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RESTRICTIVE COVENANTS CAN IMPEDE DEVELOPMENT PLANS AND COST LANDOWNERS By Jennifer B. Springfield In addition to property inspections and verifying applicable land use designations and zoning regulations, anyone who is contemplating the purchase of land for development purposes should conduct a thorough review of the title records prior to purchase and early in the due … Continue reading “Restrictive Covenants Can Impede Development Plans and Cost Landowners”

Quasi-Legislative & Quasi-Judicial Local Land Use Decisions By Jennifer B. Springfield and Alexander Boswell-Ebersole ​The duties of local governing bodies, county and municipal commissions and plan boards, often include making land use decisions. These decisions frequently involve public hearings. When a land use application makes its way to a county or municipal governing body, also … Continue reading “Quasi Judicial & Quasi-legislative Land Use Decisions”

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has been heading two efforts to increase the efficiency and statewide consistency of water-related permitting in Florida. These efforts focus on the Consumptive or Water Use Permitting (CUP/WUP) program and the Environmental Resource Permitting (ERP) program. An effort called the Consumptive Use Permitting Consistency Initiative—commonly referred to as … Continue reading “Striving for More Consistent Water-Related Permitting: “CUPcon” and Statewide ERP”

Plum Creek Timber Company (“Plum Creek”), the largest private landowner in Alachua County and the entire nation, proposes to develop a substantial portion of the 65,000 acres of land it owns in Alachua County east of Newnans Lake. To achieve its proposed plan, Plum Creek seeks the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners’ (“County Commission”) … Continue reading “Plum creek and the Alachua county comp plan”

ANOTHER UPDATE ON FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT CO.’S NATURAL GAS PIPELINE Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC, the company contracted by Florida Power & Light Co. to build the biggest part of a major interstate natural gas pipeline extending through most of the peninsula of Florida, continues to work towards completing the planning phase for the pipeline. … Continue reading “ANOTHER UPDATE ON FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT CO.’S NATURAL GAS PIPELINE”

Jennifer Springfield, Esq. testifying on behalf of the Alachua County Commission at a public hearing regarding the Minimum Flows and Levels Rule for the Lower Santa Fe and Ichetucknee Rivers

BASIC WATER LAW Part III: Florida’s Water Law Innovations ​Like the other eastern states, Florida traditionally followed the Riparian Doctrine. Early attempts to address water management in Florida were mainly focused on surface water drainage, since Florida was wet and water was often seen as a nuisance. However, a variety of problems began to emerge … Continue reading “Basic Florida water law III”

FLORIDA WATER LAW By Attorneys Jennifer Burdick Springfield and Alexander Boswell-Ebersole Springfield Law, P.A. October 2013 Eastern versus Western Water Law Two traditional water law systems, which originally only addressed surface water, correspond geographically with the western and eastern United States, roughly divided along the 100th meridian (which runs north-south through states like Texas, Nebraska, … Continue reading “Florida water Law”

The St. John’s River Water Management District is gearing up to reconsider “acceptable” minimum flow levels of important waterbodies in North central Florida. This process begins in early 2014. Check out their website for dates, times and location. This “minimum flow” concept and it’s RE-establishment is crucial to the evaluation of the Plum Creek plan. … Continue reading “Florida Springs, Plum Creek, and Minimum Flows”