Bay County commissioners on Oct. 21 approved a small‑scale comprehensive plan amendment and rezoning application for property at 1141 North Tyndall Parkway in the unincorporated Springfield area, and simultaneously decided to table a voluminous set of proposed amendments to the county's Land Development Regulations (LDR) for additional review and chapter‑by‑chapter consideration.

Wayne Porter, planning staff, told the board the application would change roughly 0.8 acres from residential to general commercial future land‑use and rezone 1.25 acres to C‑3 (general commercial). Porter said the site lies along a corridor with existing commercial uses and that the planning commission found the request consistent with the comprehensive plan and LDR. "Staff agrees with planning commission and recommends the board conduct a public hearing and approve the proposed amendments and adopt the attached ordinances," Porter said. The board voted to approve the small scale amendment and associated ordinance.

On a separate, larger item, staff presented proposed text amendments spanning many chapters of the LDR — changes that ranged from scrivener corrections and cross‑reference updates to substantive edits on manufactured and modular homes, live‑aboard vessel rules, land‑disturbance permits, septic setbacks near shorelines, communication towers, accessory structures, and utility backup power requirements at lift stations. Commissioners raised concerns that the package was too large to consider as a single item and that some changes went beyond simple housekeeping. One commissioner said, "This is 200 and some odd pages of changes. I think it would have been better if we had done this in sections," and urged separating chapters that are purely clerical from those with policy implications.

Planning staff recommended removing an LDR provision that created a loophole allowing a new communications tower within a half‑mile of an existing tower when lease language on the existing tower was deemed "unreasonable," saying staff was not equipped to adjudicate lease reasonableness and that language invited disputes. Commissioners and staff also discussed manufactured homes and modular homes: Porter clarified that HUD‑approved manufactured homes must be set on permanent foundations and cannot be set up on wheels or tongue assemblies, and that modular homes built to Florida Building Code standards remain distinct.

After public hearing (no public speakers on the small‑scale amendment) and lengthy commissioner discussion on the LDR package, the board voted to table the LDR text amendments until the next meeting and asked staff to work with commissioners to isolate chapters that can be adopted quickly from those requiring more deliberation.

Next steps: The planning staff will identify sections with no commissioner concerns and bring those chapters back for adoption at the next meeting; remaining chapters will be scheduled for focused public hearings or additional study as requested.