Governor signs harmful growth management bill
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 540 — Local Government Comprehensive Plans — into law on May 24. This bill will have a significant chilling effect on citizen challenges to local comprehensive planning decisions. These decisions contribute to poor growth management and incentivize damaging sprawl, leading to poor water quality.
Our state Legislature has incrementally weakened environmental protections over the past 10 years and this bill is another blow to citizen participation in good growth management planning in Florida.
We are grateful to the thousands of anti-sprawl advocates from around the state that called and emailed the governor’s office to warn them about the dangers of this bill. We are deeply disappointed that this bill passed, but it will not lessen our resolve to continue to defend and preserve our vital natural resources that protect us from storms and provide us with a thriving tourism and nature based economy.
We look forward to working to change these bad laws in future sessions and to support the good efforts that impact our daily quality of life.
Founded in 1967, the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation’s mission is to protect and care for Southwest Florida’s coastal ecosystems. For more information, visit www.sccf.org.
To reach SANIBEL-CAPTIVA CONSERVATION FOUNDATION, please email