Crist signs pro development bill (part 2)

(In the second part of this post, I discuss the changes to D.R.I. regulations.)

D.R.I. Regulations:

In the first part of this post, I discussed the bill’s impact on concurrency requirements.  This part looks at D.R.I. regulations.

D.R.I. or Development of Regional Impact is additional requirements that large developments must meet to get development approval.  The D.R.I. requirements include conducting extensive studies that estimate the development’s impact on a large variety of issues.  It also lays out the infrastructure that the development must build to mitigate these impacts.

These days, a D.R.I. study can cost a million dollars or more to produce.  It can take years to complete and the developer still has to pay for all the infrastructure improvements on top of that.

In my opinion, the D.R.I. requirements have gotten excessive and are an unreasonable burden on the developer.  S.B. 360 removes that burden for large developments in dense urban areas.

But the burdens of completing a  D.R.I. are the same for developers whether they are in dense urban areas or rural sparse areas.  One has to wonder,

“Why only eliminate this excessive regulation in select portions of the state?”

I can only assume the political battle to remove the requirements completely would have killed the bill.

Now you may be thinking, “Requiring these large developments to define their impact on a community makes sense to me.”

And believe it or not, I agree.  And this is where I think the bill may have missed the mark.

Developers should be required to define their projects impact WHEN their project’s impact is in excess of what is expected under the comprehensive plan.

The size of the development is really not the issue.  A developer can purchase every vacant piece of property in a city and develop it according to the comprehensive plan.  The size and scope of development in that situation can easily exceed typical D.R.I. requirements.  But why should that developer have to spend an extra million dollars doing a study when they are simply following what the city has deemed acceptable and should already be preparing for?

It is when the development proposed requires considerable changes to the comprehensive plan that a study of some sort should be required.

S.B. 360 doesn’t allow for a D.R.I. in that instance for dense urban areas.

My question is this.  Does removing the D.R.I. tie the hands of cities and counties in this situation?

I am not sure. The municipalities still have control over the comprehensive plan amendment process.  Even though they can’t require a formal D.R.I., they still can require a developer justify their comp plan amendment.

What leverage they have in that situation remains to be seen.

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