Dear Senate President Passidomo:
The Florida Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA Florida) is an association of community planners with a chapter membership of more than 3,000 professionals. APA Florida strenuously objects to the Florida Community Planning Act amendments in CS SB 540 and its companion bill HB 359 for the following reasons.
This proposed legislation does not support the Governor’s Executive Order 23-06, which encourages the partnership of “the Department of Economic Opportunity and local governments to improve local government long-term comprehensive planning that ensures sustainable growth while protecting our natural resources.” In addition, this legislation may impact the Senate President’s Live Local Act, SB 102, where a consistency challenge may not be brought regarding workforce housing.
Furthermore, the amendments will dismantle the effectiveness of local community comprehensive plans to the substantial detriment of critical state and local resources, including coastal and other environmental resources, affordable housing initiatives, and other community needs.
One of the hallmarks of the Community Planning Act and its predecessor statute since 1985 has been the ability of third parties to challenge the inconsistency of local development decisions in the local court system through a “consistency challenge.” This has effectively ensured the integrity of the local comprehensive plan, which has been described for almost 40 years as the “constitution for local development.” The amendments in CS SB 540 will effectively erase the accountability of local government development decisions to the comprehensive plan in two ways. It narrows the scope of the challenge that can be brought to a very few aspects of the comprehensive plan: use, density, and intensity. All the other legislatively required elements of the comprehensive plan, including coastal resiliency, natural resource protection, property rights, and availability of workforce housing – to name only a few – would no longer be held up to the light of a consistency challenge.
Local government implementation of the comprehensive plan is good for everyone from landowners and developers to residents who care about roadway congestion, access to vital public services, and their environment. Conversely, suppose the State of Florida does not require local governments to follow their plans, and third parties cannot reasonably contest these decisions. In that case, governmental oversight will be less transparent and less reliable for everyone, which can cause irreversible harm to our communities.
For both reasons, this change in law essentially makes that element and much of the rest of every comprehensive plan just words on paper. In a time when Florida is experiencing rapid growth, sea level rise, natural resource vulnerability, and a workforce housing crisis, these amendments are counterproductive and seriously damaging to communities’ ability to meet these challenges. Please do not advance this bill.
Thank you for your attention to this matter,
Whit Blanton, FAICP President