Florida House Bill 503
Dear Fellow Marine Contractors,
July 1st marks the date that a range of new laws will go into affect for Florida. The House Bill that directly affects our industry is Florida House Bill 503. The bill covers a range of law changes but there are three specific changes that we need to focus on that directly affect our Marine Industry. Please get this information out to all of your Chapter members.
The first is that the bill prohibits a county or a municipality from conditioning the processing for a development permit on an applicant obtaining a permit or approval from any other state or federal agency; This is huge for us in Escambia & Santa Rosa Counties as the local agencies require a copy of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) & Army Corp of Engineers (ACOE) permits before they will issue their local county permit. I am sure other areas (if not most) have the same requirement. Now they will be required to issue their local permit without conditioning the approval based upon receiving a copy of these other state & federal permits. (Escambia does want us to send them a copy of the state and federal approvals whenever we receive them to add to the file if a permit by that agency is required). I have had a personal conversation with Escambia County’s Planning & Zoning Manager, who is the one that informed me that the law change would be coming soon. He said that Escambia County will be putting this change into effect July 1st after it is approved by legislation and that we should be excited about it. The good news is I think the local agencies are happy about it as well as it should help reduce the work load of the State & Federal agencies on unnecessary applications that their regulations clearly cover without needing a review. This is great for scenarios where we fall under an exemption with the DEP or a Nationwide or General Permit with the ACOE. If I am interpreting the change correctly, this means that we could have a building permit in a day or two from the County or City (maybe a week or so for some) and get started if we fall under the state and federal criteria. Now if your project, has some gray areas and you are not sure if you do or do not need a permit, you may still want to submit an application to the agencies just to make sure that you are protecting yourself.
The second is that it Reduces the time for agency action or proposed action on a permit from 90 to 60 days; This means that after the file/application is deemed complete, the agencies have 60 days to issue the permit approval instead of 90 days. I think this is self explanatory! Less time to wait for approvals is always good! I have had a conversation with a local regulatory agent of the Department of Environmental Protection and she said that the DEP is completely on board with this change. She also expressed that the DEP is taking the necessary measures to reduce review time frames anyways as well as prevent the use of R.A.I.’s (requests for additional information) as much as possible. She stated that the DEP is going to focus on not using the full 60 days whenever possible. I have certainly noticed this shift for the DEP’s awareness to our industry’s needs increase in our district and hope that you are experiencing this in your areas too.
Third, it expands the use of Internet-based self-certification services and general permits . I do not have any information as to specific details but hopefully this is a positive measure that will also decrease permit application deadlines.
These are the three main points, but the bill does encompass a lot of changes and you can see all of them at this link:
This link will give you all of the history of the bill to include amendments, citations, timeline, etc. for your review:
ORIGINATION OF THE BILL & COMMITTEES & SUBCOMMITTEES
GENERAL BILL by State Affairs Committee; Agriculture and Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee; Rulemaking and Regulation Subcommittee; Agriculture and Natural Resources Subcommittee; Patronis; (CO-INTRODUCERS) Broxson; (Representative Broxson is from the Pensacola area and is very passionate about reducing regulatory bottlenecking) Coley; Dorworth; Drake; Mayfield; Oliva; Precourt; Williams, T.; Young
Sincerely,
—
John Loftis (Past President)
