By Walter Duke, MAI, CCIM Walter Duke + Partners | South Florida Commercial Real Estate Appraisal
Key Facts at a Glance
- Statute: Florida Senate Bill 102 (2023), the Live Local Act
- Amendments: SB 328 (2024), SB 1730 (2025), HB 1389 (2026)
- Core preemption: Administrative approval required for projects committing 40% of units to households at or below 120% Area Median Income for 30 years
- Active litigation: Bal Harbour Shops LLC v. Village of Bal Harbour — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed an amicus brief on April 21, 2026
- Geller Amendment trust fund (per Fort Lauderdale Deputy City Manager Chris Cooper): $85.5 million authorized, $1.7 million received
- Walter Duke + Partners standard discount for by-right but unapproved sites: 15 percent
- Author experience: 50,000+ commercial appraisal assignments across Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties since 1975
Summary
Florida has amended the Live Local Act three times in three years. The pattern is not a sign the statute is failing. Each amendment closes a specific obstruction tactic municipalities developed to resist the prior version. Two 2026 cases — the Galleria Mall redevelopment in Fort Lauderdale and the Bal Harbour Shops litigation in Bal Harbour Village — show how the statute performs under different conditions. A more consequential issue, largely unreported, is that the Geller Amendment trust fund that was supposed to capitalize affordable housing projects has received less than two percent of its authorized funding.
I’ve spent fifty years valuing commercial real estate in South Florida. When I read the 2024 amendments, and then the 2025 amendments, and now the 2026 revisions, I don’t see a broken statute. I see a cat-and-mouse game between Tallahassee and city halls — and I can tell you exactly who’s winning depending on where you’re standing.
Developers want certainty. Municipalities want control. The Live Local Act was designed to give developers the certainty they need to build affordable housing at scale. Every amendment since has been a response to municipal tactics designed to take that certainty back.
Here is what’s actually happening — and why the most important fact about this law hasn’t made the front page.
What the Live Local Act Actually Does
Florida Senate Bill 102, enacted in 2023, preempts local zoning for qualifying affordable housing projects. If a developer commits at least 40% of units to households earning up to 120% of Area Median Income for 30 years, on commercial, industrial, or mixed-use land, the municipality must administratively approve the project. No rezoning. No comprehensive plan amendment. No public hearing gauntlet.
That last part is what developers liked most. For the first time in a generation, a commercial real estate developer in Florida could underwrite a deal knowing the approval process would be administrative rather than political.
The statute also provides property tax exemptions — full exemption for units at or below 80% AMI, 75% exemption for units between 80% and 120% AMI — and requires that developers be allowed the highest density and tallest height permitted anywhere within a one-mile radius.
That’s the bargain. Affordability in exchange for certainty.
Two 2026 Cases Show How the Statute Performs Under Different Conditions
The clearest way to understand where the Live Local Act stands today is to look at two projects on opposite ends of the same statute. One was administratively approved despite intense neighborhood opposition. The other became the first Live Local dispute in which the Florida Attorney General has directly intervened.
Galleria Mall, Fort Lauderdale: The Statute Working as Designed
The Galleria Mall redevelopment in Fort Lauderdale was administratively approved under the Live Local Act in 2026 over significant neighborhood opposition, demonstrating that procedurally diligent applications can override local resistance.
The most recent Live Local application Walter Duke + Partners was involved with was the Galleria Mall redevelopment. The developer filed for nine residential towers with an affordable housing component. The neighbors behind the Galleria and in Coral Ridge to the north went absolutely crazy — as they have in the past for prior submissions, which they were successful in beating back.
This time was different.
Under the Live Local application, the city’s hands were relatively tied. The City of Fort Lauderdale did try to make the application process more onerous, requiring certain exhibits and reports in the initial submission that historically had not been required. But the applicant was diligent and filled out the application correctly. The Mayor of Fort Lauderdale held several large workshops with three to four to five hundred residents, where he explained that there’s really not much that the city could do — under a Live Local application where the developer meets all the requirements, the project must be administratively approved.
It was. And it moved forward.
That’s the statute working as the Florida Legislature designed it. Procedural friction did not materially change the impact of the project or the economics. The developer’s diligence in completing the application correctly carried the day, and a project that had been beaten back multiple times under the prior framework was approved over significant neighborhood opposition.
Bal Harbour Shops: The Statute Under Active Stress
On April 21, 2026, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed an amicus brief supporting Bal Harbour Shops LLC against the Village of Bal Harbour, marking the first time the state’s top legal officer has directly intervened in a Live Local Act dispute.
The Whitman family, owners of Bal Harbour Shops, proposed a Live Local redevelopment of the luxury mall — roughly 600 residential units across three towers plus a 70-room hotel, with approximately 240 units (40 percent) reserved as workforce housing at up to 120% AMI for 30 years. The Village of Bal Harbour opposed the project and, according to reporting in The Real Deal and Law360, responded with retroactive zoning changes and restrictive floor area ratios after the proposal surfaced. The Whitman entities sued. A judge denied the village’s motion to dismiss in 2024, keeping the case alive as an early test of how far the state can preempt local home-rule powers under Live Local.
Attorney General Uthmeier’s April 21, 2026 amicus brief argues the Live Local Act lets the project bypass local land-use restrictions if it meets the statutory workforce housing requirements, and accuses the village of “systematically obstructing” a qualifying proposal. Six days later, the Bal Harbour Village Council scheduled a special meeting to consider a mediator’s settlement proposal.
Whatever the eventual outcome — settlement, ruling, or appellate process — Bal Harbour has already done something the Galleria case did not: it has shown that when a municipality is willing to absorb real legal exposure, the obstruction can drag a qualifying project into prolonged litigation.
What the Two Cases Mean Together
Galleria and Bal Harbour together tell the real story of the Live Local Act in 2026. The statute works when developers execute precisely and municipalities recognize the limits of what they can legally do. It breaks down only when municipalities are willing to absorb the legal risk of “systematic obstruction” — and even then, the State of Florida is now willing to intervene to defend the statute.
For developers, the practical implication is straightforward: the difference between a Galleria outcome and a Bal Harbour outcome is largely determined before the application is filed. Diligent underwriting, complete submissions, and an unflinching reading of what the statute actually requires are what move projects forward. Hopeful interpretations and incomplete applications are what give cities the procedural footholds they need.
The Pattern of Amendments: Each Closes a Specific Obstruction Tactic
The Florida Legislature has amended the Live Local Act in three consecutive sessions — SB 328 in 2024, SB 1730 in 2025, and HB 1389 in 2026 — each time closing specific obstruction tactics municipalities developed to resist the prior version.
SB 328 (2024): The Adjacent-Zoning Tactic
Cities had been approving projects with their maximum allowable height — but then pointing to adjacent low-density zoning to block them in practice. SB 328 allowed municipalities to restrict height in certain conditions near single-family areas and required that developments not exceed three stories above the tallest adjacent building. It was a concession to local concerns, but it preserved the statute’s core preemption.
SB 1730 (2025): The Moratorium Tactic
Some municipalities had begun issuing moratoria — temporary pauses on Live Local applications — effectively stopping projects in their tracks. The 2025 amendments restricted the use of such moratoria, narrowing the conditions under which a municipality could pause applications. The amendments also tightened floor area ratio requirements and addressed parking reductions, closing gaps cities had been using to deny projects on technical grounds.
HB 1389 (2026): The Setback, Land, and Pedestrian-Gap Tactics
HB 1389, approved by the Florida Legislature on March 13, 2026, addresses several distinct obstruction patterns:
- The setback tactic: HB 1389 prohibits local governments from using setbacks, stepbacks, or other dimensional means to indirectly restrict project height that the statute already preempts.
- Religious-institution land: The “Yes in God’s Backyard” provision extends Live Local eligibility to land owned by religious institutions larger than three acres with a house of public worship in continuous operation for at least ten years.
- Public-owner land: Land owned by counties, municipalities, and school districts qualifies if the public owner co-files the development application.
- The pedestrian-gap assemblage tactic: Parcels under common ownership separated by no more than fifteen feet of public pedestrian access count as a single Live Local site, with this provision sunsetting July 1, 2030.
- Airport impact areas: Previously prohibited, now permitted with airport governing-body approval.
Each of these provisions targets a specific tactic municipalities had been using. The amendments are not a retreat. They are a reinforcement.
The Condra Ruling and the Real Cost of Uncertainty
In March 2026, a Broward County court issued a ruling in Condra Property Group v. City of Hollywood that matters for every developer with a Live Local project in the South Florida pipeline.
Does the Condra Ruling Change Live Local Underwriting?
The Condra ruling is being parsed by land-use attorneys across Florida, and the full appellate posture isn’t settled. Any time a court rules against Live Local and creates uncertainty in the process, that’s going to be a negative — it’s going to negatively impact developers’ perception of the law and their willingness to move forward with applications. The one thing developers like best is certainty. A case that contradicts existing policy creates a lot of uncertainty.
That said, the broader picture matters. There is so much overarching demand for multifamily and for affordability, and so much capital chasing deals, that while these cases are being watched closely, the development community is still moving forward on a pretty rapid basis. Uncertainty creates friction. It does not create paralysis.
How Should Appraisers Handle Live Local Uncertainty?
For appraisers, the response is methodological rather than predictive. When there is uncertainty about a Live Local site’s entitlement path, prudent appraisal practice is to provide multiple valuation scenarios qualified with extraordinary assumptions per the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP). It is not the appraiser’s job to define the law or predict its outcomes. We can tell you what a value would be under different legal scenarios. We cannot tell you which scenario will prevail.
What Discount Does the Market Actually Demand for Entitlement Risk?
What we can do is price entitlement risk based on what the market actually demands. Walter Duke + Partners surveyed twelve major South Florida developers about the discount they required to acquire a multifamily site without approvals. Responses ranged from 10 percent to “I would not buy it because I cannot afford the risk,” with the largest cluster at 25 to 30 percent and several responses as high as 40 percent. Every developer surveyed said each situation is different.
For its standard appraisal practice, discounts to multifamily sites that are by-right but not yet approved can vary but generally land between 10% and 15%. That figure may need to widen for sites caught up in active Live Local litigation.
The Geller Amendment: The Story No One Is Reporting
What Is the Geller Amendment?
The Live Local Act’s Geller Amendment, named for former Florida Senator and current Broward County Commissioner Steve Geller, created, among other things, a countywide trust fund to support local affordable housing initiatives by closing the financial gap between market rents and what 120% AMI units can support.
How Much Has the Geller Amendment Trust Fund Actually Received?
According to figures provided directly by Chris Cooper, Deputy City Manager of Fort Lauderdale, who oversees the program: the Geller Amendment trust fund has approximately $85.5 million in committed capital and has received approximately $1.7 million. These funds are unlocked with the market rate developer pulls permits and is split equally between the City of Fort Lauderdale and Broward County.
Why Does the Geller Funding Gap Matter More Than the Zoning Amendments?
Preemption without capital is a policy half-built. You can remove every obstacle to approval, but if the capital stack doesn’t close, the project doesn’t break ground. The story of the Live Local Act in 2026 isn’t really about moratoria or height restrictions or administrative review. It’s about the quiet absence of the money that was supposed to make the whole system work.
The projected commitment for FY2032 from sunsetting CRA’s in Broward County is $72 million — not FY2028, as some coverage has suggested. That distinction matters because it moves the realistic horizon for full funding six years past where most developers are assuming.
What Should Developers Be Doing Right Now?
After fifty years of appraisals, the difference between a deal that gets built and a deal that dies in predevelopment is almost always the quality of the underwriting. The Live Local Act rewards developers who underwrite to the current statute — not the statute as it was in 2023, and not the statute as they hope it will be in 2027.
Should Developers File Live Local Applications Differently After Galleria?
Yes. File like the Galleria developer, not like the developer hoping the city will be reasonable. Diligent application work is the single best protection against procedural obstruction. Cities that try to add non-standard exhibit requirements lose when applications come in complete and correct on the first submission.
Should Developers Re-Underwrite Live Local Deals After Bal Harbour and Condra?
Yes. Price approval risk back into your pro formas. The Condra ruling and the Bal Harbour litigation establish that administrative approval is not free of legal exposure. Deals that penciled at an 18-month approval window may need to be reunderwritten at 24 to 30 months in obstruction-prone municipalities. Construction loans priced against the shorter timeline are now exposed.
Should Developers Rely on Geller Amendment Funding to Close Their Capital Gap?
No. Plan the capital stack as if the Geller Amendment trust fund contribution is zero. Treat anything that comes through as upside.
Should Developers Try to Anticipate the Next Round of Amendments?
No — underwrite to the current statute. The Florida Legislature is responding to municipal resistance in real time. The tactics that worked for cities in 2024 don’t work in 2025, and the tactics that worked in 2025 don’t work in 2026. The developers who read the amendments literally — and underwrite to what the statute says rather than what local officials claim it means — are the ones getting projects approved.
What This Means for Florida’s Housing Crisis
The Live Local Act is the most significant piece of state-level housing legislation in Florida in a generation. It has produced real units — projects that wouldn’t have been approved under the prior zoning regime are now breaking ground. That’s a measurable win.
How Quickly Will the Bal Harbour Outcome Show Up in Land Values?
Real estate is slow to react, unlike the stock market. Changes in values and cap rates don’t show up right away. If the Bal Harbour case resolves in the developer’s favor, expect to see more Live Local applications and rising values for qualifying sites — but it will take two to three years for that shift to flush through the comparable sales record. If it resolves the other way, the slowdown will take just as long to register.
Where Is the Statute Working, and Where Is It Stalling?
What’s clear now is that the Act’s success has been uneven. Where municipalities have cooperated — or at least stopped actively obstructing, as Fort Lauderdale ultimately did with the Galleria — the statute is working. Where municipalities have treated each amendment as a new puzzle to solve, projects have stalled or ended up in court. And statewide, the capital commitment that was supposed to make the entire preemption framework financially viable has not materialized.
Florida’s housing crisis is not going to be solved by zoning preemption alone. It requires capital, and it requires the Florida Legislature’s commitments to be honored in appropriations, not just in statute. Until the Geller Amendment trust fund is funded at something close to its authorized level, developers will continue to underwrite around the statute rather than with it. Municipalities will continue to find new obstruction tactics. And the Legislature will continue to come back every session to close the doors that open.
The amendments are not the problem. They’re the proof that the underlying framework is being defended. The problem is that the second half of the bargain — the money — hasn’t arrived.
Sources Referenced in This Article
- Florida Senate Bill 102 (2023), the Live Local Act
- Florida Senate Bill 328 (2024)
- Florida Senate Bill 1730 (2025)
- Florida House Bill 1389 (2026), approved March 13, 2026
- Bal Harbour Shops LLC v. Village of Bal Harbour, ongoing litigation
- Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier amicus brief, April 21, 2026
- Condra Property Group v. City of Hollywood, Broward County, March 2026
- Bilzin Sumberg, “Florida Passes House Bill 1389 Updating Live Local Act,” March 2026
- Shutts & Bowen LLP, “Live Local Act Amendment: March 2026”
- Florida Senate Bill Analysis, HB 1389 (2026)
- Chris Cooper, Deputy City Manager, City of Fort Lauderdale (direct correspondence on Geller Amendment funding)
- The Real Deal, Hoodline, and Law360 reporting on Bal Harbour Shops litigation
Disclosure: The $43 billion downtown Fort Lauderdale economic impact figure referenced in related analyses was produced by Walter Duke + Partners as part of the 2025 economic impact study for the Fort Lauderdale Downtown Development Authority.
About the Author
Walter Duke, MAI, CCIM, is President and CEO of Walter Duke + Partners, a South Florida commercial real estate appraisal and consulting firm founded in 1975. Walter Duke has appraised more than 50,000 commercial real estate assignments across Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties and throughout Florida and the United States. A former Mayor of Dania Beach, he co-chairs the Broward Workshop Housing Affordability Committee, delivered the keynote at the 2025 Broward Housing Council Affordable Housing Workshop, and led the 2025 economic impact study of downtown Fort Lauderdale for the Fort Lauderdale Downtown Development Authority.