Gov. DeSantis, SB 540 is poison for the environment and a gift to developers. Veto it | Opinion

Before Gov. DeSantis became known as the presidential hopeful who won’t back down from a culture-war battle, he surprised Floridians across the political spectrum for taking steps to protect Florida’s Everglades and clean up polluted waterways.

In fact, just four months ago, he signed an executive order, titled “Achieving Even More Now for Florida’s Environment,” that called for, among other things, improving “long-term comprehensive planning that ensures sustainable growth while protecting our natural resources.”

The Legislature isn’t necessarily on board with that mission. Lawmakers passed a bill this month that ties Floridians’ hands when developers convince cities and counties to change urban-growth rules to allow for the same kind of sprawling development that has put pressure on Florida’s natural resources.

DeSantis should stay true to his word and veto Senate Bill 540. He has until May 24 to do so.

This wouldn’t be the first time DeSantis kills an anti-environment bill. Last year, he vetoed legislation that favored the sugar industry over Everglades restoration projects.

Environmental groups have dubbed SB 540 the “sprawl bill” and with good reason. It is gift to developers eager to capitalize on Florida’s population boom during the COVID-19 pandemic. The state saw a net migration of 260,000 people from other states and countries between 2020 and 2021 — the largest population growth since 2005, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Developers often ask local governments to amend their comprehensive plans so they can build on environmentally sensitive or rural land. Comprehensive plans are a community’s blueprint for future growth; they outline how land will be used for housing, open spaces, transportation, infrastructure and more.

In many cases, suing their local government is the only way citizens can stop amendments to comprehensive plans that will be detrimental to their lives and the environment. SB 540 stipulates that if a citizen or group loses that lawsuit they must pay the attorney fees of the prevailing party, which could include developers. Current law says each party must pay for their own costs.

Perhaps no other part of the state would feel the impacts of this measure more than Miami-Dade. Citizens and environmental groups have sued the county twice over the expansion of the Urban Development Boundary, which separates urban construction from environmentally fragile and rural lands. The County Commission moved the UDB in 2018 to build an extension of the 836 expressway and, again, last year to build an industrial complex in South-Dade on land at a high risk of flooding it abuts Biscayne Bay. A legal challenge against the latter is still pending.

SB 540 essentially guarantees that Miami-Dade County commissioners will suffer no consequences in the future if they decide to move the UDB or change the rules for the next developer with a shiny new proposal.

Bill sponsor Sen. Nick DiCeglie, R-Indian Rocks Beach, said his bill would require that citizens have “skin in the game” when they file legal challenges, Florida Politics reported. But suing a local government and deep-pocketed developers already is an expensive David-versus-Goliath endeavor.

The sponsors of this bill must know that, when faced with the possibility of bankruptcy, Floridians likely won’t take chances. Making that calculus even more difficult is that the governor and Florida Cabinet decide the outcome of challenges to comprehensive-plan changes, steeping that process in partisan politics. They sided with Miami-Dade County on the 836 extension into the Everglades, even though an administrative law judge recommended they vote against it. An appeal is pending.

SB 540 wouldn’t be so detrimental were it not for the progressive watering down of Florida’s development regulations in the past decade. The state was once heralded for its 1985 Growth Management Act, which required state review of local comprehensive plans to ensure they met standards. In 2011, then-Gov. Rick Scott dismantled the Department of of Community Affairs, the state’s growth-management agency.

Since then, lawmakers have been chipping away at the state’s development oversight and, through a myriad of misguided preemption laws, banned local governments from making decisions that go against developers’ interests. Lawmakers approved another bill this year, for example, that prohibits local referendums on land development, which are common in Miami Beach and Key Biscayne.

It would be naive to expect DeSantis to veto every bad piece of legislation. But if he truly is the ally of the Everglades he says he is, then SB 540 doesn’t deserve his signature.