Help Us Get HB 403 & HB 487 Vetoed

View the two veto request to Gov. DeSantis letters here and here

Please help us push back on the state legislature’s overreach into local governments’ ability to adequately and effectively plan the communities in which we live.

HB 403 and HB 487, if signed by the governor, would preempt and undermine local zoning and land use regulation and erode local comprehensive planning authority, respectively. APA Florida has formally requested Governor DeSantis to veto these bills.

HB 403 preempts the local regulation of home-based businesses and allows them to operate in any area zoned for residential use. This undermines local zoning authority, a fundamental function used at the local level to minimize incompatible uses and balance competing property rights. Statewide, local governments have balanced the desire to operate a home-based business with the impact on residential neighborhoods and residential property values through tailored ordinances or regulations that make sense for the community, including identifying businesses that are inherently incompatible within a residential neighborhood.

HB 487 would dramatically increase the size threshold for small scale amendments from 10 acres to 50 acres. In rural areas of opportunity, the threshold would rise to 100 acres. A development of 50 or 100 acres is often large-scale development, with the potential to have multi-jurisdictional impacts. The bill’s requirement for only one public hearing also limits the community’s ability to participate in the planning process. Additionally, the bill does not limit the number of small-scale amendments that can be submitted each year, nor does it limit the number of such amendments that can be submitted by a single entity. This may have the unintended consequence of encouraging the piecemealing of property into multiple small scale map amendments, which undergo a limited level of review and public scrutiny, for what otherwise should be reviewed as a single overall development proposal requiring more in-depth review and greater public input opportunities.