House Bill 965 amends section 403.892, Florida Statutes, which provides incentives to homebuilders and developers who implement graywater technology systems in proposed or existing developments. The bill made several modest adjustments and clarifications to the existing law to address ambiguity that limited early implementation of the incentives. View More.

Senate Bill 882 amends section 373.036, Florida Statutes, to provide for the creation of a list of critical wetlands which will be acquired using funds from the Land Acquisition Trust Fund. This list is to be created by each governing board, in cooperation with local governments, as part of the “district water management plan,” or, if substituted by the governing board, as part of the “annual strategic plan.” The bill provides the criteria that the governing board should consider before including a wetland on the list: (1) the ecological value of the wetland (determined by the “physical and biological components of the environmental system”); (2) the wetland’s effects on water quality and flood mitigation; (3) the ecosystem restoration value of the wetland; and (4) the wetland’s susceptibility to development due to its location or aesthetics. View More.

Senate Bill 706 made changes to section 163.3180, Florida Statutes, which controls a local government’s school concurrency system. Under this statute, a local government may now allow a development to proceed on a specific parcel despite failing to satisfy school concurrency when three factors are met, and it provides procedures through which developers can satisfy concurrency through mitigation. View More.

Senate Bill 962 amends section 125.01055, Florida Statutes, which provides local governments with an alternative approval method for developments that include affordable housing. This bill provides clarification to the open-ended provision found in subsection (6) of the statute, which allows the board of county commissioners to approve affordable housing on any residential, commercial, or industrial parcel, notwithstanding any other law, ordinance, or regulation. The bill provides that, for commercial and industrial uses, a local government may approve any residential development as long as at least 10-percent of the units qualify as affordable housing. In addition to the percentage requirement, the developer must agree not to seek funding under section 420.5087, Florida Statutes, which controls the State Apartment Incentive Loan Program. Mixed-use residential developments are also included in the bill, so limited commercial uses can qualify under this approval process as well. The bill explicitly states that it is self-executing—local governments do not need to adopt an ordinance to implement this process. View More.

House Bill 1411 creates section 163.32051, Florida Statutes, which encourages the use of floating solar facilities. The Legislature has found that floating solar facilities are effective tools for harnessing energy in bodies of water for numerous reasons, including the water’s cooling effect on the solar panels and the prevention of evaporation and harmful algal blooms. Therefore, the bill encourages local governments to permit these solar facilities as appropriate uses of water and land areas. The bill limits the placement of floating solar facilities to bodies of water that have been permitted for storage, which includes wastewater treatment ponds, abandoned limerock mine areas, stormwater treatment ponds, reclaimed water ponds, and other water storage reservoirs. View More.

Senate Bill 1078 amends the districting procedures, election procedures, and qualifications of supervisors for soil and water conservation districts. First, the bill provides that if a proposed district is located wholly within one county, the district must be subdivided into five numbered subdivisions that match as near as practicable to either the county commission districts or school board districts to ensure geographical representation. View More.

House Bill 909 gives the Secretary of Environmental Protection exclusive jurisdiction in setting standards or procedures for evaluating environmental conditions and assessing potential liability for contaminants on agricultural land. The secretary may not delegate this power to a county, municipality, or other local government unit through a local pollution control program. However, a local government’s pollution control program still has power to enforce these standards and procedures. The bill does not apply to former agricultural land for which development has been completed nor a permit for development that has been approved prior to July 1, 2022. HB 909 was signed into law on June 15, 2022 and went into effect on July 1, 2022.

Senate Bill 494 amends the Florida Forever Act to allow for the establishment of gopher tortoise recipient sites on (1) public lands greater than 40 contiguous acres and (2) private lands where portions thereof are subject to conservation easements. This bill is in response to “geographical and capacity constraints” on available recipient sites, coupled with increased demand for such sites. View More.

Senate Bill 518 expands upon section 163.045, Florida Statutes, which governs when local governments may not require a notice, application, approval, permit, fee, or mitigation for the pruning, trimming or removal of a tree on residential property. SB 518 allows for these activities with no local government oversight when the property owner possesses documentation that a tree poses an “unacceptable risk.” A tree poses such an unacceptable risk when the only way to practically mitigate the risk below a “moderate” level is to remove the tree. A “moderate” level of risk is determined by the risk assessment procedures manual that is referenced in the bill: “Best Management Practices – Tree Risk Assessment, Second Edition (2017).” View More.

Senate Bill 898 created section 83.515, Florida Statutes, and has been cited to as “Miya’s Law.” The bill creates additional duties for landlords of public lodging establishments that are classified as nontransient apartments or transient apartments under § 509.242(1)(d) or (e).  View More.

House Bill 1475 concerns the cleanup of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (“PFAS”). The bill gives the United States Environmental Protection Agency until January 1, 2025 to adopt standards for PFAS in drinking water. If it fails to do so by this date, then the bill requires the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (“FDEP”) to adopt statewide cleanup target levels for PFAS in drinking water, groundwater, and soil using the criteria found in s. 376.30701: the Pollutant Discharge Prevention and Removal Act. View More.

Senate Bill 1380, among other things, clarifies which property rights are extinguished or preserved by the Marketable Record Title Act (“MRTA”), found in section 712, Florida Statutes. One exception to marketable title is when property rights or title defects are referenced in an instrument after the root of title. The bill clarifies that these property rights are not extinguished if: (1) a muniment specifically references the official records book and page, instrument number, or plat name of the pre-root instrument; or (2) the muniment generally references the estate, interest, easement or use restriction, together with an affirmative statement of intent that the property is subject to such estate, interest, easement, or use restriction. View More.

Senate Bill 856 permits owners of onsite sewage treatment and disposal systems (“System”) to hire a private provider to perform inspections, notwithstanding any other law, ordinance, or policy. A private provider may perform inspections on a System so long as one of the following conditions are met: the private provider is: (1) certified as an environmental health professional under section 381.0101, Florida Statutes; (2) registered as a master septic tank contractor under part III of Chapter 489; (3) licensed as a professional engineer under Chapter 471 and has passed all parts of an applicable training program; or (4) working under the supervision of a licensed professional engineer who has passed all parts of an applicable training program. However, the private provider (or an authorized representative of the private provider) who installed the System may not conduct the inspection. View More.

Senate Bill 1186 prohibits the revocation or denial of an agricultural tax exemption on a bona fide farm when that decision is based solely on the existence of agritourism activity. The bill also protects the land’s tax exemption for the construction, alteration, or maintenance of a nonresidential farm building, structure, or facility on a bona fide farm which is used to conduct agritourism activities. As long as the same is an integral part of the agricultural operation, the land it occupies must be considered agricultural in nature. However, the buildings, structures, facilities, and other improvements themselves must be assessed at their just value and added to the agriculturally assessed value of the land. SB 1186 was signed into law on April 27, 2022 and went into effect on July 1, 2022.

A developer applied to rezone the former Calusa Country Club Golf Course (the “Property”) to allow 550 single family homes. After the Miami-Dade County Board of County Commissioners (the “Commission”) removed the restrictive covenant imposed by the Property’s former owner and the Commission approved the rezoning application, a neighbor and group created to save the Property filed a petition for writ of certiorari. The court held that neither petitioner had standing to file the petition, and even if either petitioner did, the Commission provided due process, followed the essential requirements of law, and relied upon competent substantial evidence.

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Neighbors and a community group filed a petition for writ of certiorari challenging a small-scale comprehensive plan amendment and a companion rezoning application. The City and the developer argued that it was improper to file the petition for writ of certiorari, because the challenge to the small-scale amendment should have been brought before the circuit court as an original action. The court held that while small-scale comprehensive plan amendments can be challenged through an original action in circuit court, an original action is not required. View More.

Citizens and a non-profit group (the “Plaintiffs”) challenged the City of Dania Beach’s procedure for approving a development agreement. The trial court held that the Plaintiffs failed to prove that they suffered special damages and therefore lacked standing to bring their claim. The Fourth DCA reversed, holding that special damages are not required to prove standing when challenging the process to approve development agreements.

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On July 13, 2022, the Third DCA reversed the Final Summary Judgment in favor of the City of Miami in a Bert J. Harris, Jr. Private Property Rights Protection Act (the “Harris Act”) case in which the City had carved out Karenza Apartments, LLP’s (“Karenza”) property from the Mural District, the geographical area which allows large outdoor advertising/murals on buildings. The owner of the property had sued the City for damages for the loss in property value when the City amended its Mural District ordinance in 2017 to prohibit Karenza’s property from continuing to display large advertising murals facing Interstate I-95. The Third DCA held that although the advertising permittee under the City’s mural program may not have any vested rights in a permit, the owner of real property within the Mural District nonetheless could plead a claim under the Harris Act. The appellate court reversed the order granting summary judgment to the City, but the court declined to disturb the trial court’s finding that hosting a mural was an “existing use” of Karenza’s property, a key element of a claim under the Harris Act. View More.

On April 20, 2022, the Second DCA denied a landlord’s petition concerning the residential eviction moratorium implemented by the United States Center for Disease Control. Treating the landlord’s petition for writ of mandamus as a writ of certiorari, the Second DCA held that the trial court did not depart from the essential requirements of the law in denying the landlord’s motion to lift a stay on eviction proceedings. The Second DCA held that the moratorium only prevented the eviction of residential tenants for the nonpayment of rent, which was the sole ground upon which the landlord sought the eviction. Further, the Second DCA noted that although the Supreme Court had subsequently ended the moratorium, it was still properly in place at the time of the trial court’s order. Thus, the Second DCA found no departure from the essential requirements of the law. View More.

The Third DCA granted the City of Homestead’s petition for writ of prohibition to preclude an appellate division from exercising jurisdiction over a writ of certiorari challenge brought by the United States. The United States brought a writ of certiorari in an attempt to quash an agreement between the City of Homestead and a private property owner that was made pursuant to the Bert J. Harris Act Private Property Rights Protection Act (the “Act”). The Third DCA held that the settlement agreement under the Act was quasi-legislative in nature, and therefore, the only way to properly attack that agreement is through injunctive or declaratory relief, rather than a petition for writ of certiorari. View More.