Florida's Department of Community Affairs (DCA) is the state land planning agency charged with review of local government plan changes, developments of regional impact, and protection of the state's "Areas of Critical Concern" such as the Florida Keys, Green Swamp and Big Cypress.
This year marks the second in a row in which the agency's sunset review may go unresolved, leaving the agency ripe for extinction in 2011.
Normally, legislation to "reauthorize" an agency would have passed by now, but delays in the House may allow the clock may run out on reauthorization this year.
After conducting DCA’s sunset review, the House Government Accountability Act Council produced HB 7107 which would reauthorize DCA with little change. However, HB 7107 has failed to progress. In the Senate, a similar bill to reauthorize DCA, SB 282, is moving, and headed to the Senate Floor.
Speaker-elect Dean Cannon (R-Winter Park) has publicly questioned the need to retain DCA as the state's land planning agency in the past. House delays in reauthorization could be strategic, positioning this issue for next year’s leadership to diminish Florida’s protective growth management laws.
URGENT CONTACTS ARE NEEDED NOW TO:
House Speaker Larry Cretul and Speaker Elect Dean Cannon
