Danny Alvarez’s wide-ranging agriculture and land-use proposal clears second House Committee

A sweeping agriculture and land-use package proposed by Riverview Republican Rep. Danny Alvarez — touching everything from surplus state conservation lands and door-to-door commercial solicitation to food assistance programs — cleared its second House Committee.

The House State Affairs Committee cast a 22-3 vote to advance HB 433. Alvarez told Committee members on Tuesday that the measure is a multi-pronged effort to streamline programs while strengthening consumer protections and conservation tools.

The bill revises how the state may dispose of surplus conservation lands by requiring development rights to be permanently stripped before certain properties are returned to private ownership, and narrows which lands may be considered surplus. 

“We’re going to strip the development rights for forever, which is a second tool of conservation which is completely in line with trying to keep Florida rural,” Alvarez said.

The legislation also repeals the dormant Healthy Food Financing Initiative and makes its replacement, the Farmers Feeding Florida program, permanent. It also establishes stricter timelines for contractor and subcontractor payments – shifting enforcement from potential criminal penalties to professional licensing discipline – and creates new prohibitions on unauthorized commercial solicitation at residential properties, despite some concern about what the bill could entail for the Girl Scouts who sell cookies door-to-door.

“I am open to an amendment for Girl Scouts, sir,” Alvarez said.

Committee members also approved a strike-all amendment that narrowed the bill’s surplus lands language, moved the Citrus Research and Development Foundation within the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ oversight structure and removed a prior section of the bill that had addressed food libel provisions.

Much of the Committee discussion centered on the bill’s surplus lands provisions, allowing certain state-owned lands to be returned to private ownership after development rights are permanently extinguished. Lawmakers questioned what conservation lands would be eligible, whether the surplus process would still require review by the Acquisition and Restoration Council and a vote of the Cabinet, and whether the proposal could conflict with voter-approved constitutional protections.

“Authorities have heavily invested in conservation to protect water, wildlife corridors, floodplains and community green space,” said Chadwick Leonard, Conservation & Planning Advocacy Coordinator for 1,000 Friends of Florida.

“Treating these areas as surplus simply because they are suitable for agriculture undermines adopted plans, fragments critical habitat, increases runoff and flood risk, and breaks faith with voters who pay to protect these lands permanently. The bill also restricts local governments’ ability to use transfer of development rights programs, one of the most effective tools to steer growth away from sensitive areas.”

Alvarez said the proposal relies on existing law for declaring surplus land.

“The process is actually already in existence right now, the only thing that we’re adding is the language, where once it’s been determined to be surplus, then what we’re going to do is strip away the development rights forever,” Alvarez said.

Alvarez argued the proposal would allow the state to stretch conservation dollars further by purchasing land, carving out what is needed for preservation and returning the remainder to private ownership without development rights.

“On our program, you almost get a four-time benefit, because I can buy more land with development rights stripped off of it than I have to do completely outright,” Alvarez said. “So we’re going to get it back to work, we’re going to protect the land, and we’re going to protect Florida’s national security and state security by keeping people farming.”

The Committee voted 22-3 to advance HB 433 to its third of four Committee stops at the Agriculture & Natural Resources Budget Subcommittee. An identical bill, SB 290, filed by Republican Sen. Keith Truenow, has already been approved by the Senate with a 38 to 0 vote. If approved by the Legislature and signed by the Governor, HB 433 would take effect on July 1.