Highland Beach adopts ordinance establishing procedures for certified recovery residences

The Town of Highland Beach on Feb. 3 adopted Ordinance No. 2026-001, establishing a town procedure to process applications for certified recovery residences, the residential component of substance-abuse recovery services. The commission approved the ordinance on its second reading after staff said the change is a statutory mandate for all Florida municipalities.

Town legal staff told the commission the ordinance includes language added after first reading to make clear certified recovery residences "shall be utilized solely for housing, peer support, and life-skills training, and shall not, under any circumstances, be utilized for clinical substance-abuse treatment of any type or level of care, including but not limited to detoxification, inpatient residential treatment, partial hospitalization, or outpatient treatment." No members of the public spoke during the required public hearing, and commissioners voted in the affirmative.

Mayor Moore and other commissioners characterized the ordinance as compliance with state law and as narrowly tailored to preserve municipal oversight over land-use impacts such as traffic. The ordinance’s adoption leaves the town with a formal process for evaluating reasonable-accommodation requests from providers of certified recovery residences while retaining local authority to regulate zoning, parking and similar land-use effects.

Next steps: the ordinance becomes effective as provided in the text and staff will implement the administrative procedure to accept and process applications in accordance with state timelines.