Jesse Scheckner
House lawmakers just amended and approved an update to the 2023 Live Local Act with even more allowances for developers to expand Florida’s affordable housing inventory.
The altered bill (SB 1730), which does not contain protections for locally designated historic structures, will go back to the Senate for further review.
Miami Republican Rep. Vicki Lopez, the bill’s House sponsor, called it “one of the most important bills” lawmakers are hearing this year. Rising unaffordability is pushing residents old and new out of their neighborhoods, and it’s leading to a “brain trust gap” as young professionals depart for cheaper options in other states.
“Bringing this bill forward brings a lot of clarity,” she said.
Proponents of the measure, which was updated last year to include clearer guidelines and special considerations for the Keys, say it’s necessary to surmount barriers born of NIMBYism and deliver much-needed units to Florida’s affordable housing inventory.
Opponents say the changes expose localities to overdevelopment incongruous with their growth plans and give developers too much power while requiring comparatively little of them in return.
SB 1730 includes additional preemptions on how counties and cities can block developers from buildings with residential components if the projects include portions priced at affordable rates.
The bill would change zoning and development rules and would require counties and municipalities to allow multifamily and mixed-use residential developments in certain flexibly zoned areas. At least 40% of multifamily rental units must meet affordability standards, while 65% of mixed-use developments must be for residential use.
Counties and municipalities would further be required to reduce parking requirements for developments near transit hubs, while the measure would allow certain regulations to be placed on density, floor area ratios, and height on developments.
Developers would be able to include adjacent parcels of land to be included in proposed multifamily developments. While counties and municipalities could face court if they violate the provisions of the bill. The bill’s upper-chamber sponsor, Miami Sen. Alexis Calatayud, said that while the Live Local Act laid a solid foundation, there is still room for refinement.
Before the 109-3 vote Tuesday, Lopez amended the measure to reflect what she called a “very productive agreement” she had with Calatayud.
Under the accepted language, religious institutions would be able to approve affordable housing developments on their lands and local governments would have to begin submitting annual reports to the state next year detailing various project information. The bill would also provide for public sector and hospital employer-sponsored housing and exempt the Wekiva Study and Everglades Protection areas from Live Local requirements.
Lopez thanked Miami Beach Republican Rep. Fabián Basabe and Democratic Reps. Lindsay Cross of St. Petersburg, Anna Eskamani of Orlando and Rita Harris of Orlando for helping her to fine-tune the bill.
Their input, she said, helped the legislation strike a “delicate balance between local control of housing and a statewide housing crisis.”
But not all are pleased with the most recent changes. Lopez amended her since-sidelined version of the bill (HB 943) last week to include a fleet of changes. One maintained a local requirement for public hearings over developments that involve the demolitions and replacement of structures classified as “contributing” to locally designated historic structures.
The provision, Miami Beach Commissioner Alex Fernandez said, provided “critical protections” for historic buildings in the Architectural District, which contains the city’s famous art deco architecture. A city press note said it safeguarded more than 2,600 historic buildings in Miami Beach, including around 1,800 classified as art deco, postwar Miami modern and Mediterranean revival.
But that protection isn’t in SB 1730, which Miami Beach officials argue “would allow developers to demolish and redevelop properties in commercially zoned districts — many of which consist of two- and three-story multifamily residential buildings — without requiring local approval.”
And under the bill’s language, any structure replacing them could be as tall as the tallest building (nearly 50 stories high) within a 1-mile radius. That’s practically all of them, considering that Miami Beach is about a mile wide.
“If enacted as written, this bill would open the door to the wholesale bulldozing of historic neighborhoods and accelerate gentrification by replacing naturally affordable housing with 50-story skyscrapers,” Fernandez said. “It threatens to displace families, seniors, and workers — and turn South Beach into Manhattan.”
Basabe said in a statement that the true reason city officials like Fernandez, Commissioner Laura Dominguez and Mayor Steven Meiner oppose SB 1730 is that it will cost them “control and profit.”
“There has never been a serious fast-track permitting process for those restoring our historic identity. No discounted fees. No streamlined approvals. No aggressive pursuit of grants. No meaningful public-private partnerships to safeguard the history that made Miami Beach a global destination,” Basabe said.
“Instead, the city embraced a destructive high-impact tourism model that ravaged our beaches, roads and infrastructure. They allowed businesses to adapt to chaotic conditions, only to turn around and punish them with curfews, barricades, one-way traffic experiments and inconsistent public safety policies. Meanwhile, they let our buildings crumble, failed to renourish our beaches properly and abandoned any serious effort to control crime and chaos for decades.”
SB 1730 now awaits further Senate consideration.
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Andrew Powell of Florida Politics contributed to this report.
