Naples, like other Florida cities, was built on the principle of home rule — the constitutional right of local governments to make decisions affecting their own communities. Article VIII of the Florida Constitution grants that authority so cities can protect the health, safety, and quality of life of their residents. At its core is a simple idea: decisions concerning residents and their local neighborhoods should be made by the people who live there.
That principle is now eroding.
Increasingly, the Florida Legislature — including our local representatives — is preempting local authority. Decisions once made in Naples are being dictated from Tallahassee.
In 2025, the Naples City Council was forced to repeal four major ordinances governing land use: building coverage limits, planned development rules, lot splits and subdivisions, and site plan review. These were not minor regulations — they were important tools intended to manage growth, protect neighborhood character, and ensure responsible development. They were not repealed because residents asked for it. They were repealed because state law, Senate Bill 250 (2023), left the city with no choice.
That moment should not be overlooked. It marked something significant: a city being compelled to undo its own laws — and, in the process, impairing its ability to respond to its residents.
And it is not an isolated case.
HB 4005 (2026), passed in March and now signed by the governor, would cancel the Naples City Council’s authority to appoint and remove members of the Naples Airport Authority and replace it with a county-wide election. The airport sits on land owned by the city and can directly affect Naples residents — through noise, traffic, and overall quality of life. Yet under this law, decision-making power shifts to voters across the county, including areas far removed from those impacts, like Marco Island or far North Naples. This weakens the most effective way city residents can influence how the airport operates.
Even everyday neighborhood concerns are no longer purely local. Senate Bill 290 (2026) will require Naples to repeal restrictions on gas-powered leaf blowers — an ordinance strongly supported by many residents. Once again, a local decision reflecting local preferences is replaced by a one-size-fits-all rule imposed by the state.
Other laws reinforce this trend. The Live Local Act (2023) and Senate Bill 180 (2025) limit the city’s ability to manage development, sometimes requiring approval of large-scale projects despite infrastructure concerns. HB 1417 (2023) prevents cities from adopting certain tenant protections, even during periods of rising housing costs.
Taken together, these actions point to a clear shift. Home rule is no longer functioning as a broad constitutional right. It is becoming a shrinking space in which cities can act only where the state has not yet intervened.
This matters because local government is where residents have the strongest voice about traffic, growth, housing, and neighborhood quality. When those decisions move to the state level, that connection weakens.
Naples is not just facing policy changes — it is facing a fundamental shift in who gets to make decisions about its future.
The question now is whether we accept that shift, or whether we believe local communities should retain a meaningful role in shaping their own future, as the Constitution intended.
Encouragingly, the city appears prepared to respond. Naples has either joined or is considering litigation challenging SB 180 and HB 4005. These efforts are not about opposing growth or economic development. Growth is inevitable, and economic vitality matters. But so does balance — and so does the ability of a community to guide how that growth occurs.
So far, it appears the city is willing to stand up to this encroachment on local authority. Those efforts deserve attention — and support.
Gregory Fowler is a retired lawyer living in Old Naples and a member of the Naples Planning Advisory Board. Stacy Vermylen of Naples is with the League of Women Voters of Collier County. The views expressed by Mr. Fowler in this article are his own, they are not intended to reflect the views of the Planning Advisory Board (of which he is a member) or the City of Naples.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Naples is losing its constitutional right to local control | Opinion
Reporting by Gregory Fowler and Stacy Vermylen / Fort Myers News-Press
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