Preliminary Legislative Wrap Up for Florida from 1000 Friends of Florida

Preliminary Legislative Wrap Up


As is often the case, the just completed session proved to be a mixed bag for Florida's growth management advocates. The legislature failed to reauthorize the Florida Department of Community Affairs, leaving it in a state of "limbo" for another year. In the final hours of the session, legislation failed that would have removed the artificial cap from the allocation of affordable housing dollars in the state. And 1000 Friends could not find sponsors for its "citizen bill of rights" amendments.

There were a few positive notes. In these challenging economic times, the final budget included $15 million for Florida Forever and at least another $10 million for Everglades restoration. The budget also included the same funding for DCA as in 2009 which, given the current economy, is a positive note. 1000 Friends, DCA and others successfully held off a number of damaging bills and amendments that among other things would have promoted inappropriate exemptions from transportation concurrency and weakened urban service boundaries.

As always, your calls made a difference, helping to secure funding for Florida Forever and halting numerous damaging planning amendments. We sincerely appreciate your support and will provide a more detailed update on the 2010 session shortly.

DCA Reauthorization and Funding--Despite many calls, letters and editorials calling for it, the Florida Department of Community Affairs was not reauthorized this session, leaving it in a state of "limbo" for another year and making it more vulnerable to elimination, dismantlement, funding cutbacks and/or excessive political pressure over the coming year. While the Senate passed SB 282 reauthorizing the agency, the House refused to take this bill up. However, the agency's budget was kept at the same level as last year.

Concurrency Exemptions--This damaging legislation failed to pass. Intended to address some problems associated with 2009's SB 360, SB 1742 would have created an exemption from concurrency for "transit oriented development," even when the development had no provisions for transit. 1000 Friends opposed these provisions and we also worked with DCA to make sure they were not added to a permitting bill, SB 1126, in the final hours of the session.

Callery Judge--1000 Friends helped block a number of damaging amendments that were proposed in the final days of the session. These included amendments to HB 7099 to weaken Palm Beach County's urban service boundary and require local governments to create "transportation backlog authorities" to exempt development from transportation concurrency with the intent of benefitting the Callery Judge property in Palm Beach County.

Citizen Planning Bill of Rights--1000 Friends offered amendment language but were unable to secure a sponsor. The Florida League of Cities did have a bill that included the mandatory neighborhood planning meeting requirement, but HB 733 never got out of its first committee meeting.

Florida Forever--The Florida Forever Coalition's hard work resulted in the approved budget including $15 million for Florida Forever, and another $10 million for Everglades restoration. An additional $40 million is possible for Everglades restoration if Congress awards Florida some additional Medicaid dollars which would allow for a budget shift of other monies.

Affordable Housing-- HB 665 did not pass, at least in part because of an attempt to put the damaging Callery Judge amendments there as well. HB 665 included provisions to end the artificial cap on distributions of the fund. This was a major setback, as the legislation seemed likely to pass until the final hours of the session.