Florida HAT subcommittee advances five bills on housing, taxes, manufacturing and environmental programs

Tallahassee — The Florida House Housing, Agriculture and Tourism Subcommittee on a single agenda advanced five bills affecting housing affordability, property-tax disclosure, manufacturing policy, golf-course certification and a condominium mitigation pilot.

Leader Byran (Leader Driscoll) and committee members reported each bill favorably after brief sponsor explanations, mostly technical amendments and expressions of organizational support. All five measures were voted out of the subcommittee to be reported favorably.

House Bill 675 (Leader Driscoll), an affordable-housing package, would require incentives under the Live Local Act to be used only for affordable housing, extend required affordability periods for units built with Live Local incentives from 30 to 50 years, lower the eligible area median income threshold from 120% to 100% for those incentives, and exempt qualifying first-time buyers from documentary stamp taxes. Leader Driscoll framed the bill as a bipartisan effort aimed at easing a statewide affordability crisis, saying the measure ‘‘seeks to ease that burden by making the American dream more attainable and accessible for certain first-time homebuyers.’’ Two technical amendments that added counties and clarified the first-time-buyer definition were adopted; the committee then voted to pass the bill.

House Bill 827 (Representative Anderson) would require online listings to disclose an estimated ad valorem tax based on the listing price or, if the listing platform lacks a calculator, to direct users to county property-appraiser calculators. Representative Anderson said recent rapid appreciation combined with the Save Our Homes cap has produced large assessed-value resets that can surprise new buyers; he cited a 92% average assessed-value reset in Pinellas County in 2023 and said some resets statewide can be as much as 800%. Jeff Skow of the Florida Association of Counties backed the bill as a ‘‘good transparency bill’’; a representative of the Pinellas County property appraiser’s office described buyers receiving distressing escrow notices when taxes reset. A technical amendment was adopted and the bill was reported favorably.

House Bill 483 (Representative Cobb) aims to strengthen Florida’s manufacturing ecosystem by codifying a chief manufacturing officer position in statute, creating the Florida Manufacturers Workforce Development Grant Program for small manufacturers, launching a promotional campaign modeled on Fresh From Florida, and requiring biennial reporting by the Department of Commerce. Representative Cobb described the package as supporting workforce and technology investments; numerous industry and regional economic-development organizations waved in support. A technical cleanup amendment was adopted and the committee reported the bill favorably.

House Bill 495 (Representative Albert) transfers the golf-course Best Management Practices (BMP) certification program from the Department of Environmental Protection to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) without changing existing BMP requirements or reporting tied to basin management action plans. The sponsor and testifiers emphasized that the move is administrative only and intended to increase participation in the certification program; a technical amendment clarifying language was adopted and the bill was reported unanimously.

House Bill 1497 (Representative Hunchowski) refines the My Safe Florida Condo pilot by restricting eligibility to associations where at least 80% of occupied units are owned by households at or below 80% of area median income, removing a 15-mile coastal restriction, and tying grant awards to completion of opening protection for 100% of common elements. Two amendments (removing a post-2008 exclusion and grandfathering associations that already applied) were adopted; the Community Associations Institute signaled support and the committee reported the bill favorably.

What’s next: each bill was recorded favorably by the Housing, Agriculture and Tourism Subcommittee and will be transmitted in committee reports for subsequent procedural steps in the Legislature.