How Do I Navigate Florida’s Land-Use Labyrinth?
Whether you’re a high-end developer or an everyday homeowner, Florida’s maze of land-use state and environmental statutes, local ordinances and master plans, stringent staff reviews and strict code enforcement can be maddening. It can make the process of doing what you want with your own property a costly, confusing and time-consuming hell-on-earth – or even a near-impossibility. Making the process all the more intense: the reality that with a rising population, usable land is scarcer and more valuable than ever. How do you navigate that land-use labyrinth to ensure the proverbial “best and highest use” of property works on your behalf by ensuring it’s legally permissible, physically possible, and financially feasible? Let’s review some of the tough questions and issues involved.
This month features a conversation with Tripp Scott Associate Ryan Horland
Bill Davell: To begin with, what are some of the issues property owners need to get resolved with various authorities?
Ryan Horland: It depends who you are. For commercial developers, it can be project approvals with the myriad of land-use, planning, environmental and NIMBY issues involved. For local businesses, tax licenses are added to the mix. But it’s frequently hardest for homeowners, who often need permits for improvements and deal with enforcement of alleged code violations. They are generally not as familiar with ordinances and regulations – and are sometimes
presented with the temptation to cut costs by skirting permitting and other rules or with surprise code enforcement notices.
Bill Davell: What do I need to know when I start the process?
Ryan Horland: First, remember that “knowledge is power.” Review and understand your county’s or municipality’s code of ordinances to help ensure that they interpreted properly and applied correctly to your case. That knowledge will allow you to ask informed questions — and not automatically accept local government directives regarding permits, approvals and code enforcement actions without verifying them. But the power of knowledge also involves realizing that local authorities are not always the final authority on land use. Florida’s state legislature has enacted more than 150 “pre-emptions” overriding local land-use regulations, many in ways that protect homeowners’ property rights. Examples include the Live Local Act, which ensures that municipalities can’t limit the heights of affordable housing projects below that allowed for neighboring commercial or residential buildings, the Resiliency and Safe Structures Act that prohibits local governments from blocking the demolition of certain coastal structures, and protections for individuals operating home-based businesses.
Bill Davell: What do I do if I believe I’m being treated unfairly?
Ryan Horland: If you run into roadblocks with planning or building departments, you can escalate the issue by, essentially, going over their heads to department directors, or often even more effectively to elected officials whom you’ve helped put in office to look out for your interests and therefore are often more responsive. Influential elected officials can include your district’s or at-large county commissioners, council members, mayors, or city managers. They will often intervene
on behalf of constituents they believe are being treated unfairly and if they agree ordinances and regulations are being interpreted or enforced in ways contrary to their legislative intent.
Bill Davell: These steps seem a bit too complex and daunting for me. Where can I get help?
Ryan Horland: In fact, many property and business owners attempting to handle landuse issues on their own find themselves confused by rules and processes and/or entangled in bureaucratic thickets. SO it can pay to consult an attorney specializing in the field early in the process. A specialist not only knows the “land-use labyrinth” of regulations and preemptions like the back of her or his proverbial hand, but also how they have been interpreted and applied in cases like yours. Plus, likely has the officials you ought to engage – or in the case of code enforcement, have engaged you – on speed dial. Which allows your attorney to anticipate potential challenges, craft persuasive arguments, and leverage those established relationships with officials to facilitate approvals or work through (or around) enforcement issues.
Tripp Scott, for example, boasts a respected Land Use practice specializing in providing sound, practical and strategic advice along with essential services for acquiring and developing real property for real estate owners of all kinds – from developers and builders to homeowners.
