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March 7, 2025 | Legislative Reporter The 2025 Legislative Session convened on March 4, and is scheduled to end on May 2. The Bill Tracking Report, as of March 7, can be viewed here. Please review it to see the filed bills that APA Florida is tracking and their status. If you would like any bills added to this report or would like more information about a specific bill, please contact Stefanie Svisco at ssvisco@floridaplanning.org. Feb. 28 was the bill draft filling deadline for both the House and Senate, resulting in 1,827 bills, resolutions and memorials being filed. The following bills of interest were filed on that last day after the Feb. 28 Legislative Reporter was disseminated: SB 432 (Sen. McClain) amends s.125.01 to delete special assessments as a source of funding for certain municipal facilities and services; removes provisions that allowed counties to levy special assessments on agricultural lands; delete special assessments as a mechanism to finance services or programs rendered specially for the benefit of property or residents in unincorporated areas. HB 1561 (Rep. Sapp) revises the expedited state review process to clarify that local governments must transmit plan amendments within 10 working days after the date of adoption to reviewing agencies; provides that a local government is in compliance if the second public hearing on amendments is held within the 180-day period following receipt of agency comments, even if the amendments are approved at a subsequent hearing. HB 1579 (Rep. Driskell) and SB 1642 (Sen. Bernard) are similar bills to enhance broadband infrastructure projects in underserved farming communities through the creation of a state-funded grant program in the Florida Office of Broadband and through tax credits. HB 1593 (Rep. Joseph) prohibits a business entity that has an interest in more than 100 single-family residential properties in this state from purchasing, acquiring, or otherwise obtaining an ownership interest in another singlefamily residential property and subsequently leasing or renting such property. (Also see SB 1810 below.) HB 1595 (Rep. Koster) allows a county, for a solar facility over 2 megawatts, to adopt an ordinance requiring that the solar facility be properly decommissioned upon the facility reaching the end of its useful life and return the agricultural land that was used for such solar facility to an agriculturally useful condition similar to that which existed before construction of the solar facility; this does not apply to sites subject to an application to build solar facilities before July 1, 2025; deletes language in s.163.3208 that provides an exemption for substations in s.163.3205(2)(c) from specified March 7, 2025 | Legislative Reporter
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