Impact fees and largest change in Growth Management Law

Impact fee legal standard may change

TALLAHASSEE — Local governments would have a tougher time defending impact fees charged on development projects if a new standard of review by the courts is reenacted into law. In identical House and Senate bills, for any action challenging an impact fee, the government would have the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence — meaning a greater weight of the evidence — that the fee meets legal requirements. In the past, courts have held local governments to an easier-to-meet “fairly debatable” standard that the Florida Supreme Court rephrased as a “reasonableness test.” Business interests claim that this test makes it nearly impossible to prove that an impact fee is excessive.

House Bill 7021 is sponsored by Rep. Ed Hooper, R-Clearwater, and the House Community and Military Affairs Committee. Senate Bill 410 is sponsored by Sen. President pro-tempore Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton. The bills reenact a law adopted in 2009 that was challenged last year by nine counties and three local government associations. The bills, which are headed to the respective House and Senate floors, aim to make the challenge moot in part by providing a legislative finding of an important state interest.

Committee passes growth management reform bill

TALLAHASSEE — A Florida House committee passed a 300-page rewrite of the state’s growth management laws March 17 that streamlines the development approval process by taking the state out of much of the comprehensive plan review process.

Former secretary of the department of community affairs, Linda Shelley, calls it “ … the largest change in the growth management law since we enacted it in 1985.”

The proposed committee bill, PCB 11-04, eliminates the controversial state concurrency requirements, giving local governments the option to retain the standards. Shelley says the Senate version doesn’t include that provision.

Concurrency laws generally require developers to have roads, parks, utilities and other infrastructure in place by the time they obtain final permits.

Rep. Ritch Workman, R-Melbourne, chairman of the House Community and Military Affairs Subcommittee, sponsored the legislation.

The bill passed 11-4 with support of four Gulf Coast legislators: Rep. Matthew Caldwell, R-Fort Myers, Rep. Ed Hooper, R-Clearwater, Rep. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, and Rep. James Grant, R-Tampa.

“This bill reduces state regulation of local government comprehensive planning,” Workman told his committee. “Florida growth management laws have evolved into prescriptive, burdensome, and costly regulations on local governments and property owners.”

Source: Gulf Coast Business Review