BRADENTON, Fla. – Florida Gov. Rick Scott held a ceremonial signing of House Bill 85 Friday to bring further attention to the Sunshine State’s new comprehensive law governing public-private partnerships.
“The signing of this legislation further ensures that Florida is a pro-business state,” Scott said.
HB 85 is designed to streamline the process of creating private investment opportunities toward public projects, and outlines financing provisions by which public entities lend funds to private enterprises.
The bill, officially signed into law by Scott in late June, creates a task force that will recommend to the Legislature guidelines for a uniform process in establishing P3s, including the types of factors public entities at all levels should review and consider when processing projects.
The new law, which went into effect July 1, was primarily created at the request of P3 investors and lenders to bring uniformity to regulations and more predictability on returns, according to Lee Weintraub, a shareholder in the Fort Lauderdale office of Becker & Poliakoff PA. He also drafted the legislation.
While some states have laws governing the use of public-private partnerships by state agencies, he believes only a handful have more comprehensive legislation that provides guidance to local governments – especially those less familiar with P3s and negotiating contracts, he said.
“Local governments love the idea of P3s,” said Weintraub. “Many can’t afford to build facilities and need private help to do it. They see P3s as a delivery method that might help solve the problem.”
In addition to providing municipalities with a so-called “checklist” to review a P3, the law allows them to consider unsolicited proposals and establishes procedures for that process.
“From the day the Legislation passed, our workload quadrupled,” said Weintraub, who specializes in construction law and public-private partnerships. “We probably have about 10 to 15 active projects going and another 10 to 15 in the startup stages.”
His firm is working on P3s involving downtown and commercial redevelopment, stadiums, schools, hotels, residential building for universities, prisons, water and wastewater, port facilities, energy systems, and parking garages, he said.
Weintraub is also vice chairman of the Florida Council for Public Private Partnerships, which is in the process of finalizing attendees for the organization’s second conference Oct. 24-25.
