Decisions have consequences. And the decision made by the Florida Legislature to pass Senate Bill 180 will have consequences way beyond what we’re being told.
The Florida Legislature said Senate Bill 180 was needed because it was specific to emergencies or hurricane recovery. The publicly stated intent of the bill was to provide an opportunity for communities to recover after disasters like hurricanes.
This bill allegedly had legislators making edits until the day before the vote took place. This is unfair to those voting on it, but it’s more unfair to all of us who will suffer the impact of what was voted on as it provided limited opportunity for constituents to weigh in.
It could be said this bill was an unfortunate and misleading attempt to accomplish insurance reform.
One argument for this is that the bill allows for regulations, ordinances, and building standards to be rolled back to July 2024 across the state. It would not matter if an ordinance was created as part of a safety or sustainability measure. This was born of the ill-conceived idea that if you lost your house, you would file an insurance claim. Insurance would not pay you enough money. New ordinances could be deemed “restrictive” or “burdensome” and you could request under this senate bill to remove the current standards so you could rebuild at a lower cost.
This is a dream scenario for developers. But whether it’s a project for a developer or individual homeowner, the fact is fees to build could and will be passed on to us.
How Senate Bill 180 works
The bill allows an applicant, most often and most likely a developer, to approach the municipality where they live that they have been denied a project. They then submit a letter to the municipality stating per Senate Bill 180 this application was denied and the applicant deems this to be more burdensome, whether it’s impact fees or regulations or restrictions, than it would’ve been in July 2024.
The applicant then states that they will bring a lawsuit under the Senate Bill by advising they are filing a pre-suit notification. The municipality then has 14 days to review and decide to either keep or deny an ordinance that has since been created, regardless of how it impacts any other project.
The bill also states that if the municipality loses, they are responsible for up to $250,000 of legal fees.
Most municipalities will shirk at the threat of a lawsuit and concede but that will not fix any of the problems with this bill.
The many issues created by Senate Bill 180
The first issue the bill was intended to be specific to properties impacted by hurricanes.
Section 28(1) reads, “Each county listed in the Federal Disaster Declaration for Hurricane Debby (DR-4806), Hurricane Helene (DR-4828), or Hurricane Milton (DR-4834), and each municipality within one of those counties, may not propose or adopt any moratorium on construction, reconstruction, or redevelopment of any property damaged by such hurricanes; propose or adopt more restrictive or burdensome amendments to its comprehensive plan or land development regulations; or propose or adopt more restrictive or burdensome procedures concerning review, approval, or issuance of a site plan, development permit, or development order, to the extent that those terms are defined by s. 163.3164, Florida Statutes, before October 1, 2027, and any such moratorium or restrictive or burdensome comprehensive plan amendment, land development regulation, or procedure shall be null and void ab initio. This subsection applies retroactively to August 1, 2024.”
To be clear, every county is included in this section as a result of Hurricane Milton. The entire state was under a State of Emergency, and, therefore, every city, county, village, town, and municipality is open to every applicant saying they can apply under Senate Bill 180.
The second issue is it is a one-size-fits-all mentality.
Every city, county, village, town, and municipality is being treated the same. Places like Martin County are being treated the same places like Miami. It doesn’t matter that our comprehensive plans are different and that our building requirements are different. The bill is being unilaterally applied and effectively limits – and could be argued – removes Home Rule as development rules are being centralized and managed by the State.
The third issue with this bill is that standards would be rolled back retroactive to July 2024 to all of the ordinances approved by municipality, since then could potentially be deemed burdensome.
There is no definition of burdensome in the bill and so it is a very subjective word that nobody can prove or disprove. So let’s look at a practical example.
Let’s say you live in a coastal community. In the last year, let’s pretend an ordinance was created that dwellings must now be stilted.
Your house, built at sea level, flooded because of a hurricane. But let’s say you didn’t get enough insurance money to build a stilted home and, therefore, it is “burdensome” for you to build your house on stilts. So you appeal under the Senate Bill and, theoretically, you cannot be denied. So you build your house at sea level.
And that leads us to the fourth issue… What will insurance now cover?
Insurance rates were not addressed as a result of this bill. In fact, they’ve not been addressed at all during this legislative session, at least not in any meaningful way.
So you rebuild your house to a standard that is no longer a best practice. Can an insurance company now deny you because you aren’t building up to current code? Can you then sue the municipality for being uninsurable? And if your house floods as it did before, is the municipality where you live now responsible for your insurance repairs? None of this is addressed in this senate bill.
The fifth issue with this bill is it is an unfunded mandate.
In the bill it is required that cities and counties are to offer safety measures like shelters. But no money was provided as part of this bill to fund these requirements. This bill creates a financial burden to every municipality in the state of Florida.
But the biggest issue with this bill is that it could never sunset.
Senate Bill 180 is in place by statute until October 2027. However, the Bill it states that the proposed date the bill ends is contingent upon emergencies being declared in Florida. The end date resets for one after every state of emergency declared by the Governor. As we have hurricanes every year and there is a state of emergency declared every year, there is a chance this bill will never sunset as the date will continuously reset.
The potential for a lawsuit
There are a couple of cities and counties that are putting forth and effort to sue the state to have this bill rewritten in a way that is more meaningful and relevant to what it was intended to be. The City of Deltona is leading the charge as a Live Local Act is the target of a developer filing a pre-suit notice. Manatee County has also been targeted for the cost of the impact fees.
Weiss, Serota, Helfman, Cole, & Bierman, a lawfirm in Fort Lauderdale, is putting together a case to represent the communities who are interested in being a plaintiff against the state of Florida.
The intention of the lawsuit is to obtain an injunction so that the bill cannot be forced on municipalities in its current form with its current verbiage.
In an interview with The Gainesville Sun on July 11, 2025, attorney Jamie Cole stated Senate Bill 180 significantly limits “the authority of local governments to adopt land use regulations considered more restrictive or burdensome than current laws.” The ultimate goal of the filing appears to be to create an opportunity for the Legislature go back and re-word the bill so it’s not ambiguous or vague and is not damaging to municipalities.
Weiss, Serota, Helfman, Cole, & Bierman are asking municipalities for a flat fee contribution of $10,000 to be a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Obviously, the more municipalities that apply, the stronger the message is to the folks in Tallahassee. And the more municipalities that participate, the more the costs are diffused and the bigger the effort to protect Home Rule can be.
Every municipality should consider joining the lawsuit
Every municipality should consider joining the lawsuit for two reasons.
The first reason is there is no guarantee a potential ruling or injunction would be applicable to every municipality in the state. That would be up to the judge.
Of concern is that on June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court ruled that lower courts have limited power to issue nationwide injunctions. This decision has significant implications for how future legal challenges to government policies might proceed.
Ultimately, if this is ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, it is up to the judge to determine if any injunction or ruling is applicable to every municipality or only those listed.
Therefore, unless a municipality participates in the lawsuit, even if there is a favorable ruling for the plaintiffs, not every municipality in Florida may benefit from this lawsuit.
The second reason every municipality should join as a plaintiff is because even if Senate Bill 180 won’t affect us now, if this bill exists in perpetuity, there is no doubt we will be impacted at some point.
Besides, there is strength in numbers.
There are rumors of threats by some in Tallahassee that they will remove funding from municipalities for pending projects if they join as a plaintiff.
There have also been threats made to commissioners and council members across the state that they are going to be removed due to malfeasance, meaning these elected officials are allegedly failing to fulfill their obligations of being in office. Emails and petitions are supposedly being sent to the Governor and Attorney General to remove them. The idea is that if they are removed, they can be replaced with more compliant individuals who will follow the state mandate, even if it’s in direct conflict with the wishes of local residents.
There are many failures we face with this bill, but the biggest failure will be if we wait until the next legislative session to address this, it will be too late. The damage will be done.
This is a bad bill.
So the question is… what costs are we are willing incur to keep Home Rule and protect our communities?