Santa Rosa County is a good county for showing why a residential-looking ALF project still has several technical tracks running at the same time. Zoning may answer whether the use can be located there, but Environmental Health is looking at the floor plan and sanitation, DEP may control the septic q...
In Polk County, resident capacity is written into the land-use vocabulary. The county's current Land Development Code distinguishes a small group home with six or fewer residents, a large group home with seven to fourteen, and a group living facility with fifteen or more. That means the number of be...
Putnam County is one of those places where the process looks manageable until you pay attention to the resident count and the calendar. The county's zoning code distinguishes smaller community residential homes from assisted living or group-home uses with seven or more residents, and the Emergency M...
Pasco County is one of the clearest examples of why I want an ALF owner to decide resident capacity before buying the property. In the zoning guidance my team received from Pasco, six residents or fewer and seven residents or more do not follow the same path.
That difference is not paperwork. It ca...
In Pinellas County, I would put two maps next to the real-estate listing before I get excited about the property: the jurisdiction map and the storm-risk map. Pinellas is highly municipal, highly developed, and highly exposed to coastal hazards. Those three facts can shape an ALF long before AHCA re...
Palm Beach County is one place where I would never give an ALF owner a single 'county zoning process' and send them on their way. The first question is jurisdiction: unincorporated Palm Beach County and its municipalities do not all use the same terminology, forms, or approval sequence.
I know that...
Osceola County can look encouraging on the zoning map because assisted living and community residential uses appear in a number of county districts. I would still resist the temptation to read that as 'the property is approved.' In Osceola, the asterisk matters: many of those uses are subject to sit...
In Orange County, one of the first numbers I want from an ALF owner is not the purchase price. It is the proposed resident capacity. Six residents, seven to fourteen residents, and a facility above fourteen beds can move through very different land-use and design questions.
That matters because peo...
Okeechobee County is a good example of why a smaller market should not be mistaken for a simpler ALF project. The approvals may involve fewer layers than a large metro county, but the property still has to work under local land-development rules, building and fire requirements, utility conditions, a...
If I were evaluating a property for an assisted living facility in Okaloosa County, I would not treat emergency planning as something that comes after zoning. In this county, the property decision and the emergency plan can expose the same weakness: where the building sits, how it is converted, and ...
If you are considering a property for an assisted living facility in Nassau County, I would not rely on what a real-estate listing says the property can be used for, what someone remembers from a previous project, or even what the zoning may have allowed a few years ago.
Nassau County is growing, a...
If you are looking at a property for an assisted living facility in Monroe County, I would widen your definition of due diligence.
In the Florida Keys, zoning is only one part of the decision. You also need to know whether the property is inside a municipality or unincorporated Monroe County, what ...
