As we prepare for the 2023 session of the Florida Legislature, we are dismayed to report that a number of bills have been filed that attack the foundation of Florida’s growth management law and citizens’ ability to legally challenge bad comprehensive plan amendments.
We need your immediate help on one of these bills, HB 359/SB 540. If passed into law, these bills would sound the final death knell on community planning and create a chilling effect, by making it prohibitively expensive to challenge changes to a comprehensive plan or plan amendment.
Please urge the members of the Florida House Local Administration, Federal Affairs & Special Districts Subcommittee to VOTE NO ON HB 359 when they meet on Wednesday, February 22 at 2 p.m.
HB 359 (Duggan) Local Comprehensive Plans allows prevailing parties to recover attorney fees in challenges to comprehensive plans and plan amendments. This would effectively eliminate planning challenges by citizens and public interest groups because, if they lose, they could be required to pay enormous challenge-related legal costs incurred by deep-pocketed developers and local governments.