The June 2026 Window: How four South Lake cities are racing to ship code the moment SB 180 lifts

Florida Senate Bill 180 sunsets on its own terms in June 2026 — earlier than its originally-scheduled October 2027 expiration — after the Senate-side repeal failed earlier this cycle. The four South Lake cities enter the post-freeze adoption window simultaneously. The cities most ready to ship code are the ones that pre-positioned: Clermont, with DPZ CoDesign-led downtown form-based code in deliverable form and a comp-plan apparatus carrying 1,500+ community survey responses, ships first. Groveland, with Community Development Code Version 5 in draft and the institutional-knowledge anchor departing mid-EAR cycle, ships at structural risk. Minneola has strong grandfathered defensive ordinances but no comparable downtown framework. Leesburg has political will substituting for code architecture and nothing drafted to ship. The race begins June 2026.