DiCeglie addresses storm bill lawsuits

A new Florida law that restricts local governments from regulating development faces over two dozen lawsuits. Sen. Nick DiCeglie has pledged to amend the legislation. 

The Pinellas County Republican used lessons learned from a devastating 2024 hurricane season to draft Senate Bill 180, which dictates how local governments must prepare for and respond to natural disasters. However, what became law July 1 also restricts city and county officials from adopting “more restrictive or burdensome” land-use and zoning regulations until October 2027. 

An influx of recent litigation claims that SB 180 violates the single-subject rule by bundling unrelated policy changes into an emergency-management bill and undermines the Florida Constitution’s “natural resources” clause by blocking local efforts to protect the environment. A lawsuit filed Oct. 7 also alleges that the bill “allows ‘any person’ to sue to invalidate a plan, amendment, regulation or development order without needing to show that they are impacted by it in any way, and to receive attorney’s fees and costs if they succeed.” 

“I’m fully committed to making those necessary changes,” DiCeglie told the Catalyst. “There are a lot of great provisions in the bill. But unfortunately, we’re going to have to go back and clean that up.” 

DiCeglie told City Council members in July that he “paid very close attention” to St. Petersburg’s storm preparedness and recovery efforts and wanted to incorporate many of those aspects into SB 180. He also singled out beach communities for lacking comprehensive plans to mitigate a disaster. 

The legislation encompasses permitting procedures, debris collection, repair guidelines, resource coordination and construction crane safety. DiCeglie subsequently explained that he and his colleagues also “didn’t want local governments to get in the way” of post-storm rebuilding efforts by adopting development moratoriums. 

“We’re unfortunately in a situation where there have been a lot of threats of lawsuits from developers saying that you can’t make simple changes, because it would be, in fact, restrictive and burdensome,” he added. “And local governments say, ‘Wait a minute, this has nothing to do with storm recovery.’” 

Smart-growth advocate 1000 Friends of Florida has noted that over a dozen local governments statewide have received letters from the Department of Commerce declaring that proposed planning or land-use changes are “null and void” under SB 180. The organization alleges that most of those were to protect natural resources or prevent urban sprawl. 

Lawsuit defendants include Florida Secretary of Commerce J. Alex Kelly, Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Kevin Guthrie, Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson, Department of Revenue Executive Director Jim Zingale and Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia. 

However, DiCeglie will lead efforts to rectify the situation. He has already had “tons of conversations” with colleagues in the House and Senate, who all want to ensure SB 180 is “directly tied to hurricane response.” 

“That was the spirit of the bill – from top to bottom,” DiCeglie said. “It’s my full commitment to make a very challenging situation at the moment much, much better.” 

State Sen. Nick DiCeglie.

A “surgical approach” to bill amendments will take some time. The next legislative session does not begin until January, and lawmakers have yet to draft any language. 

DiCeglie said they could set a retroactive date for the new provisions, or those could start immediately following the governor’s approval. Local Rep. Linda Chaney is among his supporters in the House. 

DiCeglie hopes Gov. Ron DeSantis will sign the amended bill if the Senate and House can “lay out a good reason why we need these changes.” He also noted that “we’re far away from that at this point.” 

An Orange County resident and 100 Friends of Florida seek declaratory and injunctive relief that would block SB 180’s effects. The court system typically moves at a snail’s pace, and DiCeglie plans to address the issues “before any ruling.” 

“I think whatever we do in the Legislature will be a heck of a lot quicker than what we see out of the courts,” he said. 

DiCeglie explained he deleted the land-use and zoning language from a previous version of SB 180 before sending it back to the House for approval. However, state representatives had “real-world examples” of local governments impeding storm rebuilding efforts through development moratoriums. 

Those were enough to pass the final, now-contested version of the bill. DiCeglie said that  “90% of the time there are no issues” with new laws, and he remains willing to tweak the remaining 10% according to feedback from constituents. 

“Every bill sponsor is different, but for me, I’m always open to going back and taking a look to improve what we’ve done,” DiCeglie said. “We try to avoid this at all costs, obviously, but sometimes you just don’t know exactly how legislation works until you see some real-world examples.

“And I think we’ve got plenty of those here in the last several months with Senate Bill 180.”