Local governments know their communities best
Orange County’s Vision 2050 — a comprehensive plan years in the making, shaped by community voices and aimed at creating a more livable, sustainable future — is now in legal limbo.
Why? Because of a deeply flawed state law passed just months ago: Senate Bill 180.
This legislation, passed during the final days of Florida’s 2025 legislative session, was sold as a post-hurricane “emergency measure” to help communities rebuild faster. But buried in its pages were sweeping provisions that have nothing to do with disaster recovery — and everything to do with stripping away local control.
Orange County’s Vision 2050 may be the first major test of the law’s reach. On July 1, SB 180 went into effect. Just days later, the Florida Department of Commerce informed Orange County that its plan — designed to guide responsible growth, protect rural lands and ensure infrastructure keeps pace with development — may not comply with the new law. Now, the plan faces legal threats, and decades of local planning authority hang in the balance.
The provision at the heart of the problem, known as Section 28, freezes cities and counties from adopting land-use regulations deemed “more restrictive or burdensome” than those in place before recent hurricanes — even if the changes are unrelated to disaster recovery. The law applies retroactively to August 1, 2024, and runs until October 1, 2027. That means even comprehensive plans and zoning updates already adopted in the past year — after significant public input and review — are now vulnerable to legal challenge.
What’s more, SB 180 extends the freeze for a full year after every future hurricane within 100 miles of a local government, threatening a rolling paralysis in planning for nearly every part of Florida. That’s not rebuilding. That’s a roadmap for indiscriminate deregulation, benefiting developers at the expense of communities, taxpayers and long-term resilience.
The implications of this law are disturbing — and they are just beginning to unfold. In Orange County, landowners behind the proposed Sustanee mega-development have already filed suit against the county, citing SB 180 and claiming that voter-approved growth controls violate the new law.
This isn’t hypothetical anymore. This is happening.
At 1000 Friends of Florida, we’ve commissioned a legal analysis by noted Florida land-use attorney Richard Grosso that outlines just how broad and damaging SB 180’s provisions are. In his words, this law is “an effective repeal of Florida’s land-use planning laws.” And perhaps most alarmingly, it allows “any person” — not just affected property owners — to sue local governments over planning decisions they dislike, creating a chilling effect on future action.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Local governments know their communities best. They need the flexibility to respond to flooding, protect rural character and plan for sustainable growth, where public services and infrastructure keep up with new development. That’s why we’re urging the Florida Legislature to repeal the damaging parts of SB 180 in 2026 and restore local planning authority before more communities are harmed.
Orange County won’t be the last to face this challenge — unless lawmakers act.
Haley Busch is outreach and communications director for 1000 Friends of Florida, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization advocating planning for sustainable communities. This opinion piece was distributed by The Invading Sea website (theinvadingsea.com), which publishes news and commentary on climate change and other environmental issues affecting Florida.
