State legislation meant to address Florida’s housing affordability crisis is fueling conflict between local governments and developers, as new projects move forward with minimal municipal oversight—even in communities lacking the infrastructure to support them.
Florida’s Live Local Act has shifted key development decisions from city and county governments to the state, according to Chad Cummings, a managing attorney at Cummings & Cummings Law, who guides developers through the new legal landscape. The law removes much of the authority that local officials previously held over zoning and land use approvals.
“If you are on the City Council or the board of county commissioners, you don’t like that Tallahassee and the governor’s office are telling you how to manage your zoning and comprehensive land use master plan,” Cummings says.
Affordable Housing in Exchange for Fast-Tracked Approvals
The Live Local Act offers developers a direct trade-off: include a specified percentage of affordable or below-market-rate housing in your project, and you can bypass many of the local entitlements and permits that historically required city or county approval. Cummings describes this as taking decision-making “out of the hands of the municipality, whether that’s the city or the county, and elevating it to the state level.”
This approach targets a persistent problem. Cummings notes that “Florida does have such an issue with cost of living, which frankly, shows no signs of really slowing down.” The law aims to enable mixed-use developments—including high-density residential projects—that would not be financially viable under the old, more restrictive approval process.
“This law empowers developers to pursue complex mixed-use projects, often involving high-rise residential construction, that previously wouldn’t have been feasible due to the difficulty of securing variances and complying with local zoning and master plans,” Cummings explains.
Bal Harbour: A Case Study in Local Frustration
Tensions between state and local control are especially pronounced in projects like the proposed redevelopment of Bal Harbour Shops in Miami. Cummings points to this example to illustrate the broader consequences of the Live Local Act.
Bal Harbour Shops, which Cummings calls “some of the highest-grossing retail space per square foot in the world,” faced pandemic-era challenges when anchor tenants like Saks Fifth Avenue stopped paying rent. The owners responded with a plan to demolish Saks and other parts of the property, replacing them with dense, high-rise residential units.
The core issue, Cummings says, is infrastructure. “If you’ve ever been to Bal Harbour or Miami, you’ll know the traffic is already horrendous,” he says. “If you add, say, 5,000 residents in a few city blocks, where is the infrastructure to support that? It’s not there.”
Despite these concerns, the Village of Bal Harbour has little power to intervene. “The village is very upset, as you can imagine,” Cummings says. “They want to exert control over the project, and the Live Local Act has severely limited their ability to influence the outcome.”
Legal Battles on the Horizon
Cummings predicts that these jurisdictional disputes will soon play out in court. “You can expect there will be some, very likely some litigation in the future, if not on this project, certainly on others,” he says.
At the heart of the conflict is whether the state’s goal of increasing housing affordability outweighs the need for local control over land use. Municipalities argue they are best positioned to understand infrastructure limits and community needs. State officials and developers respond that local approval processes have become so cumbersome that they block the creation of affordable housing.
A New Development Playbook for Florida
The Live Local Act signals a significant change in how development is managed across Florida. For decades, municipalities shaped their own growth through zoning and land use policies. Under the new law, that authority is sharply reduced when developers commit to affordable housing components.
Cummings says developers are already adjusting their strategies to take advantage of the new rules. “If I was an investor, I’d be looking at how to use the Live Local Act to make high-density residential deals viable that didn’t make sense before,” he says.
Whether this state-led approach will actually solve Florida’s affordability crisis without overwhelming local infrastructure remains uncertain. But the legal and political battles over who controls growth are intensifying as more developers use the Live Local Act to bypass traditional city and county review.
As the state asserts itself in land use decisions, local officials face diminished influence—and residents in affected communities are left to contend with the effects of rapid, high-density development in areas where roads, utilities, and public services may already be strained. The next chapter in Florida’s housing debate will likely be written in courtrooms and city halls across the state, as the balance of power continues to shift.
