Local Government Compliance with State Planning Mandates: The Effects of State Implementation in Florida

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Abstract
State planning mandates have been used to achieve state policy objectives through the local planning process. Recent research has shown that plan quality is higher both in states with mandates for local planning and in those where state authority to review local plans and enforce mandates is greater. Florida is generally considered to be among the strongest of the mandate states. We examine the extent to which eighteen Florida communities comply with state mandates about coastal storm hazards. Compliance with the mandate requirements is highly variable—greater with some mandates than with others; and within mandate categories, local plans vary substantially in compliance. In examining why this variability occurs, we test two sets of factors: the interpretation and enforcement of the mandates by the state agency charged with their administration, and local community conditions. We find evidence that much of the variation in compliance is attributable to how the planning mandate was implemented by the State Department of Community Affairs. We show that the state agency has emphasized some mandate requirements over others, and not necessarily consistently over time or across different sub-units of the agency. We also find weak evidence that some local conditions may have influenced plan content in cases where the state agency did not strictly enforce the mandate. We conclude that the extent to which storm hazard planning is included in local plans cannot be attributed solely to the content of the state's planning mandate. Our findings have implications for how the effectiveness of state planning mandates should be measured and interpreted.