of the county's board on campaign promises to rein in development and restore local environmental protections. But as they try to make those changes, county leaders are facing opposition from state agencies and local developers who say they'd be violating state law. Four state agencies pointed to Senate Bill 250 in letters opposing the county's recent move to restore wetland protections. And an attorney representing local developers cited the law in objection to the county's move to prevent thousands of new homes from being built beyond the county's development boundary. Legislators defend Senate Bill 180 'That language was in the bill from the very moment I filed it,' she said. 'We worked on it, we amended it. We heard from the League of Cities and the Association of Counties. I worked with them super closely on the bill. I was surprised that suddenly people seem to have an issue with it.' Specifically, DiCeglie points to Manatee County and St. Pete Beach as the inspiration for this portion of the bill. Both places considered a moratorium on development for a short period, but neither ultimately passed one. 'What I don't want to see is those local jurisdictions use a natural disaster as an excuse for a development moratorium,' he said. 'These moratoriums paralyze recovery.' Both sponsors waved away concerns that the provision would have 'unintended consequences' beyond barring the moratoriums it was designed to stop. McFarland said she was not aware of how similar language in Senate Bill 250 has proved to be a roadblock for counties like Manatee that are trying to make local planning changes unrelated to storm recovery. 'That's interesting,' McFarland said. When asked about New Smyrna Beach, where city officials said the proposed bill would block their much-needed drainage improvements after a previous hurricane, DeCeglie said he didn't see how it would impact stormwater regulations and said he'd need to learn more about it. DeSantis has yet to sign the bill into law or veto it, as some local governments have asked. DiCeglie said he worked with the governor's office to develop the bill, as well as alongside the state's emergency management department. 'I can't imagine the governor wouldn't want to support this,' he said. Is your flood insurance going up? Another provision of the bill would raise flood insurance rates for tens of thousands of Floridians and make it easier for residents to avoid doing what disaster experts say the state desperately needs to do — elevate more homes. It bans a practice that adds to the already complicated formula for deciding if someone with a storm-ravaged home can simply rebuild as-is or tear it all down and start over. It brings the state back to the bare minimum required by FEMA and the Florida Building Code, which says that a home with storm damage totaling more than 50% of the value of the home must raze and rebuild. 'If we can keep one more person in their home to keep them out of the 50% rule, that's one person that does not have to deal with the incredibly stressful situation of tearing down their home and elevating,' said DiCeglie. It's a long-standing practice in some coastal communities, where experts say it forces people to rebuild stronger — and higher — to face the next storm by lowering the threshold where people have to elevate their properties. Banning the practice would result in fewer elevated homes, said Del Schwalls, a floodplain management consultant who works for many communities in Florida. 'It's really frustrating. It prevents anybody from trying to fix this flood, repair, flood, repair cycle,' he said. But, after three hurricanes flooded tens of thousands of homes on the Gulf Coast last year, exposing more people to the practice, the tide turned. The state conducted a study of the practice, which found that it 'constrains renovation activity' and does not necessarily lead to more people purchasing flood insurance in those communities. If DeSantis signs the bill into law, it would bar communities from using this cumulative practice. Of the 122 communities that use it, state data show 44 communities would lose points toward discounts on flood insurance premiums. And 12 of those communities would lose enough points that they would no longer qualify for their current level of discount. Per the state study, the communities are: Bay County, Leon County, Orange County, Dania Beach, Jupiter Beach, Palm Springs, Estero, Lake Mary, Hialeah, Bonita Springs, Hollywood and the Pensacola Beach Santa Rosa Island Authority. That would drop about 8,600 Hollywood residents from a 20% discount to a 15% discount, an increase of about $38 for the average policyholder with a premium of $737 a year, according to the study. Statewide, the study found, this change would affect about 44,000 people and raise the cost of flood insurance by $1.6 million statewide, or an average of $36 per person, per year. It's unclear how long it would take from the time the bill is signed until residents face higher flood insurance prices, but it could occur in October, when the agency reviews discounts in all communities. A FEMA spokesperson said the agency does not comment on pending legislation, 'and determinations about CRS retrogrades are made in consultation with local and state officials.' Those communities could go after other policy changes to regain points and re-attain the discount, but it could take months or years to pass those policies through city or county commissions, as well as earn state approval, Schwalls said. 'It's not as easy as just go get more points,' he said. 'It could take a while.'
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Florida legislators want to pave every rural spot left in the state
A farm in Central Florida, via Visit Central Florida I've spent some time this month cruising through Florida's remaining rural oases, places where there's still some green space amid all the asphalt. I've seen citrus groves and stands of timber, canopy roads and cattle pastures. When the madding crowd is driving you, well, mad, such places are a balm to the soul. And the folks I've talked to who live there would prefer them to stay that way. Yet if some development-mad Florida legislators have their way, these will all go on the endangered list. During our version of March Madness, the annual legislative session, there are two virulently anti-rural bills up for consideration, Senate Bill 1118 and House Bill 1209. The formal name of the bills is 'Land Use and Development Regulations.' I think a more accurate one would be 'Get Those Dang Farmers Out of Here So We Can Cram in More Cookie Cutter Houses!' These two bills would yank local control of development away from cities and counties across the state. The goal: Open up hundreds of thousands of agricultural acres to developers, with no chance for a review from those local governments and no way for the neighbors to object. The two bills are also about as anti-voter as Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro. They would overturn the decisions of an overwhelming majority in Orange and Seminole counties to impose a rural boundary on the development in their counties. The Orange County boundary was just upheld by an appeals court, by the way. 'This is urban sprawl at its worst,' Lee Constantine, a former state legislator who's now a Seminole County commissioner, told me. 'You will not see a more egregious, one-sided bill.' Constantine is far from the only person who calls these bills awful. The president of the smart-growth group 1000 Friends of Florida, Paul Owens, wrote in an Orlando Sentinel op-ed that the bills 'read like a developer's Christmas list' because they'd 'wipe out limits against development on huge swaths of high-priority natural and agricultural land across Florida, doing irreversible damage to our environment, quality of life and economy.' I haven't seen so many environmental groups clamoring to defeat something since last year when Gov. Ron DeSantis tried to build golf courses in the state parks. When the Senate version came up in a committee this week, several senators said they were feeling the heat from all the people objecting. One joked that her phone was blowing up and her email was smoking. Yet when the meeting concluded, the committee approved the most hated bill of the session on a 5-3 party-line vote. One Republican senator explained that he was supporting it because he trusted the sponsor to fix whatever's wrong with the bill. Constantine scoffed at that. 'There is no fixing this nonsense,' he told me. Ironically, this is the year Senate President Ben Albritton says he wants to lead a 'rural renaissance.' These bills seem to be aiming for something different — a rural version of the Dark Ages. That's no surprise. The past six or seven years have been tough ones for Florida's rural residents, and not just because of all the hurricane damage. Big-money developers, aided by politicians from the governor on down, have painted a target on every green spot that's left, from the Panhandle to the Keys. Rural residents had to fight back when the governor and Legislature approved that trio of awful toll roads known as M-CORES. They've had to fight again when the one survivor of the M-CORES repeal, the Northern Turnpike Extension, took aim at the rural areas again. The people trying to wipe out the farms and ranches never seem to think about how important they are to the economy. There are 44,000 commercial farms in the state, and Florida agricultural products in 2022 rang up $8.88 billion in sales. Those open spaces provide benefits for the environment, too, such as allowing for recharge of the underground aquifer and habitat for important species such as panthers. Plus, of course, we humans need the food they produce — the corn, the beef, the milk, the strawberries, the melons, the tomatoes, and the oranges, to name but a few. Speaking as someone who often starts his day with some Florida OJ, I have to tell you that nothing produced by urban sprawl tastes nearly as good. Doesn't contain as much Vitamin C, either. That's why smart cities and counties have set up boundaries to protect these remaining rural spots from being wiped out by the fast-buck artists. Developers hate such boundaries. They'd like to play Ronald Reagan in Berlin and demand someone tear down those walls. But we need those walls. 'All of the South Florida counties have established an urban-rural boundary,' said Cragin Mosteller of the Florida Association of Counties, noting that the rural part usually includes the Everglades. When I asked for the worst parts of the bills, David Cruz of the Florida League of Cities pointed out the provision whereby a 7,000-acre 'agricultural enclave' can bypass all local zoning rules to be approved for development with a decision by an administrator — no public hearings or elected official votes needed. That leaves neighbors with no say in what happens next door to their property, he pointed out. Why don't their property rights count the same as everyone else's? These considerations are not hypothetical. Mosteller told me about the town of West Park, in Broward County. Some years ago, the town obtained an exemption from Broward's rural boundary. Suddenly, the door was open to building all over. 'Now it's one of the fastest-growing cities in the state,' she said. 'If this bill passes, that's what would happen in all the other rural boundaries, and the public would have no opportunity to have any input.' But shutting up the public is just what the bill sponsor wants. SB 1118 is sponsored by Sen. Stan McClain, who also happens to be — SURPRISE! — a homebuilder in Marion County. A 2004 story in the Ocala Star Banner reported that he builds 15 houses a year. McClain has 11 children and 18 grandchildren, which I think means he could stay busy just building homes for his own family. If his name rings a bell, it may be because a couple of years ago he sponsored a bill to stop anyone from talking about girls' menstrual cycles in elementary schools, even if the girls need to hear about it. Yes, the 'Don't Say Period' bill passed. But what McClain is really committed to is the homebuilding business. In fact, the Florida Home Builders Association website lists him as executive officer of the Marion County Building Industry Association. In all the stories on his much-hated anti-rural bill, McClain has dodged reporters seeking a comment. WKMG-TV, for instance, reported that it had 'reached out to McClain several times to speak to him about the bill, and he has not responded to our requests.' I was curious to hear his reason for sponsoring this bill, especially since his campaign website says he believes government should 'not pick winners and losers with heavy-handed policies that favor one industry over another.' Yet here he is sponsoring a bill that would clearly favor his own industry over an agriculture industry that's so important to Marion County that they have a Farmland Preservation Area, created in 2005. That's why even his fellow Marion County Republicans oppose his bill. So, I tuned in this week to see what he'd say in the Senate Community Affairs Committee. Just out of curiosity, I first looked up who the chairman of that committee was and discovered it to be a fellow named — SURPRISE! — Stan McClain. Here's a funny thing about being chairman. While McClain was required to yield the chair while he talked about his bill, he could delay consideration to the last of the committee's agenda, after all the other bills had been discussed at length. That meant the committee didn't get to McClain's bill until near the meeting's scheduled end. As a result, any opponents who wanted to talk about what was wrong with it had only 30 seconds each instead of the usual, which is several minutes. As sponsor, though, McClain got much more time to lay out the reasoning behind his bill. 'The challenge of growth management is that people haven't stopped moving to Florida and it doesn't appear they're going to stop anytime soon,' he told his fellow committee members. 'How do we supply enough homes for people moving in?' Then he started rambling about 'inconsistent' regulations that 'merit discussion,' and insisted that this bill was all about 'trying to find a happy medium between growing and not.' Somehow McClain never got around to explaining why he thinks it's okay for the state to run roughshod over what a lot of local voters wanted. Nor did he explain why the Legislature should get more say in local planning decisions than the local elected officials. As one of the Democratic committee members, Sen. Jason Pizzo, told him, 'There's a lot of ickiness here.' One other thing Pizzo said really caught my attention. 'How are we not supposed to think this is not for one specific developer in Central Florida to expand into environmentally sensitive land?' he said. But he named no names. The Orlando Sentinel spelled out who he meant. 'The proposed state legislation is a priority for the Florida Home Builders Association as well as Deseret Ranches, the real estate arm of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints, which has lobbyists working on the bill,' the paper reported. 'Deseret Ranches owns hundreds of thousands of acres of ranch and swamp land spanning the eastern edge of Orange County, dipping into Osceola and Brevard.' Deseret is one of the largest calf-cow operations in the nation, but the company doesn't want it to stay a ranch. They've got development plans the likes of which Florida hasn't seen since 20 years ago, when the St. Joe Co. started converting its millions of acres of Panhandle pine plantations into vacation homes. 'Long-term blueprints outline development across an area spanning nearly 250 square miles,' Florida Trend reports. 'Those plans envision 220,000 homes, 100 million square feet of commercial and institutional space and close to 25,000 hotel rooms — almost as many as Walt Disney World has.' To aid its plans, Deseret tried to get Orlando to annex more than 50,000 acres of its land before Orange County voters could decide the fate of its rural boundary in a referendum, investigative reporter Jason Garcia noted in his 'Seeking Rents' substack. 'City leaders ultimately abandoned the annexation attempt, in part due to backlash from locals.' I put in a call to Deseret's influential Tallahassee lobbyist, Gary Hunter, to ask why his clients want to wreck the entire state just to get their revenge on the people of Orange County. For some reason he didn't get back to me. Perhaps he was busy herding legislators the way Deseret's cowboys herd cattle. In recent years, Florida's cities and counties have turned into the Legislature's favorite whipping boys, usually to benefit some major campaign contributor. In 2019, for instance, they blocked local government from passing tree protection ordinances. In 2021, when Key West's voters passed a referendum limiting cruise ships because of their pollution, the Legislature stepped in and blocked the referendum. In 2023, they passed a bill that prohibits local government voter referendums or ballot initiatives on land development regulation. Because of top-down dictates from the sneaky Legislature, local governments can't ditch fossil fuels to pick a less polluting form of energy, ban single-use plastic bags, forbid the sale of sunscreens that damage coral reefs, or promote the 'rights of nature' movement. But this bill that McClain is pushing — and that his fellow Republicans have been helping him push, despite such strong public opposition — is far worse than anything they've done before. It's absolute madness and deserves to be tossed out with the trash. But I bet if they do pass it, these flaming hypocrites will then go out on the speech-making circuit and claim they're 'small-government conservatives.' They'll say it with a straight face, too! SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
