Governor Ron DeSantis announced he is calling for a special session of the Florida Legislature during the week of June 1 to consider a constitutional amendment aimed at delivering broad property tax relief for Florida homeowners. The proposal, titled “Save Our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes,” provides for the immediate increase in the homestead exemption and calls for a schedule for full elimination through general law.
“Today in Tampa, I outlined the Save Our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes plan that will eliminate taxes on homesteads,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “Property tax revenue collected by local governments has nearly doubled in the past seven years and is expected to reach an astounding $83 billion by 2032. Florida homeowners need relief. Now is the time to stand up for taxpayers, enact a historic reform, and save the home of every Floridian.”
Property tax revenue collected by local governments has nearly doubled in the past seven years (from $32 billion to $60 billion) and is expected to reach an astounding $83 billion by 2032.
As proposed by Governor DeSantis, the Save Our Homes proposal includes five major components to provide immediate and permanent relief:
Exempt Homestead Properties From Taxation. Exempts the first $250,000 of a homestead’s value from taxation and requiring, through law, a schedule for full elimination.
Ensure Funding For Core Services. Requires local governments to use remaining property taxes solely for core public needs including public safety, education and schools, infrastructure, and natural resources.
Protect Small Businesses. Limits future property tax assessments on businesses and creates a more stable tax environment for local businesses.
Ensure Fairness For Florida Residents. Requires any person who establishes Florida residency after January 1, 2027, to maintain Florida residency for up to five years prior to receiving the increased homestead exemption.
Create A State Trust Fund To Assist With Core Local Services. Establishes a trust fund to provide grants to local governments to assist with the continuation of core local services.
The Governor’s proposal will be considered during the upcoming special session, with the goal of placing the constitutional amendment on the ballot for Florida voters this fall.
You can view the proclamation outlining the special session call here.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’snewly unveiled push to strip properties from bad landlordsand bestow them onto “responsible” owners has been happening for years in New York City — and has repeatedly proven to be a failure, The Post has learned.
The socialist mayor, as he announced his sprawling housing plan Wednesday, vowed to use city resources to help “remove negligent owners” and transfer buildings that have “suffered chronic neglect” into the hands of “responsible stewards.”
But the administration’s initiative, dubbed “Fix the City,” aims to make use of already existing bureaucratic and agency programs that date back to at least the 1970s — and have repeatedly needed the government to swoop in with bailouts, a Post review found.
“The city has long tried to help tenants become owners of buildings, but tenants aren’t necessarily equipped to run the building,” one former insider at the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development said.
“You need someone to be a good bookkeeper and to collect rent from the neighbors,” the source said, adding, “It’s really hard to do and hard to do well.”
Mamdani’s main mechanism, which he touted to hold landlords accountable, would be for the city to drag alleged bad actors to court in an attempt to implement a little-known program, named 7A, in which a housing court judge would appoint a non-profit to take over the management of a building.
Another pillar of the mayor’s plan calls for City Hall to ramp up the number of buildings that are collectively owned and operated by the people who live there — framing it as a revolutionary path to increasing homeownership in a city where roughly 70% of residents are renters.
Under the Housing Development Fund Corporation program, the cooperatives are run by the “shareholders” and subject to strict regulations, such as limits on income for residents and subletting and resale rates.
There are roughly 1,100 such affordable co-ops currently across the Big Apple — though an investigation by state Attorney General Letitia James announced last year found that nearly all of them were considered “high risk” and needed help.
The admin says the one program will be a path to homeownership for many.Gregory P. Mango
The AG’s office, along with then-Mayor Eric Adams, rolled out a $750,000 bailout for the buildings, which were found to have fallen behind on rental collection, stopped making tax payments, run up high levels of debt or racked up a staggering number of code violations.
The buildings, which are granted a slew of tax breaks and financial help from the city, are overseen by the HPD agency, but each has a board of directors that is “legally” required to act in the co-op’s best interest.
Mamdani also pushed for the passing of the controversial Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA), giving non-profits the first shot at buying distressed buildings. The legislation was approved by the City Council last year but vetoed by Adams.
Housing non-profits, however, are already at a “breaking point,” according to a recent alarming report that called for a massive government bailout of the industry.
“Rising cost, stagnant revenues and unpredictable federal support have created conditions where even mission-driven nonprofits — those that rebuilt neighborhoods when the private market walked away — can no longer sustain their portfolios without intervention,” the report warned, calling for a bailout and reforms.
City Hall described the buildings that would be subject to the effort as “chronically negligent,” but couldn’t define that term when pressed by The Post.
The pro-tenant crowded cheered on Mamdani on Tuesday.Gregory P. Mango
Kenny Burgos, CEO of the New York Apartment Association, panned the mayor as merely disguising a push for government subsidy hikes as a housing plan — with “flailing solutions that don’t meet the moment.”
“We can’t afford it today and we won’t be able to afford that tomorrow,” he said.
“Nonprofits and affordable co-ops are screaming from their crumbling rooftops that the rents don’t cover costs,” Burgos said. “The city should crack down on bad actors but changing ownership simply moves the financial burden to taxpayers, permanently.”
Humberto Lopes, a 61-year-old building owner who recently formed the Gotham Housing Alliance to represent the interests of small and large building owners, railed that the mayor should focus on the city’s beleaguered public housing system instead.
“Why don’t you start with them first,” he said of NYCHA, railing, “When did this become a communist country where a dictator could come in and take my building and give it to the f–ing peasant?”
The AG’s office did not say how the funds announced in September 2025 for the cooperatives were doled out, referring The Post to HPD, which did not respond to questions.
Mamdani also announced he plans to use a public-private trust for NYCHA – which he opposed as a state lawmaker – to help fix existing public housing buildings.
“When necessary, we will take aggressive legal action to remove negligent owners and property managers,” he crowed at Wednesday’s news conference.
“And for buildings that have suffered chronic neglect, we will work to transfer ownership to responsible stewards. Stewards that include community land trusts, nonprofits or even the tenants themselves,” he said — to roaring cheers from pro-tenant advocates in attendance.
Georgia Power isn’t negotiating anymore. The Southern Company subsidiary isseizing dozens of homes and hundreds of easementsacross Coweta and Fayette counties to ram through a 35-mile, 500-kilovolt transmission line that will feed at least four massive AI data centers. Project Wansley is just the latest flashpoint in a backlash that has been building for months.
At least 20 to 30 homes face outright demolition. Another 300-plus properties will get permanent easements for towers planted in backyards and next to pools.
But residents like Ansley Brown are fighting back. Her mother bought their family home in 2003 through a USDA rural development loan for single mothers. Now the utility wants the property for the corridor. Brown’s viral TikTok exposing the lowball offers (she says $70,000 to $100,000 below market) has racked up millions of views and drawn state lawmakers into the fight.
The company is racing to add roughly 10 gigawatts of new generating capacity over the next five years, with executives openly stating that about 80% of that power will go to data centers. Meanwhile, transmission has become the bottleneck, and utilities are turning to eminent domain to clear the path.
This isn’t happening in isolation. We’ve been pounding the table on data center resistance, from Northern Virginia counties rejecting new substations to Texas communities suing over water drawdowns and power rate spikes. The pattern is the same: hyperscale demand collides with local infrastructure limits, and the costs get socialized while the profits stay private.
Electricity prices are already feeling the pressure. Utilities across the Southeast and Midwest have warned of double-digit residential rate hikes tied directly to data center load growth. Georgia Power’s own filings show residential customers absorbing a growing share of the bill for transmission and generation built primarily for big tech.
The same dynamic is playing out with Meta’s Georgia facilities, where local reporting has highlighted water quality complaints, including muddy runoff affecting nearby residents, alongside the power demands.
We’ve seen this movie before with pipelines and wind farms. The difference now is the sheer scale of the load and the speed at which it’s arriving. Data centers don’t just want power; they want it yesterday, and they’re willing to let utilities use the state’s hammer to get it. The pushback in Georgia is a warning shot as more communities draw the same line.
