Babcock Ranch - Ft Myers

The Florida Legislature ended this year with a promise to buy the giant Babcock Ranch in Southwest Florida, new wetlands rules for the Panhandle and a plan for energy. In all, environmental projects for this year totaled at least $330 million.

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Issues watch: Impact fees

State and local builders have filed a lawsuit against Polk County over its $8,596 school impact fee, which they claim is unconstitutional because it includes money to meet class-size requirements. The two groups contend about 70% of the fee, or $5,778, is for the class-size amendment and that Florida law stipulates that the class-size amendment may not be funded by the local school district. They want that portion thrown out. The Polk County Commission increased the school impact fee from $1,607 to $8,596 last year.

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Legislative Issues Effecting Real Estate

HURRICANE INSURANCE:
Hurricane season starts June 1. Brace yourself -- not necessarily for storms but for higher premiums. House and Senate leadership negotiated for three days last week an insurance package intended to bail out Citizens Property Insurance Corp. and lure private insurers back to the state. The measure passed late Friday evening (SB 1980) will result in significantly higher premiums for Citizens policyholders -- probably double in most coastal areas. "If you're longing for a short-term, three-month rate drop, it may not happen. But I think long-term we've done something good," said House Speaker Allan Bense (R-Panama City). SB 1980 also makes it easier to raise rates and tap into the state's Hurricane Catastrophe Fund. And it provides $715 million in tax money to pay down Citizens' $1.7 billion deficit.

SAVE OUR HOMES PORTABILITY:
Faced with a dizzying array of portability bills, legislators bought themselves more time to work through the choices by appropriating $1 million to study the impact of portability on local governments' ability to raise revenue. The Legislature also approved a ballot referendum allowing owners of property taken by eminent domain to retain their Save Our Homes benefits.

EMINENT DOMAIN:
Legislators OK'd two bills to limit the ability of local governments to condemn property for private economic development uses via statute and the state constitution.

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Hurricane Insurance

Insurers play the odds. They create hurricane models that estimate the chance of impact and, if so, the cost to fix damages. But private insurers' models are proprietary, making it difficult to assess the validity of rate hike requests. That may change, however: a public model to predict hurricane risk has been developed by six Florida colleges, including UF and FSU.

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Last week's mortgage rates

Rates on 30-year mortgages climbed this week to an average of 6.59 percent, hitting their highest point in nearly four years, according to Freddie Mac's nationwide weekly survey. It marked the sixth week in a row that rates for 30-year FRMs went up.

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