Local Government
Pensacola’s Land Development Code Rewrite Heads to City Council
City staff and its consultant, Inspire Placemaking Collective, previewed the first comprehensive overhaul of the city’s developmentrulebook in decades. Here’s what changes for homeowners, builders, and neighborhoods.
City staff and Inspire have spent nearly two years rewriting Pensacola’s Land Development Code walked. They walked reporters through the changes Monday morning, previewing what will be a first-reading vote before City Council this Thursday.
Let’s Be Real: Land development codes are not exciting. They’re the dense, cross-referenced rulebooks that tell you how tall your fence can be, how many parking spaces a coffee shop needs, and how far your new garage has to sit from the property line. Most residents will never open one.
- But that rulebook shapes almost everything about how Pensacola actually gets built—what kinds of housing are legal in your neighborhood, whether a developer can flood your backyard, how many trees come down for a new subdivision, and how long it takes to get a permit. When the code is confusing or contradictory, the people who pay for it are homeowners, small builders, and neighbors stuck fighting over gray areas at the Architectural Review Board. That’s why this update.
City Director of Developmental Services Sherry Morris opened the briefing by noting Pensacola’s code dates to a 1947 framework, with a major rewrite in 1965, and hasn’t had a comprehensive overhaul since. Cynthia Cannon, the city’s Planning and Zoning Division Manager, led the project alongside Patricia Tyjeski of Inspire Placemaking. Tyjeski walked us through the presentation this morning.
Two Years, Hundreds of Fixes
The project began with a technical review of the existing code—how it was organized, what was outdated, what conflicted with itself—before moving into drafting…