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Etiqueta: Rural

  • Florida Senate quickly passes rural renaissance package

    Senate President Ben Albriton’s rural renaissance package passed his chamber unanimously Wednesday for the second year in a row. But whether it will make headway in the House remains to be seen.

    The package was held up in the House last year amid disagreements between the chambers. Speaking to reporters after the Senate’s vote, Albritton said he’s hopeful that this year it will clear the legislature—especially, he says, because it has received backing from the Trump Administration.

    “The federal government and President Trump’s leadership is interested in a renewal, whether it’s a renaissance or whatever you want to call it, but a renewal in rural America. So, I’m hopeful this year. I’m optimistic this year,” he said.

    Sen. Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee, is sponsoring the bill. On the Senate floor before it passed, he said it will be a game-changer for many people in the communities he serves.

    “They’re just hard-working people, and honestly, they don’t want to ask the government for anything, but there are things that are needed in these communities, roads that are torn down, water systems that are failing,” he said.

    The $218 million package would have wide-ranging effects on rural Florida, including allocations for roads and affordable housing.

    According to the Florida Department of Revenue, 29 of the state’s 67 counties are considered fiscally constrained, meaning they don’t generate enough local revenue to fund critical infrastructure on their own and are considered rural.

    Editor’s Note: This story was reported with support from Press Forward North Florida, an initiative of the Community Foundation of North Florida, is proud to support the Rural News Service through funding provided by Press Forward Catalyst Funds.

  • Florida counties may be breaking the law with rural boundaries to manage growth

    Florida Republican officials are challenging rural boundaries within the state’s counties.

    Orange County voters decided to limit overdevelopment in rural areas in 2024, which has led to a major court challenge by builders there.

    «Developers have long hated this idea of a rural boundary because it pushes back on them,» said David Bear, an attorney and president of the nonprofit Save Rural Seminole.

    Voters in Seminole County approved of their rural boundary back in 2004, and they reaffirmed it last year at a margin of 74%.

    Forests store or sequester a lot of climate-warming emissions, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website.

    «Nationwide, USDA Greenhouse Gas Inventories indicate that forests, urban trees, and harvested wood account for the majority of natural sinks of carbon dioxide,» the USDA says.

    Letters on letters

    As a long-time resident, Bear said folks in Seminole want this boundary, but state Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers, doesn’t agree.

    He sent a letter to the state’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, asking about the legality of the rural classifications in Seminole and Orange counties – over 200 miles away from the area he represents.

    We reached out to Martin via email and phone, but his office hasn’t answered. Bear questioned Martin’s motives.

    «Why is a Lee County State Senator going out there and meddling with us in Seminole County?» he asked.

    ALSO READ: Florida’s new growth law draws another legal challenge

    Greg Slemp, general counsel for the Attorney General’s Office, responded to Martin with his own letter, saying the localized limits may go too far under federal and state laws; therefore, he thinks they’re likely unconstitutional.

    «The property restrictions on rural landowners in Seminole and Orange counties could very well constitute a regulatory taking under the Federal and Florida Constitutions,» Slemp’s letter said. «In addition, it is the opinion of this office that the charter amendments of Seminole County and Orange County in designating certain large portions of land as rural likely violate the Bert Harris Act.»

    A «regulatory taking» is when a government rule is so restrictive that it takes away economic use or value, potentially leading to «just compensation» from the government. And Florida’s Bert Harris Act involves the protection of private property rights.

    Bear responded to the original penman, Martin, with – surprise – a letter challenging the opinion of the Attorney General’s Office.

    «Neither Seminole nor Orange’s Rural Boundaries took any rights from the landowners,» Bear’s letter said. «Neither Rural Boundary changed the land use rights which the owners had at the time they were enacted. Each landowner can still build to the same density they could at the time the Rural Boundaries were enacted.»

    He also pointed to a few failed lawsuits by developers against the boundary.

    Florida’s preemption trend

    Bear said he has no doubt these boundaries are legal both statewide and federally.

    «What I do have doubt about is whether politicians can convince legislators in Tallahassee to preempt what our citizens and our local officials have done,» he said.

    The attorney general’s letter doesn’t take action, but Bear fears this could pave the way for preemptive legislation down the line.

    «For 30 years, the legislators in Tallahassee and the Republican Party … told us that home rule was a really good idea and that we should allow counties and cities to manage local issues,» Bear said. «Now that Republicans are in charge in Tallahassee, they’ve forgotten all about that, and they’ve decided that their donors and friends, they can use their power to help out.»

    There are currently six bills this legislative session that Bear said aim to «preempt local conservation and growth regulations.» Those are:

    1. SB 208 would prohibit local governments from denying or delaying residential development based on whether the location is near an existing residential property.
    2. SB 354 says 10,000 acres or more could override existing land-use or zoning designations.
    3. SB 548 could make local governments prove extraordinary circumstances before raising impact fees.
    4. SB 588 would prohibit local governments from taking arbitrary or unreasonable enforcement.
    5. SB 686 would allow areas designated as agricultural enclaves to develop single-family homes and can be approved with no public input.
    6. And finally, SB 718 would prohibit local governments from passing laws or regulations for wetlands, water quality, pollution control, and discharge prevention.

    Conservation easements

    Dean Saunders, a current land broker and a former state lawmaker, said when restrictions on development are done at the local level, it’s a temporary solution.

    «Philosophies, and emphasis, changes … that can happen in these county commissions … so suddenly I’ve gone from anti-development to now I’m super pro-growth,» Saunders said.

    In his opinion, state and federal conservation easements are more permanent – it’s when landowners volunteer to limit future development on their property through legally binding agreements.

    Saunders was actually behind Florida’s legislation on conservation easements back in the ’90s.

    «Seminole County does have a land acquisition program, so it’d be great see them focus on buying some conservation easements,» Saunders said. «The landowner continues to own the land … the public gets it protected … and it stays stimulating the economy.»

    Bear said locally designated rural boundaries and conservation easements are both good tools for land management.

    «It’s sort of like saying, if you like chocolate cake, and you like steak, you can only have one or the other. That’s not true,» Bear said. «You can have steak for dinner and then you can have chocolate cake … they’re both good things to eat.»

    Copyright 2025 WUSF 89.7

  • Florida’s new growth law has another legal challenge

    The growth-management group 1000 Friends of Florida and an Orange County resident Tuesday filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a new state law that blocks cities and counties from approving «more restrictive or burdensome» changes to growth plans.

    The lawsuit, filed in Leon County circuit court, came after 25 cities and counties filed a similar legal challenge last week. Also, Ocoee last month filed a case at the state Division of Administrative Hearings after the Florida Department of Commerce rejected the city’s revised comprehensive plan because of the law.

    The prohibition on growth-plan changes was included in a wide-ranging bill (SB 180) that lawmakers said would help the state recover from the 2024 hurricanes. The law, signed in June by Gov. Ron DeSantis, effectively freezes local land-development regulations and comprehensive plans through Oct. 1, 2027, and was made retroactive to Aug. 1, 2024.

    The lawsuit filed Tuesday raises a series of issues, including arguing that the prohibition violates due-process rights because it is «arbitrary and capricious» and that the overall bill violates part of the Florida Constitution limiting legislation to single subjects.

    «SB 180 contains various matters that are not connected to and are unrelated to emergencies, including the total ban … on any ‘more restrictive or burdensome’ land-use and zoning regulations, and (one section’s) prohibition on moratoria on construction, reconstruction, and redevelopment of property, even if the property is intact and was not damaged by a hurricane or other emergency,» the lawsuit said.

    «This is particularly arbitrary as applied to counties with a large geographic area, and as it applies to the ability of all cities and counties to plan for and regulate all future growth and development — as opposed to the repair and rebuilding of existing development.»

    The lawsuit also said SB 180 purports to be an «act relating to emergencies» but that it is not limited to emergencies.

    «It invalidates both past and future comprehensive plan and land-development code measures that have no logical connection to the main purpose of the act (the overall bill), emergency management,» the lawsuit said.

    «It changes the law regarding post-storm rebuilding and emergency management, but also changes the substantive law concerning every single issue that is addressed in a local government comprehensive plan and land-development regulation, including dozens of issues wholly unrelated in any way to emergency management and post-storm rebuilding of structures damaged by storms.»

    During recent county delegation meetings, local officials have urged lawmakers to revisit the law during the 2026 legislative session, which will start in January. But it remains unclear whether that will happen.

    The lawsuit said, for instance, that 1000 Friends of Florida members in Brevard, Manatee, St. Johns and Orange counties had been affected by the law because the Department of Commerce had rejected comprehensive-plan amendments because of the prohibition. The department has authority over comprehensive plans, which local governments have long used as growth blueprints.

    The lawsuit names as defendants Department of Commerce Secretary J. Alex Kelly, Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, Department of Revenue Executive Director Jim Zingale and state Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia. Those are the same defendants named in the lawsuit filed last week by cities and counties.

    Both lawsuits say those state officials have roles in carrying out the law or in local-government money.

    The named plaintiff in the lawsuit filed Tuesday, Rachel Hildebrand, lives in a rural area of Orange County. The lawsuit said the Department of Commerce on July 28 rejected a comprehensive-plan amendment that affected the area.

    «The character and quality of life of Hildebrand’s land, home, and rural community are directly harmed by the invalidation of these comprehensive plan protections as a result of the department’s action,» the lawsuit said.

    «SB 180 undermines the protections afforded her by the Orange County Comprehensive Plan against mounting development pressures in the region, including more crowded and dangerous roads, increased flooding and wildlife deaths and loss of rural character.»