Director of Planning and Development Services explains provisions of act and steps for review of local submittals
After hearing an explanation this week about the Live Local Act affordable housing law that the Florida Legislature approved in 2023 and amended last year, the Sarasota County commissioners voted unanimously to direct staff to make the county’s handling of applications as transparent to the public as possible.
Since the law calls for administrative review of applications, none of the proposals would be discussed in an open meeting of either the county’s Planning Commission or the County Commission, Matt Osterhoudt, director of the county’s Planning and Development Services Department, pointed out to the commissioners on Jan. 13.
The board members directed staff to create what Osterhoudt had characterized as a “dashboard” on the county’s website, with details about project applications that the county has received.
At Chair Ron Cutsinger’s suggestion, the materials would be provided through those webpages whenever an application reaches the third of five steps in the county’s administrative process. That is the stage at which an applicant is required to schedule a meeting with the county’s Development Review Coordination (DRC) staff, to explain the request and hear responses from DRC members about the requirements for site development.
After that meeting, the administrator of the county’s Unified Development Code (UDC) — which contains all of the land-use and zoning regulations — must provide the applicant a written summary of the DRC comments, Osterhoudt said.
The DRC members represent all of the county departments involved with land-use applications.
The reason staff made that DRC step mandatory, Osterhoudt told the commissioners, is a factor of the gravity of the process as well as its newness.
To reach Step 3, Osterhoudt noted, the applicant also has to pay a $350 fee to the county.
“It’s a relatively small amount,” he said, compared to the expense for other types of land-use applications. Those typically cost several thousand dollars, based on details The Sarasota News Leader has seen.
“I really like that this process will be in black and white on the county website,” Commissioner Joe Neunder said. “I think it’s fantastic for the community,” so anyone can look for the information whenever he or she wishes to do so.
He emphasized his desire for transparency about the county’s administrative approval process, including all of the details about who is pursuing projects under the guidelines of the Live Local Act and where those developments would be located. “We can only take so many calls and answer so many emails,” Neunder pointed out of himself and his commission colleagues.
Neunder also indicated that he thinks a priority of county residents is knowing how many residential units each Live Local Act project would entail.
Osterhoudt told the commissioners that he understood their desire not to have the Live Local Act “information buried” on the county website. Staff can endeavor to update that information as often as necessary, he added, so it is available in “real time” as much as possible.
Further, the commissioners’ motion called for staff to provide quarterly updates on applications to them during regular meetings. Those would be opportunities, as well, for the public to learn about proposals, Commissioner Teresa Mast pointed out in suggesting that action.
Staff has been providing emails to the commissioners about the submittals as they have come in, Osterhoudt noted. As of that day, seven had been sent to his department, he added.
Thus far, Osterhoudt told the commissioners, only two applications had made it to Step 3. One of those entails 352 residential units on 23.69 acres zoned Open Use Estate, located at 8893 Fruitville Road. The Open Use Estate district allows for only one dwelling unit per 5 acres, the County Code says.
The second calls for 2,250 units on 206.5 acres located at 412 Tatum Road. That property is zoned Residential Estate-1 (RE-1). That district allows for one dwelling unit per 2 acres.
To qualify for the Live Local Act, at least 40% of the proposed units must be priced no higher than 120% of the Area Median Income of the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), Osterhoudt had explained. Annually — usually in the spring — the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issues updated AMI data.
In response to a question from Neunder, County Administrator Jonathan Lewis reported that the 120% figure for a household with four people is $129,120.
The units must remain affordable for at least 30 years, the state law dictates.
Commissioner Mast — who ended up seconding Neunder’s Jan. 13 motion — told Osterhoudt, “I love the emails, but I think it would be very helpful for our community as a whole — especially with as new as this is — that [details about the applications] be added either to the Affordable Housing page [on the county website],” or another page, so people could click on each proposal.
“But I also think that if you were to come in front of the board and do at least a quarterly update — until we really have a better understanding of what all of this is — I think it would be very beneficial,” she added. “I think it’s beneficial for our community to understand as much as possible,” she stressed.
Moreover, Mast pointed out, “I think it’s important for our constituents to understand that this is outside of our purview — good, bad or indifferent,” whether they like the legislation or not. “We want to … follow the laws that have been put in place,” she continued, “but we also want to be very willing to answer questions. I think it’s a very difficult [issue] to wrap your head around,” Mast told Osterhoudt.
Commissioner Neunder said, “We need to be very clear to the general public: … We don’t really have any say in this. … This is something that’s really from Tallahassee.”
As of Jan. 13, the information that county staff has placed on the county website in regard to the Live Local Act may be found at https://www.scgov.net/government/planning-and-development-services/housing-affordability. It is about midway down on the webpage.
In response to another question from Neunder, Osterhoudt reported that staff’s work with an applicant through the Live Local Act process “can be completed in 30 to 70 days,” compared to the typical period of five to nine months for a rezoning application.
The legislative pre-emption issue
Before Osterhoudt began his presentation, Rob Lewis, director of governmental relations for the county, talked about his efforts to keep track of bills in each legislative session that would give the Legislature authority over certain responsibilities that have been accorded to local government bodies.
“The pre-emption-related legislation is here to stay,” Lewis stressed. “It’s gotten progressively harder on local governments,” he added.
In the 2026 legislative session, which began the same day as that County Commission meeting, he noted, the Florida Association of Counties (FAC) had identified 11 bills as pre-emptive of local government actions.
He reminded the board members that the Sarasota County Commission has been opposed to any pre-emption bills for many years.
The process for Sarasota County applicants
Summing up the primary tenets of the Live Local Act, Osterhoudt told the board members, “If you meet the criteria related to zoning, density and height,” an applicant can proceed with the administrative approval process.
“Our highest allowed [density] by right is 13 dwelling units per acre,” he said. Only through County Commission approval of a Special Exception can that be increased, he added.
Commissioner Mark Smith did ask Osterhoudt for clarification in regard to the height issue, as building stories can range in height. He referenced the plans for the 1260 N. Palm Residences project that had been slated for Palm Avenue in downtown Sarasota.
After City of Sarasota Development Services staff received the application for that project, members of the public learned that the structure would be the tallest in the city, given the “interstitial space” between the floors. That is space where plumbing and electrical equipment, for examples, are installed.
“If it’s three stories,” Smith pointed out to Osterhoudt, in regard to the Live Local Act, “[a building] could be 50 feet,” instead of the 35-foot maximum in Sarasota’s land-use regulations.
“Do we have a ‘story’ definition in our Code right now?” Smith asked.
Staff needs clarification on the story issue, as well, Osterhoudt replied. As staff members research best practices in other local government jurisdictions’ applications of the Live Local Act, Osterhoudt added, that will be a topic they will address.
“A lot of local governments in the state,” he continued, “are starting to create documentation about how they interpret the law.” Sarasota County’s ultimate interpretation about height, as it relates to stories, “also should probably be dictated in the administrative procedures,” Osterhoudt said.
“And where it’s measured from,” Smith added.
Osterhoudt concurred.
Then, presenting more slides with the following details, Osterhoudt explained in detail the steps that county staff has implemented for any Live Local Act project applicants in Sarasota County.
Those are as follows:
Commissioner Smith also sought clarification about how changes in the county’s process will be handled. For example, he talked of the potential that an applicant already pursuing the administrative process could learn one day that county staff had modified a step. “You know, changing codes in midstream can be a bit tricky,” Smith pointed out.
Osterhoudt responded that staff already has learned that local government jurisdictions are handling steps in different ways. For example, he reminded Smith, the Sarasota County process calls for the determination of a project’s eligibility for the Live Local Act provisions to take place in Step 4. In other areas, that is the first step, he noted.
Sarasota County staff’s belief, Osterhoudt continued, is that it should try to avoid giving a developer bad information. That is why staff agreed that earlier steps should involve sufficient research of the proposed sites and plans before letting an applicant know whether a proposal qualifies for Live Local Act provisions.
Further, Smith asked who would determine whether a Sarasota County project was compliant with the Comprehensive Plan, as provided for in the law. With routine land-use applications, Smith pointed out, the County Commission is charged with that determination through the public hearing process.
Osterhoudt responded that staff already is handling such decisions after it receives site development applications. “Every day,” he emphasized.
Osterhoudt also said he believes that if a site application in the Live Local Act process were denied, then the applicant’s recourse would be court action. County Attorney Joshua Moye confirmed that that is correct.
“So our county attorney may be getting really busy,” Smith said.
Commissioner Tom Knight asked County Administrator Lewis whether the Florida Association of Counties (FAC) had provided any recommendation about general direction for all 67 counties in handling Live Local Act applications.
Noting that the state has 412 municipalities to which the act also applies, Lewis indicated that the association had not taken such action. “I do think, over time, the longer this is in place, the more you see the cleanups [of it in the Legislature], that you’ll start to see [more uniformity in how the law is handled by local governments],” Lewis added.
“Right now, everybody is kind of looking at everybody else’s practices,” Lewis continued. “But I do think, over time, that [move to uniformity in practices] will happen.”
Lewis noted that Osterhoudt’s team is doing as much as possible to try to determine the best practices. “We just don’t know enough yet.”