City, county and local government.

• Author: Smith, Richard L.
• Position: Board certification

The certification by The Florida Bar of lawyers who possess and maintain special expertise in the specialized area of City, County and Local Government Law is an important contribution toward the Bar's responsibility to ensure that the constitutional rights of the citizens of Florida are protected and given practical effect. Certification helps to ensure that those lawyers who counsel local governments as well as those who represent the public before such governmental entities are equipped to meet their vital role in upholding constitutional rights and the rule of law.

The extent and complexity of local government law has grown as explosively as Florida's population.

The provisions of the 1968 Florida Constitution set the stage for massive growth of local government legislation and case law over the last 30 years, particularly with respect to counties. Article VIII, [section] l(g) offered counties, by local referendum, the same breadth of authority to legislate that had previously been reserved to chartered municipalities. Charter counties were no longer required to seek authorization by special acts of the legislature to undertake land use and other regulatory programs. Instead, chartered counties automatically possessed "all powers of local self-government not inconsistent with general law" including the power to "enact county ordinances not inconsistent with general law." A charter county, therefore, could legislate on any subject, and in any manner, not prohibited by a general law or the state and federal constitutions.

Subsequently, the legislature, seeking to further reduce the burden of adopting special acts for noncharter counties, granted by general law virtually the same home rule authority to nonchartered counties as was granted by Article VIII, [section] l(g) to charter counties.

In addition to Article VIII of the 1968 Florida Constitution, few would dispute that land use planning and regulation have been a major contributor to the massive growth in the complexity and sheer bulk of local government law. The Florida Land and Water Management Act of 1972 established a completely new structure for the regulation of developments of regional impact (DRIs) large land developments defined as having "a substantial effect upon the health, safety or welfare of citizens of more than one county." Local government lawyers and private land use law practitioners were faced with dealing with regional and state agencies, the governor and cabinet...