Big success for housing in the Florida Legislature

Hello. Hello. Ginny Bowling here for a legislative update and to touch on pivotal points in the market. I wanted to share this interesting background. I love rooftops and tennis courts and pickleball courts. If you know me, you know that. So I will probably feature a lot of that in some of my backgrounds. But lots of interesting real estate in the background too that you might want to own. So anyway, for the legislative session, it was a tremendous success for housing. There were a lot of items moved through, which is like unheard of many times. It takes many years to get bills through. But there were efforts over many years for some of the things that got all done this year. So. So it was a lot of things I mentioned Senate Bill 102 being the biggest. Probably first and foremost to talk about 811 million in affordable housing and workforce housing funding and a lot of other things included in there too. It was a 94 or so page bills. I didn't look at what the final was on the adapted version. But excuse me, if you're in affordable housing, you definitely should read through it or get a legal opinion on what all it provides for does complement the legislation passed last year that expanded permitted uses in other zoning districts. And depending on what percentage of your properties are dedicated to affordable housing, it makes a difference. So take a look. And so property tax discounts. There was, there was a lot of things that local governments weren't so sure that they really had the ability to do. So this affirms and encourages more effort to supply housing and or approve housing and expedite the processes. In fact two and then fund it tax incentives. So that was signed by DeSantis and goes into law July 1st. And so that's a done deal. It does also prevent local jurisdictions from bringing up rent controls. It's now illegal to have rent control in the state of Florida, which is a very good thing if we want to get more housing because developers do not like rent controls. And it just is is shooting yourself in the foot to do that, as I think you all know I have said before. But anyway, so then there's the radio system communication requirements. There was a bill passed last year that didn't go quite as far as it should have, as I've said. And so that was passed unanimously. The fire marshals came on board and thought that it was fair and reasonable. So that passed and now it awaits DeSantis signature. In a nutshell, it gives more time for retrofitting buildings that don't meet those final tests. If it passed those all preliminary tests and just fails in the end. Then there are provisions for working that out so that people are going to be able to. To keep on schedule, both sides, the hap, the tenants and the developers. So then there's also Senate Bill 494, which establishes statutory requirements related to security deposit alternatives. Now, this is probably a hot topic to a lot of people. The original drafts were requiring that the alternatives be offered, whether it be through insurance or other ways for people to make security deposits. And now it's a voluntary program. And so there is some language that's going to be required whenever you're making these offers, especially because people might suddenly now want to quit paying those fees and pay the security deposit. They might now be able to. And so, you know, there's. There was a lot of language that needed to be added there that is awaiting DeSantis signature. We don't expect any problems with that. Then There's Senate Bill 170, which would require local governments to issue business impact statements prior to passing a local ordinance. And it must be posted on the local government website. And if there's a legal challenge to the ordinance, they can't start enforcing it until the challenge has been resolved. And it provides for up to $50,000 in attorney fees to the prevailing party. So much more fair that is awaiting DeSantis signature. Don't expect a problem there. Ethereum. That's a major thing because there's a lot of small cities, counties that are trying to do different things and it just makes it very hard for developers to come in and be able to stay in compliance if everybody is different. And some are penalizing developers with some. A lot of things actually there's, there's some height restrictions and whatnot was in that Senate Bill 102. There were the language of 102 says that the local jurisdiction cannot go beyond what is already allowed within their. Within certain. It's either a radius or potentially in the jurisdictional jurisdiction for height and whatnot, building heights. And so it's this. This whole legislative session has been trying to make it easier to be a little more uniform yet give the cities and counties more tools to do incentivizing, but not penalizing as much as kind of the way you could sum it up. Some things you might have heard about but that did not get passed would be flood zone disclosures. There was discussion about requiring the landlords disclose flood zones to all the tenants that did not pass rent security deposits that applied to communities of age 55 and older. That also tied in with a maximum 12% of rental fee over five year period for an increase no more than 12%. And that did not pass Senate Bill 1658, they say those other Senate bills, I'm not sure if you need them, let me know. Since these didn't pass, you probably won't need them. Creates the Department of Housing and Tenants Bill of Rights and whatnot. Included revisions to the Chapter 83 Landlord Tenant Act. And I had a lot of different information in there, some of which was contrary to other bills that had passed. So that did not end up getting very far or all the way through anyway. So they did not make it at a committee. None of those. And so we should see a lot of activity that will help with our housing scarcity issues. And then now we also have the, the financial, the economic market to look at that is critical to understand. And these bank failures have been a little scary. Yes. And some properties, just like in all cases some people buy real estate where they're putting in too aggressive of a business plan and some of them are having problems now. So we still are expecting some really good opportunities. There's probably a couple coming around the corner. I am reaching out to people with a survey here soon. Haven't had all the automated emails quite set up exactly like I wanted yet, but hopefully that helps with knowing what's going on as far as the legislature. We will be meeting again in June, the Lyceum, the Floor Florida Apartment association to talk about initiatives for the upcoming session next year. And so if there's anything that you want to be sure that we would discuss, let us know. I'm serving on the Affordable Housing and Mixed Use. It's actually Adoptive Reuse Adaptive Reuse Committee. It's I guess I'll consolidate it in there really. But so if you have issues or properties you want to bring to our attention, please let me know. And so hopefully that helps you to feel like you're updated now. And if there's a topic you want me to cover, please let me know. We'll be doing a webinar pretty soon to go over a trial, a practice investment if we don't actually have one very soon. There was a couple that got this close but I'm not going to waste your time until we have everything just right. Stay tuned, keep learning what it is that you would like to know and be comfortable with and so pick up the phone so we can have a discussion. Be sure that you're going to be prepared and you'll be approved to even know about the opportunities when they come along. Thank you. Have a good day.