Green light for sector plans.

• Author: Powell, David L.
• Position: ENVIRONMENTAL AND LAND USE LAW

Among the many landmark changes to Florida's Growth Management Act, the 2011 legislature converted a 13-year-old pilot program for large-area land use plans into a new tool for "long-term planning for conservation, development, and agriculture on a landscape scale" (1) --especially for large landholdings in strategic locations.

Since the pilot program was created by the legislature in 1998, (2) sector planning has been initiated in a number of communities around the state, and has resulted in final approval of a plan in four of those communities. (3) The sector plan concept has also been studied closely and been praised by local governments, planners, environmentalists, landowners, and developers. It also spawned several large-area plans which copied many features of the sector plan statute. Overall, the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) concluded in 2007 that sector plans have enjoyed "significant local success" where completed. (4)

In deciding to change sector planning from a pilot program to a generally available tool in Florida's land planning toolbox, lawmakers restated their original intention that sector plans are to promote planning innovation and serve as a plan-based substitute for the development-of-regional-impact (DRI) program. (5) Given the fiscal austerity that has limited state funding for conservation land purchases in recent years, lawmakers saw sector plans as a means "to facilitate protection of regionally significant resources, including, but not limited to, regionally significant water courses and wildlife corridors." (6) The new law is intended to achieve these purposes and also promote large-area planning through the establishment of planning standards that--unlike the Growth Management Act's general requirements--are specifically tailored to address the unique challenges of planning on a landscape scale.

The pilot program's basic requirements for a sector plan were modified in several important respects. First, the minimum acreage necessary to undertake a sector plan was increased from 5,000 to 15,000 acres, located in one or more local jurisdictions. (7) Second, a sector plan is now expressly permitted to have a planning period longer than the generally applicable planning period of the local government's comprehensive plan, usually 20 years. (8) These changes emphasize that a sector plan is a planning tool for creating and implementing a longterm vision for a large land area over an extended period.

Unlike the pilot program, a local government may now commence preparation of a sector plan without advance approval from the state land planning agency. (9) Further, the "scoping" process to be conducted by the regional planning council before preparation of a sector plan is optional, rather than mandatory. (10) The pilot program's list of specific issues to be addressed in scoping was eliminated. (11) Instead, the agenda for scoping is now defined as "the issues requested by the local government." (12) This is intended to give local government broad latitude to negotiate an agreement with the regional planning council based on local needs and conditions. (13) Scoping meetings must continue to be noticed and open to the public. (14)

Under the new law, a sector plan will still include two levels of planning --a general first layer of planning to set the long-term vision for the entire planning area, and two or more detailed plans to authorize actual development of smaller components. (15) Important changes were made to each of these planning layers, based on experience during the pilot program.

The first layer is a long-term master plan. Unlike the long-term conceptual build-out overlay used as a first planning layer under the pilot program, the long-term master plan will change the comprehensive plan's land use designations within the entire planning area. (16) The applicant is not required to demonstrate "need" for changing land use designations based on population or any other criteria; however, the master plan must "specify the projected population within the planning area during the chosen planning period." (17) Further, the master plan "may include a phasing or staging schedule that allocates a portion of the local government's future growth to the planning area through the planning period." (18) Finally, owners of land within the planning area have an unconditional right to exclude their property from a master plan prior to its adoption by the local government. (19)

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