Thursday, February 24, 2011

Legislators pushing ahead with major rewrite of growth laws

The Florida House and Senate both are taking up major rewrites of the state's growth management laws, according to the key committee chairmen in each chamber.

Gov. Rick Scott has proposed eliminating the Florida Department of Community Affairs and laying off most employees while moving its planning functions to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Meanwhile, a coalition of groups, including the Associated Industries of Florida and the Florida Chamber of Commerce, is drafting proposed law revisions.

Last week, Sen. Mike Bennett, chairman of the Senate Committee on Community Affairs, told the Florida Tribune, "You will expect a major growth management bill to be coming out of the House and the Senate."

On Wednesday, the House Community & Military Affairs Subcommittee held a three-hour workshop on growth management, covering three major areas of growth management law: State review, schools and transportation.

Read more at The Florida Tribune:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why is it a "major" bill? They're just eliminating growth management. It just takes a few sentences to repeal everything, unless they try to hide what they're doing.

Nice photo!

Bruce Ritchie said...

Sorry for the delay in posting your comment. I don't think that anyone involved would agree that it's easy just to eliminate growth management nor would they say that is what is exactly being done, although the state's role is being reduced and redirected. Even developers may want to ensure that prior approvals for their major projects are protected under the new system.