Legal Currents is a blog series that examines timely topics and trends in Florida marine and coastal law and policy. This blog, co-written by Aleksandra M. Czarkowska, a law student at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, examines how Florida’s local governments are addressing climate change through their comprehensive plans. The Community Planning Act, Florida’s statute governing local planning, provides communities with significant flexibility to address climate. To better understand this, we conducted a review of the language and policies related to climate change in the comprehensive plans of counties and municipalities across the state. With the assistance of Tricia Kyzar, a geospatial analyst with the UF Center for Coastal Solutions, we created a color-coded map of Florida local governments based on their policy planning robustness to climate change.
Flood waters engulf an apartment complex during a hurricane.
Florida’s local government comprehensive plans sit near the top of the local government policy hierarchy. They have been likened to constitutions for communities,¹ serving as the primary policy-setting instrument to drive the future. Given their role in long-range planning, it makes sense that local government plans would begin addressing the impacts that a changing climate has on local futures.
The Florida statute governing local planning, the Community Planning Act,² gives communities ample license to plan for climate change.³ Despite past and more recent headwinds surrounding the terms “sea level rise” and “climate change” in Florida,⁴ many local governments—supported by State policy—have taken steps to plan for the impacts associated with a changing climate (adaptation), and some have also developed policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation), the primary driver of anthropogenic climate change.
Reviewing Climate Policy Across Local Governments
To better understand climate and comprehensive planning in Florida, we reviewed the comprehensive plans for almost all of Florida’s 67 counties and most of Florida’s 411 municipalities (many plans were not readily available online, or incomplete). Using keyword searches, we reviewed these plans for selected terms associated with climate change generally, and with its two overarching policy paradigms: adaptation and mitigation.
Of the plans reviewed, we found that a total of 50 counties and 200 municipalities included some sort of policy-relevant reference to climate change in their local government comprehensive plans. We then scored and binned these based on the extent of coverage across the plan elements and policy robustness. Our results and a complete explanation of our methods are provided below, along with a link to the spreadsheet used to tabulate the scores. We also georeferenced and color coded these local governments on the embedded map below.
It is important to note that we did not look behind the selected keywords to determine their substantive impact. However, we did score them based on where the keywords fell in the plans, focusing on their relevance to actionable policy and how often the keywords occurred. In addition, despite some statutory requirements, not all comprehensive plans employ the same structure and terminology, which made it difficult in some cases to associate a keyword with one of our identified policy categories.
We also note that comprehensive plans are not the only policy-setting governance tools local governments employ. Local governments may have climate policy embedded elsewhere in their ordinances and land development codes or in other policy plans, such as community redevelopment area plans,⁵ and freestanding planning guidance outside the statutorily mandated comprehensive plan.⁶ Since comprehensive plans have to be reviewed for updating only every seven years,⁷ local governments may be moving forward with climate policy through these and other policy vehicles without reference to comprehensive plans. Finally, local governments may employ policies, such as land and energy conservation, that substantially contribute to climate resiliency and mitigation, without resort to terminology associated with climate change.
Structure of Florida Comprehensive Plans
In general, Florida plans are divided into discrete required elements, such as the Future Land Use and Coastal Management elements.⁸ The Community Planning Act also allows local governments to develop “optional elements,” and some have used this tool to focus on climate.⁹ These elements are then addressed through a policy hierarchy of goals, objectives, and policies (GOPs), and sometimes “strategies,” usually in increasing order of both specificity and actionability.¹⁰ Thus, each goal supporting an element will have one or more objectives, and each objective will have one or more policies. Policies tend to be the most action oriented. However, there is enormous variation in the degree to which these are actionable both within plans and across jurisdictions.
Results
Our methodology is described in greater detail in the Methods section below and tabulated here. Based on our keyword analysis, we scored counties and municipalities we identified according to the extent of reference to policy-relevant terms associated with climate change and where these terms occur in the plans. We then binned the plans into five categories, based on their robustness to climate policy as evidenced by our scoring criteria, as follows:
- Extensive reference to climate policy
- Significant reference to climate policy
- Some reference to climate policy
- Scant reference to climate policy
- No reference to climate policy
The table below identifies those counties and municipalities with Extensive, Significant, and Some (counties only) reference to climate policy based on our criteria. Because they are numerous, we excluded those municipalities with Some reference and those counties and municipalities with Scant or No reference from this table, but those with Scant reference are included on the spreadsheet and map, while those with No reference are excluded from both.
| Reference to Climate Policy | Counties (pts) | Municipalities (pts) |
|---|---|---|
| Extensive (41+ pts) | Broward (199), Monroe (97), Miami-Dade (65), St. Lucie (52), Alachua (43), Hillsborough (42), Pinellas (41) Total: 7 Counties | Ft. Lauderdale (138), Pompano Beach (137), North Miami (123), Delray Beach (129), Lake Worth Beach (85), Miami Beach (84), Wilton Manors (83), South Miami (72), Surfside (69), Cutler Bay (68), Tequesta (65), Miami (64), Pinecrest (56), Satellite Beach (56), North Bay Village (52), Key West (49), Punta Gorda (47), Palmetto Bay (43), Deerfield Beach (42), Holmes Beach (41) Total: 20 Municipalities |
| Significant (17–40 pts) | Duval (34), Osceola (31), Palm Beach (30), Volusia (30), Flagler (27), Nassau (22), Seminole (22), Brevard (20), Charlotte (20), Collier (19), Orange (19), Pasco (18), Washington (18), Lake (17) Total: 14 Counties | Dunedin (40), Boca Raton (39), St. Augustine (37), Jacksonville (34), Titusville (33), Coral Springs (32), Sarasota (31), Sunny Isles Beach (29), Clearwater (28), Fernandina Beach (27), Neptune Beach (26), Miramar (24), Auburndale (23), Bunnell (23), Sebastian (23), Hallandale Beach (22), Sanford (22), St Petersburg (22), Holly Hill (21), Port St. Lucie (21), Naples (20), Stuart (20), Miami Shores Village (19), Ocean Ridge (19), Orange City (19), Rockledge (19), Cape Canaveral (18), Cocoa (18), Indiantown (18), Tampa (18), Winter Springs (18), Daytona Beach Shores (17), Jupiter (17), Palm Beach Shores (17), West Palm Beach (17) Total: 35 Municipalities |
| Some (11–16 pts) | Gulf (16), Putnam (13), Sarasota (13), Wakulla (13), DeSoto (12), Manatee (11) Total: 6 Counties | Available on spreadsheet Total: 37 Municipalities |
| Scant (1–10 pts) | Available on spreadsheet Total: 23 Counties | Available on spreadsheet Total: 108 Municipalities |
| No (0 pts) | Excluded from spreadsheet | Excluded from spreadsheet |
Key Findings
Geographically, the distribution of counties and municipalities with Extensive and Significant policy-relevant reference to climate skews coastal, as might be expected, and is heavily weighted toward Southeast Florida. Several factors likely account for this. Densely populated Southeast Florida is widely regarded as being among the most climate-exposed region in the world.¹¹ Already, so-called “sunny day flooding” is a significant factor in Southeast Florida, affecting housing markets, threatening coastal infrastructure, and prompting local policy responses.¹² However, regional leadership may also play a significant role. In 2009, four counties and 109 municipalities came together to create the Southeast Florida Climate Compact.¹³ Similar regional approaches have been pursued elsewhere in the State,¹⁴ but none as comprehensive and robust as Southeast Florida.
Four counties and nine municipalities have discrete elements largely devoted to climate change broadly, or more focused on climate mitigation (greenhouse gas reduction).¹⁵ These are listed below.
COUNTIES WITH CLIMATE SPECIFIC ELEMENTS
- Broward (Climate Change Element)
- Monroe (Energy, Resiliency and Climate Element)
- Osceola (Osceola Green Initiative Element)
- Alachua (Energy Element)
MUNICIPALITIES WITH CLIMATE SPECIFIC ELEMENTS
- Coral Springs (Climate Change Resiliency Element)
- Cutler Bay (Climate Change Element)
- Deerfield Beach (Climate Resiliency Element)
- Fort Lauderdale (Climate Change Element)
- Miami Beach (Climate Resiliency and Sustainability Element)
- North Bay Village (Climate Change and Resilience Element)
- North Miami (Climate Change Element)
- Pinecrest (Climate Change Element)
- Pompano Beach (Climate Change Element)
Several others have optional elements that address climate policy, but also include policy related “sustainability,” and “green” governance more generally.
Most local government climate policy is directed toward adaptation measures, typically expressed as resiliency, but there is significant interest in climate mitigation, typically expressed as a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, as noted above, Osceola and Alachua Counties have optional elements that relate specifically to climate mitigation through greenhouse gas reduction.
Erosion on beachfront property caused by rising sea levels.
Methods
We evaluated and ranked local government comprehensive plans to reflect breadth and depth of climate change treatment, both within and across elements. For purposes of scoring, we created a spreadsheet that includes all the counties and municipalities in Florida for which we could find comprehensive plans. We then assigned scores to each county and municipality by totaling sub-scores across three broad domains typically associated with climate policy: “Climate Change” (generally), “Adaptation,” and “Mitigation.” We calculated each sub-score based on a three-tier system, described below.
Because this scoring system is based on selected keywords, it is important to note that many of the search terms are terms that are not exclusive to climate change policy. Through the exercise of judgment, we made every effort to exclude references that were not used in the context of climate change policy. In addition, keyword searches themselves are not foolproof, especially when the documents being searched come in varying digital formats. Nonetheless, keywords do provide a relatively expeditious and useful means to carry out a first order content analysis, which is all that is intended here.
Tier 1: Serving as a threshold for further analysis, the first tier assigns values based on the simple presence (“x”) or absence (“_”) of selected keywords within a comprehensive plan’s GOPs only, irrespective of location or frequency. We did not consider the use of these terms in introductory narrative or elsewhere in the plan. Each “x” is equivalent to a value of “1,” and each “_” to a value of “0.” The first tier for the general Climate Change domain is satisfied by an explicit mention of “climate” in context of climate change or climate action plans and is worth one point. The Adaptation domain looks to keywords of climate change “resiliency,” “adaptation,” and “Adaptation Action Area (AAA),”¹⁶ and the Mitigation domain to climate change “mitigation,” “greenhouse gases (GHG)”, and “renewable energy.” The first tiers for these domains are worth up to three points, one for each keyword category. At this stage, a plan with no relevant keywords receives a sub-score of “0” for the domain. Any plan containing at least one “x” is subsequently evaluated under Tier 2 and Tier 3.
Tier 2: Informing the scope of climate policy within comprehensive plans, the second tier considers the specific locations and distribution of keywords across elements. Here, plans with domain keywords present in two or more elements are awarded one point (represented by an “x”) for the “Multiple Elements” category. Plans with domain keywords represented in four or more elements, suggesting a broader and more integrated emphasis on climate policy across sectors, receive an additional point for “Intersectional Theme.” Regardless of how many points a plan earns at this tier, all plans continue to Tier 3 for analysis.
Tier 3: Shifting to the depth and comprehensiveness of climate policy treatment, the third and final tier focuses on the frequency with which domain keywords appear in comprehensive plan GOPs. While the first two tiers of analysis are limited with respect to the number of possible points available, based on the categories satisfied, this tier awards one point for each plan goal, objective, or policy containing the relevant domain keywords, without limit.
Upon applying this three-tiered scoring system to a given domain, we tallied the points across the tiers to assign each domain a sub-score. We color coded the domain sub-scores using shades of green (Climate Change), blue (Adaptation), and Purple (Mitigation), ranging from very light (1-10), light (11-20), medium (21-30), dark (31-40), and very dark (41+).
Finally, we assigned “Overall” scores to each county and municipality by totaling the values of their three domain sub-scores.
Learn more about Florida Sea Grant’s climate change and coastal hazards programming here.
Endnotes:
[1] Machado v. Musgrove, 519 So. 2d 629 (Fla. 3rd DCA 1987).
[2] Fla. Stat. § 163.3161 (2024).
[3] David Markell, Sea-Level Rise and Changing Times for Florida Local Governments (Columbia L. Sch. Pub. L. Working Paper, 2016), https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1115&context=sabin_climate change.
[4] Anthony Charles Milordis et. al., What is slowing progress on climate change adaptation? Evaluating barriers to planning for sea level rise in Florida, 28 Mɪᴛɪɢᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ᴀɴᴅ Aᴅᴀᴘᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ Sᴛʀᴀᴛᴇɢɪᴇs ғᴏʀ Gʟᴏʙ. Cʜᴀɴɢᴇ 1, 1–26 (2023).
[5] For example, the City of Cedar Key recently amended its Community Redevelopment Plan to fully incorporate a vulnerability assessment and climate adaptation plan that includes a detailed list of adaptation actions.
[6] For example, the City of Satellite Beach has a non-binding “Sustainability Action Plan” that addresses both climate resiliency and climate mitigation among other topics, complete with goals, indicators, and actions. Sustainability Action Plan, Satellite Beach (last visited Oct. 24, 2024), https://cms8.revize.com/revize/satellitebeachfl/Departments/Sustainable%20Satellite/SAP/2022%20Satellite%20Beach%20Sustainability%20Action%20Plan%20-%205%20Year%20Update.pdf.
[7] Fla. Stat. § 163.3191 (2024).
[8] Fla. Stat. § 163.3177 (2024).
[9] Id.
[10] Fla. Stat. § 163.3177(1)(c) (2024) (“The format of these principles and guidelines is at the discretion of the local government, but typically is expressed in goals, objectives, policies, and strategies”).
[11] Javed Ali et al., The role of compound climate and weather extreme events in creating socio-economic impacts in South Florida, 42 Wᴇᴀᴛʜᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ Cʟɪᴍᴀᴛᴇ Exᴛʀᴇᴍᴇs 100625, 100625-3 (2023).
[12] Robert E. Hines, Staying Afloat: Planning and Managing Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Risk in Florida’s Coastal Counties, 58(2) Uʀʙᴀɴ Aғғᴀɪʀs Rᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ 493, 493–525 (2020).
[13] Advancing Climate Solutions Through Regional Action, Sᴏᴜᴛʜᴇᴀsᴛ Fʟᴏʀɪᴅᴀ Rᴇɢɪᴏɴᴀʟ Cʟɪᴍᴀᴛᴇ Cʜᴀɴɢᴇ Cᴏᴍᴘᴀᴄᴛ (last visited Oct 25, 2024), https://southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org.
[14] These include: the Tampa Bay Regional Resiliency Coalition; the Southwest Florida Regional Resiliency Compact; the East Central Florida Regional Resilience Collaborative; and the Emerald Coast Area Resilience Collaborative.
[15] These include: Coral Springs; Cutler Bay; Deerfield Beach; Delray Beach; Doral; Fort Lauderdale; Miami Beach; North Bay Village; North Miami; Palmetto Bay; Pinecrest; and Sanford.
[16] “Adaptation Action Area” is a local government planning tool enacted by the Florida legislature in 2011. Fla. Stat. § 163.3177(6)(g)(10) (2019); See Thomas T. Ankersen et al., Adaptation Action Areas: The State of Play, 40 Eɴᴠᴛʟ. & Lᴀɴᴅ Usᴇ Lᴀᴡ Sᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ Rᴇᴘ. No. 3 at 1 (2020).
