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Consultant urges Lynn Haven to update comprehensive plan and rewrite land-development code, not rush into zoning
Summary
At a public session, land-use consultant Ray Greer told the Lynn Haven commission that the city already has tools in its land development code to manage development and should prioritize updating its comprehensive plan and LDR before adopting a zoning map. Commissioners and residents discussed overlays, nonconforming uses and corridor rules.
Ray Greer, a land-use consultant with Design West Group, told the Lynn Haven City Commission on Wednesday that the city should update its comprehensive plan and rewrite its land development code rather than immediately adopt a formal zoning map.
Greer, who said he has 31 years of experience in local-government planning, explained that Florida law requires a comprehensive plan that establishes future land-use categories and that local land development regulations implement those categories. “The comprehensive plan overrides the land development code,” Greer said, adding that the state reviews comp plans under Chapter 163 of the Florida Statutes while local LDRs are enacted and implemented locally.
Why it matters: Commissioners and residents said they want more control over what is built along Lynn Haven’s commercial corridors and within existing neighborhoods — including limits on clustered gas stations or drive-throughs, protections for single-family areas and stronger compatibility standards. Greer answered that many of those controls can be written into the city’s land development code or applied through overlay districts and neighborhood-form plans, and that immediately imposing a zoning map in a mostly built city risks creating numerous nonconforming uses.
Greer recommended a two-step approach: update the comprehensive plan to reflect the city’s current 20-year vision, then overhaul the LDRs through public workshops and targeted consultant work. “I would update the comp plan, the categories. I would go ahead and … reduce some of those categories ’cause you have too much detail in the comp plan and I would not do zoning,” he said. He told the commission that Lynn Haven’s existing nine land-use categories and three overlay districts already provide much of the structure a zoning map would offer, and that strengthening and reorganizing the LDR could accomplish many immediate goals.
Audience members raised specific concerns and scenarios. One resident asked whether a series of waterfront mansions could be followed by a mobile-home park; Greer replied that compatibility rules, buffers and other standards already exist in the LDR and can be strengthened. On limiting drive-throughs, Greer cited Gainesville’s rule limiting one drive-through within a 1,000-foot radius as an example of an approach that could be adapted through an overlay or LDR language.
Greer also cautioned about legal and procedural risks when rezoning built areas: new zoning districts can create many nonconforming uses that must be tracked and could be lost if structures are damaged beyond statutory thresholds. He noted the Bert Harris Act as a statutory consideration when downzoning privately owned land and emphasized the need to properly notice property owners during any map change.
Commissioners signaled broad agreement with Greer’s recommended first steps. The mayor and several commissioners said the commission should fund a thorough comp-plan review and LDR rewrite — including community workshops and consultations with subject-matter experts — rather than immediately pursuing a zoning map. The commission plans to discuss consultant options and budget priorities in upcoming workshops.
What’s next: The commission will consider funding and scope during budget and planning workshops; no ordinance or formal vote on zoning was taken at the meeting.
