Planning commission outlines county planning, zoning and permitting process and warns Live Local Act limits local control

The Hillsborough County City‑County Planning Commission and the county's Development Services department presented an overview of local planning, zoning and permitting processes to the Charter Review Board on May 13 and described how the 2023 Live Local Act restricts local control for qualifying affordable housing projects.

Melissa Zornita, executive director of the Hillsborough County City‑County Planning Commission, said the commission was created by the Florida Legislature in 1959 and serves as the local planning agency for Tampa, Temple Terrace, Plant City and unincorporated Hillsborough County. Zornita described the comprehensive plan as a 20‑year community vision required by state law that guides land use, rezonings and capital improvements; she emphasized public input, noting the commission processes plan amendments quarterly and maintains community plans for distinct unincorporated areas.

Adam Gormley, director of the county's Development Services department, described the three stages of development review: zoning (rezoning decisions made by the Board of County Commissioners), site development/subdivision permitting, and building permitting under the Florida Building Code. Gormley explained concurrency programs (parks, schools, water/wastewater) and said transportation concurrency has been effectively preempted by state law; the county now uses a mobility fee program to fund capacity improvements. He said mobility fees are assessed at building permit issuance and placed in dedicated trust funds to pay for transportation capacity improvements in one of five expenditure zones.

On the Live Local Act, Gormley told the board the 2023 law, amended in 2024, allows projects that meet certain affordability thresholds (for example, 40% of units affordable at specified AMI levels) to be administratively approved, effectively removing Board of County Commissioners discretion for rezonings and comp‑plan amendments for those projects. "The Live Local Act really is taking a lot of tools away from the county and from the Board of County Commissioners," Gormley said. He added that while Live Local does not preempt concurrency or stormwater requirements, it limits local control over whether a project is an appropriate use in a given location.

Board members raised infrastructure and flooding concerns. Gormley and Zornita said the county enforces a stormwater technical manual that requires new developments to control post‑development runoff so it does not exceed predevelopment discharge rates, typically by using retention basins designed to capture specified storm events (25‑, 50‑, 100‑year design storms). "We do have the authority to impose stormwater management requirements" on Live Local projects during permitting, Gormley said. He added that a small number of Live Local projects are in permitting now, but none have completed construction.

Zornita said the planning commission provides staff to interlocal bodies and prepares population estimates and community plans; she noted the unincorporated county requires a supermajority of the Board of County Commissioners to adopt comprehensive plan changes. She also said the commission follows state statute composition rules for membership and provides public noticing that exceeds statutory minimums for plan amendments.

Board members asked whether the county reports Live Local impacts to the legislature; Gormley said the county issues a monthly report to the Board of County Commissioners and that Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties had jointly sent a letter expressing concern to the legislature in the prior year.

The board did not take formal action on planning matters but asked staff to return materials and demographic data requested for future redistricting discussion.