(1) It is hereby found and declared that:

(a) Immediate and decisive action must be taken to plan, designate, and develop transportation corridors within this state in order that the public health, safety, and welfare may be protected, preserved, and improved by planning for future growth, coordinating land use and transportation planning, and complying with the concurrency requirements of chapter 163.

(b) Traffic congestion and facility overcrowding on the State Highway System constitutes a serious and growing problem; impedes the development of an effective transportation system; results in increased incidents of traffic accidents, personal injury, and property damage or loss; causes environmental degradation; impedes sound economic growth; impairs effective growth management, including the ability to meet concurrency requirements and coordinate land use decisions and transportation planning; discourages tourism; aggravates social discord; increases maintenance costs; shortens the effective life of the transportation facility; delays public evacuation for natural storms and emergencies; impairs national defense and disaster response readiness; delays response time for emergency vehicles; significantly increases public infrastructure needs and associated public costs, such as police, fire, accident, medical, and hospital costs; and otherwise is injurious to the public health, safety, and welfare.

(c) The designation and management of transportation corridors and the planning and development of transportation facilities within transportation corridors will substantially assist in allowing government to alleviate traffic congestion and transportation facility overcrowding, aid in the development of an effective transportation system that is coordinated with land use planning, assist in planning for future growth, enable compliance with concurrency requirements, and alleviate the heretofore described health, safety, and welfare liabilities to the public.

(d) The designation and management of transportation corridors can best be achieved through the inclusion of transportation corridors in the local government comprehensive plans that are developed, reviewed, and adopted pursuant to chapter 163, in order to ensure comprehensive planning for future development and growth, improved coordination between land use and transportation planning, and compliance with concurrency requirements.

(2) It is further found and declared that:

(a) Investments in transportation corridors cannot be adequately coordinated with land use decisions without timely preservation, management, or acquisition of property necessary to accommodate existing and planned transportation facilities within the corridor.

(b) The inability to timely protect or acquire property necessary to accommodate a transportation facility in a transportation corridor constitutes an economic, health, safety, and welfare liability that imposes increasingly onerous burdens on public revenues, seriously impedes the ability to plan for future growth, substantially impairs or arrests sound growth, impedes the provision of transportation infrastructure concurrent with the impact of development, retards the provision of an adequate transportation system for the people in the state, aggravates traffic problems, and substantially hampers the elimination of traffic hazards and the improvement of traffic facilities.

(c) When development, building, or other intensification of land uses occur within the area of right-of-way needed for transportation facilities, the subsequent public acquisition of property results in disruption of neighborhoods, residences, and businesses; relocation of people and property; interference with utility facilities; and substantial additional costs to property owners, business owners, and public agencies for services, planning, permitting, and zoning.

(d) The prevention and elimination of traffic congestion on the State Highway System and the protection, management, and early acquisition of property to accommodate future transportation facilities is a matter of state policy and state concern in order that the state, counties, and municipalities shall not continue to consume an excessive proportion of limited resources on the extra services required for police, fire, accident, hospitalization, and other forms of public protection services and facilities as a result of inadequate transportation facilities.

(3) It is the intent of the Legislature that governmental police powers be utilized to the greatest extent possible by each governmental entity, and by two or more entities through corridor management agreements, to manage land uses necessary for transportation corridors; that property acquisition by donation, purchase, or eminent domain occur as far in advance of construction need as possible; and that property, needed to manage transportation corridors, be acquired and retained for future use to avoid the public liabilities for health, safety, and welfare heretofore outlined.

(4) It is recognized by the Legislature that advance acquisition of property to manage land uses in transportation corridors for future use will, of necessity, require acquisition without design plans and profiles, project development, and construction information; and it is intended by the Legislature that such advance acquisition, including acquisition utilizing the power of eminent domain, must nevertheless occur to avoid the social, economic, health, safety, and welfare liabilities heretofore declared.

(5) When lands and property in a transportation corridor are acquired pursuant to the eminent domain powers granted by s. 337.27(1), public purpose and necessity may be demonstrated through the use of typical design, construction plans or profiles, and one or more of the following: anticipated trends in such areas as demographic and other growth patterns, land use and development patterns, traffic projections, expected utility needs, or future anticipated mass-transit requirements. Immediate availability of construction funds and applicable permits shall not be required to support such showing of public purpose and necessity.

(6) A local government may designate a transportation corridor by including the corridor in the entity’s comprehensive plan traffic circulation or transportation element. A transportation management ordinance may be adopted for designated transportation corridors. The transportation corridor management ordinance should contain the criteria to manage the land uses within and adjacent to the transportation corridor, the types of restrictions on nonresidential and residential construction within the designated corridor, identification of permitted land uses within the designated corridor, a public notification process, a variance and appeal process, and an intergovernmental coordination process that provides for the coordinated management of transportation corridors that cross jurisdictional boundaries with the plans of adjacent jurisdictions. Local governments may adopt such additional ordinances and regulations as necessary to manage designated transportation corridors.

History.—s. 20, ch. 88-168; s. 110, ch. 92-152; s. 41, ch. 95-257.