Legislative Reporter We see a Florida where our communities, economies, and environments all thrive.
Friday, March 7, 2026 The Florida Legislature will not complete its work on time. As legislators conclude week eight of the scheduled nine-week legislative session, legislative leaders failed to reach consensus on a starting point for budget negotiations. House Speaker Perez summed up the impasse as a “fundamental disagreement” over state spending. The legislature will spend its final week debating legislation unrelated to the budget while also contemplating plans for when to return to Tallahassee. As of today, only 40 bills passed the legislature, of the 1,758 total bills filed. Governor DeSantis already called a Special Session to address Congressional Redistricting beginning April 20 and signaled an additional special session is likely to address property tax reform. The end of the 2026 legislative session feels much like 2025, and legislators are bracing for another long spring, and potentially summer, in Tallahassee. LobbyTools tracking reports: Priority Bills | Monitoring Bills
Priority Bill Action (Alphabetically) green = passed | red = heard this week
Affordable Housing – CS/CS/HB 1389 by Rep. Mike Redondo (R-Miami) and SB 1548 by Sen. Alexis Calatayud (R-Miami) make a variety of changes regarding the Live Local Act, passed during the 2023 Regular Session. The bills provide that the preemptions of the Live Local Act permitting the development of affordable housing apply on any property owned by a county, municipality, or school district, provide that a local government may not utilize other dimensional means such as setbacks to constructively restrict the height of an authorized project, provide that farming and farm operations are excluded from the definitions of commercial, industrial, or mixed-use zoning, permit the utilization of the Live Local Act in the vicinity of airports when approved by the airport’s governing body, and clarify language around the prohibition against discriminating against affordable housing development in land use decisions by a local government, and waives sovereign immunity in cases based on such discrimination. The proposed effective date is July 1, 2026. (Senate Staff Analysis / House Staff Analysis) The House bill also includes the following: • Adds that the preemptions of the Live Local Act permitting the development of affordable housing also apply to parcels greater than 3 acres owned by a religious institution. • Adds an affordable housing tax exemption for an owner of a property in a multifamily project that received a building permit for the project within 4 years prior to the taxing authority opting out of the tax exemption, and an owner may continue to receive the exemption for each subsequent year that the same or successive owner applies for and is granted the exemption. • Exempts from Live Local areas subject to land regulations in existence before July 1, 2026, intended to retain the open character of land, areas of Critical State Concern, and any portion of a property encumbered by a recorded conservation easement. • Adds the House ADU language (HB 313) without short-term rental protections. • Allows local governments to provide density bonus incentives to landowners who donate real estate for the purpose of assisting local governments in providing affordable housing to military families that receive the basic allowance for housing. • Removes the ability of local governments to “opt out” of exempting certain property used for affordable housing from ad valorem taxation. HB 1389 passed the House Floor on March 4 (76-29) and now goes to the Senate. SB 1458 passed the Senate Fiscal Policy Committee on March 2 (18-0) and the Senate Rules Committee on March 3 (210). The bill was temporarily postponed on the Senate Floor on March 6.