BILL SUMMARY DETAILS

HB 487 (Duggan) and CS/SB 1274 (Perry) revise acreage thresholds for adopting comprehensive plan amendments using a small-scale development amendment. (Cruz)

CS/HB 337 (DiCeglie) and CS/CS/SB 750 (Gruters) are comprehensive impact fee bills. Of concern to cities, the bills would cap impact fee increases to no more than 3% annually. The bills would allow a local government to collect an impact fee only if it has a planned or funded capital improvement within the applicable impact fee assessment district at the time the fee is collected. Lastly, the bills require the submittal of an affidavit by local governments that collect impact fees attesting that all impact fees were collected and expended by the local government in compliance with the bills. CS/HB 337 was amended in committee to provide the cap on impact fees may not be more than 25% of the current rate and for the increase to be phased in. CS/SB 750 was amended in committee to make it identical to CS/HB 337. (Cruz)

CS/HB 403 (Giallombardo) and CS/SB 266 (Perry) passed in their respective committees. The bills provide that local governments may not enact or enforce any ordinance, regulation or policy or take any action to license or otherwise regulate a home-based business in a manner that is different from other businesses in a local government’s jurisdiction. The bills authorize business owners to challenge local government actions and authorize the prevailing party to recover specified attorney fees and costs. CS/SB 266 was amended to provide that a home-based business may not create noise, vibration, heat, smoke, dust, glare, fumes, odors or electrical or electronic interference detectable by neighbors. The amended bill would also allow local regulation of a home-based business for things such as parking, hours of operation, signage, exterior structures and the use of hazardous materials. (Cruz)

CS/SB 1274 (Perry) and HB 487 (Duggan) authorize landowners with development orders existing before the incorporation of a municipality to elect to abandon the order granted by the county and instead obtain a new order granted by the newly incorporated city in accordance with their comprehensive plan. The bills also revises the required acreage thresholds under which a small-scale development amendment may be adopted from 10 acres to 50 acres. (Cruz)

CS/CS/CS/SB 496 (Perry) and CS/CS/CS/HB 59 (McClain) are comprehensive growth management bills. The legislation requires local governments to create and include a private property rights element in their comprehensive plans. The bill requires the consent of certain property owners is not required for development agreement changes under certain circumstances. Under certain circumstances the legislation authorizes developers to exchange approved land uses, subject to demonstrating that the exchange will not increase impacts to public facilities. The bills require the Department of Transportation to afford a right of first refusal to previous property owners under specified circumstances. The bills were amended to provide that in certain situations a city or county will have additional time to amend their comprehensive plan to comply with the requirements of the legislation. As amended, a city or county can now wait until the next time they amend their comprehensive plan or until their seven-year review of their comprehensive plan is due to comply with the new private property element. (Cruz)

CS/HB 421 (Tuck) and CS/SB 1876 (Albritton) amend the Bert J. Harris, Jr., Private Property Rights Protection Act by shortening the review period governments have in responding to claims from 150 to 90 days. The bills create the presumption that certain Bert Harris settlement offers are in the public interest. The bills create a process by which a property owner can notify a government entity that they believe a new law or regulation imposes a limitation on their property. The government entity would have 45 days to respond in writing describing what limitations are imposed on the property by the new law or regulation. At this point, the Bert Harris claim would be ripe for filing without the property owner being denied an application for development if filed within one year after receiving the response from the government entity. The bills give the property owner the option to forgo a jury trial and instead have a bench trial. Lastly, the legislation amends the attorney fee provisions of the Bert Harris Act by making them more favorable to the property owner. The bills were amended to add the subject of HB 1101 and SB 1380, creating one vehicle for all Bert Harris Legislation. (Cruz)

CS/HB 1139 (Smith) and CS/SB 1520 (Boyd) provide that a utility easement is an interest in real property and subject to certain actions unless otherwise provided in the instrument creating the easement. These bills revise rights that are not affected or extinguished by marketable record titles and require persons with certain interests in land that may be extinguished by this act to file a specified notice to preserve their interests. (Cruz)

HB 255 (Geller) and SB 1338 (Torres, Jr.) – Legislation by Initiative

SB 152 (Diaz) and HB 65 (Sabatini) – Regulatory Reform

HB 77 (Overdorf) and SB 1082 (Albritton) – Diesel Exhaust Fluid

HB 103 (Thompson) and SB 1204 (Thurston) – Elections

HB 143 (Fabrico) and SB 962 (Diaz) – Construction Materials Mining Activities

SB 336 (Rouson) and HB 1535 (Clemons) – Large-scale Agricultural Pollution Reduction Pilot Program

SB 358 (Berman) – Water Safety

HB 217 (Hunschofsky) and SB 588 (Book) – Conservation Area Designations

SB 82 (Baxley) – Sponsorship of Identification Disclaimers

SB 658 (Taddeo) – Violations of the Florida Elections Code

HB 943 (Shoaf) and SB 1278 (Ausley) – Apalachicola Bay Area of Critical State Concern

HB 1051 (Fernandez-Barquin) and SB 964 (Diaz) – Environmental Compliance Costs

HB 1145 (McClain) – Regulatory Restriction Reduction

SB 94 (Brodeur) – Water Storage North of Lake Okeechobee

SB 834 (Cruz) and HB 1257 (Hunschofsky) -- Drinking Water in Public Schools

SB 1626 (Albritton) – Administrative Procedures

HB 1311 (Payne) – Public Meetings/Public Service Commission

SB 1668 (Rodriguez, A.) – Seagrass Mitigation Banks

SB 1652 (Pizzo) and HB 1337 (Geller) – Anchoring Limitation Areas

SB 1752 (Rodriguez, A.) – Independent Special District Utilities

HB 1487 (McCurdy) – School Resiliency Pilot Programs

HB 869 (Valdes) and SB 1528 (Cruz) – Vote by Mail Ballots

SB 188 (Berman) and HB 551 (Hardy) – Solar Energy Systems Located on Property of an Educational Facility

HB 457 (Arrington) and SB 830 (Polsky) – Political Party Affiliations of Qualifying Candidates

SB 774 (Gainer) and HB 635 (Maney) – Super Voting Sites

SB 7062 (Environment and Natural Resources Committee) – Central Florida Water Initiative

SB 546 (Farmer) and HB 1575 (Jenne) create the Stop Fracking Act. The bills define extreme well stimulation to include the various forms of fracking used to increase the production at an oil or gas well and prohibit well stimulation in the state. (O’Hara)

CS/SB 64 (Albritton) and CS/HB 263 (Maggard) require certain domestic wastewater utilities to submit a plan to the Department of Environmental Protection by November 2021 for eliminating non-beneficial surface water discharges (e.g., treated effluent, reclaimed water or reuse water) within a five-year time frame. The bills require DEP to approve such plans if a plan meets the following conditions: The plan will result in eliminating the surface water discharge, the plan will result in meeting statutory requirements relating to ocean outfalls or the plan does not provide for the complete elimination of the surface water discharge but affirmatively demonstrates that specified conditions are present. The conditions are: The discharge is associated with an indirect potable reuse project, the discharge is a wet weather discharge in accordance with a permit, the discharge is into a stormwater system for subsequent withdrawal for irrigation purposes, the utility has a reuse system that achieves 90% reuse of reclaimed water or the discharge provides direct ecological or public water supply benefits. In addition, CS/SB 64 (but not CS/HB 263) requires DEP to also approve a plan if a utility demonstrates that it is technically, economically or environmentally infeasible to implement the requirements within five years; that implementing the requirements would create severe undue economic hardship on the community served and that the plan implements the requirements to the extent feasible. Plans approved by DEP must be fully implemented by January 2028 except for plans that implement a potable reuse project, in which case such projects must be implemented by January 2030. A utility that fails to timely submit an approved plan may not discharge to surface waters after January 2028. Violations of the bills’ requirements are subject to administrative and civil penalties. The bills require utilities to update plans on an annual basis and demonstrate whether statutory conditions and exemptions remain applicable. The bills require DEP to submit an annual report to the governor and Legislature detailing implementation status. The bills exempt the following domestic wastewater facilities from its requirements: facilities located in a fiscally constrained county, facilities located in a municipality that is entirely within a rural area of opportunity and facilities located in a municipality having less than $10,000 in total annual revenue. The bills authorize DEP to establish a potable reuse technical advisory committee, provide that potable reuse projects are eligible for alternative water supply funding and provide that potable reuse projects are eligible for expedited permitting and priority state funding. CS/SB 64 requires local governments to offer density or intensity bonuses to developers to fully offset the developers’ capital costs of purchasing and installing residential graywater technologies in proposed or existing developments containing at least 25 residential dwellings; CS/HB 263 requires local governments to offer a 15% density or intensity bonus instead of a full offset. (O’Hara)

SB 1860 (Jones) and HB 1435 (Smith, C.) direct the Office of Energy within the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to establish an application process for electric utilities, natural gas utilities and water/wastewater utilities to complete before it may receive utility customer assistance funds to provide assistance to residential customers for nonpayment of utility bills. The bills provide eligibility criteria for utilities to receive customer assistance funds and specifies criteria for a utility’s COVID-19 relief repayment plan. The bills require participating utilities to provide a report of all related accounting by December 2021. The bills specify that in addition to utility customer assistance funds provided in the bills, utilities must use funds allocated from the federal coronavirus relief funds of Public Law 116-136 to provide direct subsidy payments on behalf of residential customers whose accounts are more than 60 days past due. The bills direct the Legislature to appropriate $100 million to the Office of Energy for customer assistance funds. (O’Hara)

SB 1396 (Gruters) and HB 1167 (Snyder) expand the current law preemption of local government regulations pertaining to “dangerous” trees on residential property. The bills expand the definition of “residential property” to include manufactured or modular homes, mobile home parks, duplexes, triplexes, quadruplexes, condominium units or cooperative units. (O’Hara)

CS/SB 1954 (Rodrigues) and CS/HB 7019 (Environment, Agriculture & Flooding Subcommittee) establish the Resilient Florida Grant Program within the Department of Environmental Protection, subject to appropriation, to provide grants to local governments to fund the costs of community resilience planning and vulnerability assessments. The bills specify criteria and qualifications for grant applications under the program. The bills require a 50% match for grant funding, but CS/HB 7019 provides exceptions for certain fiscally constrained cities and counties.  The bills direct the Department to develop, by July 2022, a comprehensive statewide flood vulnerability and sea level rise dataset sufficient to conduct a statewide flood vulnerability and sea level rise assessment. The bills direct the Department to complete the statewide vulnerability assessment by July 2023 and use the state data set and incorporating local and regional analyses of vulnerabilities and risks. The Department must update the data set and assessment every three years. The bills direct the Department to develop, by December 2021, a Statewide Flooding and Sea-Level Rise Resilience Plan on a three-year planning horizon. The Plan must consist of ranked projects that address risks to coastal and inland communities and the total amount of funding proposed in the Plan may not exceed $100 million. The bills specify information and eligibility requirements for projects listed in the Plan. The bills require water management districts, by September 2021, to submit a list of proposed projects that address risks of flooding and sea level rise for inclusion in the Department’s Plan, which may include projects submitted by local governments. Projects in the water management districts’ submissions must have a minimum 50% cost share and be ranked according to a scoring system. The bills encourage local governments to participate in regional resilience coalitions for planning and coordinating intergovernmental solutions to address flooding and sea-level rise and authorize the Department to provide funding to such coalitions when funds are specifically appropriated. The bills establish the Florida Flood Hub for Applied Research and Innovation within the University of South Florida to coordinate efforts between academic and research institutions in the state. The bills also require the Office of Economic and Demographic Research to include information relating to inland and coastal flood control in its annual assessment of expenditures and funding needs including an analysis of any gap between estimated revenues and projected expenditures. (O’Hara)

HB 283 (Eskamani) and SB 720 (Berman) prohibit the drilling, exploration or production of petroleum products in the state. In addition, the bills direct the Office of Energy within the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to develop a statewide plan to generate 100% of the electricity used in the state from renewable energy by 2040 and for the state to have net zero carbon emissions statewide by 2060. The bills create the Renewable Energy Workforce Development Advisory Committee within the Department. (O’Hara)

SB 1008 (Hutson) and HB 761 (Overdorf) provide that solar facilities (including solar farms and related buildings, transmission lines and substations) are a permitted (as-of-right) use in local government comprehensive agricultural land use categories and certain agricultural zoning districts within unincorporated areas. The bills require solar facilities to comply with minimal criteria such as setbacks and buffering applicable to similar uses within the agricultural district. The bills authorize counties to adopt ordinances specifying buffer and landscaping requirements for solar facilities if the requirements do not exceed requirements for other permitted uses within an agricultural district. The bills also include solar facilities with capacities of less than 150 megawatts within the current definition of “electrical power plant” in the Power Plant Siting Act and allow such solar facilities the option of whether to use the Act’s certification process for siting the facilities. (O’Hara)

CS/SB 1054 (Broxson) and HB 705 (Andrade) address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). CS/SB 1054 prohibits the Department of Environmental Protection from taking enforcement action against any property owner to require PFAS remediation until the Department adopts rules establishing a “maximum contaminant level” for the specific contaminant. HB 705 provides airports are not liable for costs, damages or penalties relating to contamination, discharge, evaluation, assessment, or remediation of PFAS. Both bills direct the Office of Program Policy Accountability and Analysis (OPPAGA) to conduct a study of assessment and cleanup of soil and groundwater contamination in other states and submit a report on its findings to the governor and legislature. (O’Hara)

CS/SB 1058 (Burgess) and HB 773 (McClure) amend current law that authorizes municipalities and counties to create an evaluation and rehabilitation program for sanitary sewer laterals on private property for the purpose of reducing leaks. The bills authorize a local government to access any sanitary sewer lateral within its jurisdiction for the purpose of investigating, cleaning, repairing or replacing the lateral. The bills establish procedures for implementing the lateral program. The bills require the local government to notify the property owner that it intends to access the owner’s property to address the problem and that the owner will not be held liable for the repair. The bills provide that under a locally established program the local government is responsible for repair and cleanup and also must specify requirements for repair work. (O’Hara)

SB 514 (Rodrigues) and HB 315 (LaMarca) establish the Statewide Office of Resiliency within the Executive Office of the governor, to be headed by a chief resilience officer appointed by the governor. The bills create the Statewide Sea-Level Rise Task Force to recommend consensus projections of anticipated sea-level rise and flooding impacts along the state’s coastline. They establish a process for appointments to the Task Force and directs the Task Force to convene no later than October 2021. The bills direct the Task Force to submit its recommended consensus baseline projections to the Environmental Regulation Commission by January 2022 and authorize the ERC to adopt or reject the recommendations. If adopted by the ERC, the projections will serve as the state’s official estimate of sea-level rise and flooding impacts along the coast and must be used for the purpose of developing future state projects, plans and programs. (O’Hara)

SB 916 (Brodeur) amends current law provisions that prohibit local governments from requiring permits for the removal of “dangerous” trees on residential property. The bill clarifies what constitutes residential property and clarifies the level of assessment and type of documentation that must be provided by an arborist or landscape architect under the law. (O’Hara)