By Haley Busch, 1000 Friends of Florida
Last year, Florida lawmakers halted the ability of communities to plan for their future when they passed Senate Bill 180 in the name of hurricane recovery. The law sharply limits local governments’ ability to amend comprehensive plans and land-use regulations, even in areas unrelated to storm damage, leaving communities unable to respond to rising housing costs, infrastructure strain, flooding risks or the loss of rural character.
Decisions made after August 2024 — shaped by years of public input and careful planning — were subsequently declared invalid. Pending decisions were effectively frozen in place until October 2027.
Now, with time running short in the 2026 legislative session, lawmakers face a choice: correct this self-inflicted damage — or allow it to become the new normal.
The Senate has at least acknowledged the problem. Senate Bill 840, having passed two of three committees in that chamber, would restore limited but essential planning authority to local governments after future storms. While it does not undo all the harm caused by SB 180, it would reopen the door for communities to address emerging issues and adapt responsibly to changing conditions.
The House of Representatives, however, has shown little interest in advancing a companion bill, and with each passing week the window for action narrows — meaning SB 180’s planning freeze will remain in place not because it works, but because lawmakers chose not to fix it.
That failure would say a great deal about the direction Florida is heading.
Local planning is not a bureaucratic, red-tape exercise. Comprehensive plans guide where homes are built, how infrastructure is funded, how flood risks are managed, and which lands are conserved for agriculture, water supply and wildlife. When planning authority is stripped away, communities lose more than flexibility — they lose accountability to future residents.
At the same time the Legislature has curtailed local planning authority, it has increasingly criticized cities and counties for failing to address affordable housing, traffic congestion and growth pressures. Local governments are being blamed for problems they are no longer allowed to solve.
This contradiction is not accidental. It reflects a broader shift underway in Tallahassee: the consolidation of land-use power at the state level, paired with a growing disregard for local decision-making and public participation.
This year, SB 840 sits within a much larger landscape of legislation that would steadily weaken community planning across Florida. SB 948 and HB 1143, known as the Florida Starter Homes Act, would prohibit local governments from enforcing land-development regulations, effectively functioning as a one-size-fits-all zoning mandate for residential areas regardless of local context.
SB 354 and HB 299, the so-called “Blue Ribbon” bills, would further centralize development decisions at the state level, eliminating meaningful local review and public input for projects with far-reaching impacts. Meanwhile, proposals such as SB 686 and HB 691 would continue to erode local governments’ ability to manage urban sprawl and protect rural and agricultural lands from leapfrog development.
Taken together, these measures point to a clear pattern. Decisions about growth and development are increasingly made far from the communities they affect, while local leaders are left to manage the consequences — strained roads, higher taxes, flooding neighborhoods and the loss of irreplaceable land — with fewer tools.
Florida has seen this trajectory before. Decades of unchecked sprawl have left taxpayers footing the bill for costly infrastructure expansions, while natural systems and working lands have disappeared at alarming rates. Community planning and growth management policies were adopted not to slow Florida’s progress, but to ensure it was fiscally responsible, environmentally sound and aligned with public values.
SB 180 reversed that logic. SB 840 offers a modest but meaningful opportunity to restore balance by reaffirming a basic principle long respected across administrations: Communities are best positioned to understand and plan for their own needs through transparent, accountable processes.
Refusing to advance SB 840 would signal that the Legislature is willing to break the planning system without repairing it. Florida’s growth, housing and resilience challenges are real, but they cannot be solved by sidelining local governments. If lawmakers are serious about responsible growth, the House must act on SB 840 before the session ends.
Haley Busch is communications and outreach director for 1000 Friends of Florida, a statewide not-for-profit organization that focuses on saving special places and building better communities across our rapidly growing state. To find out more, visit www.1000fof.org. Banner photo: Workers walk past piles of debris in Fort Myers Beach, following the destruction caused by Hurricane Ian (iStock image).
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