Can FL County Manadate Range Land Size?

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Greetings All,

I am looking into opening a public PISTOL range. The range will be 15 lanes to start with each lane capable of 7 - 25yds. This wil be an outdoor Range. While attempting to being the local land search, I went to the county office to inquire as to what land use in needed. I know the county can dictate the location and land zoning for the range. However, I was floored when they told me that it also requires the land to be a minimum of 50 ACRES :eek:.

For what I am doing, it appears that 5 acres would be fine.
50 ACRES seems a bit excessive.

Any thoughts, laws, rules that can help settle this in my head would be greatly appreciated.
 
The applicable laws will be the zoning laws for the county or municipality in question. It generally falls under the broad area of land use and so it isn't likely to be overridden by the statewide firearms preemption law. You need to read the actual zoning regulations to verify that they gave you correct information. If so, the only possible way out is either get the regulation amended to include special provision for handgun ranges, or see if there's a board of zoning appeals that can be persuaded to give you a variance.

The problem is that variances go to a parcel of land, not to a person. So either you have to own the land before seeking the variance, or you have to enter an agreement to purchase contingent on getting the variance and the seller/current owner files the appeal.
 
If you know one of the elected County Judges/Supervisors (what ever flordia calls your elected county reps, I would contact him/her and get a read.

If your rep is amenable, they can guide you through the regulatory pitfalls.
 
For what I am doing, it appears that 5 acres would be fine.
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At the private range I belong to we have a 2 1/2 mile buffer around us.
With regards to your thought about 5 acres being enough what happens when a round leaves the range over the berm?????

Whats surounding the range?

Our range is on 25 acres
 
It's not merely for high flying rounds otherwise I'm sure they'd require a more rectangular plot that meets a certain distance from the firing line to the end of property vs a set acreage. It's more so that they know the land immediately surrounding the range will have a decreased value, esp for any residential possibilities due to the noise.

Theres a turn key subdivision that popped up right near an outdoor range I go to, homes are noticibaly cheaper. Haven't bee inside them but the overall look of the place looks better than you'd expect based on prices.
 
With regards to your thought about 5 acres being enough what happens when a round leaves the range over the berm?????
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It’s been a few years since I’ve been there, but at the Illinois State Rifle Association’s pistol range near Kankakee Illinois it’s impossible to put a round over the berm. There are covered firing points, and the roof of the cover on the ‘hot’ side of the line continues down with very thick steel plate. While standing in the firing position, you can’t see the top of the berm. If you let a shot go high, it would hit the steel plate roof extension and ricochet into the ground well before the berm. The 50 lane pistol range there probably covers 3 acers tops. I’m sure it’s a very costly way to do it, but cheaper then a law suit.
 
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I would think an indoor range would be cheaper than 50 acres of land. With thiose requirements, for an outdoor range, what are the property requirements for an indoor range?

The cooling and ventilation system would be your only real expensive items I would think.

All depends on the cost of land of course.
 
The range i shoot at has indoor and outdoor ranges up to 100 yards, we are on 34 acres. When it was first set-up the surrounding land was rural and it was plenty of land, since then subdivisions have surrounded it and I can assure you that the nearby home owners wish it was on a lot more land. So we now have to do things to abate the problem. The outdoor ranges have berms and baffles to stop stray bullets form leaving the land, the shotgun range has had to shut down some of the directions they can shoot, outdoor range hours are restricted to keep the noise down. The indoor range walls had to be reinforced to stop stray rounds. We actually had a round go through the backstop and through the exterior concrete block wall. Yes, some one went way over the allowed power level for the indoor range. In a rural area for a private range, that sees only occasional shooting 5 acres is fine, for a public outdoor range, it would depend on the surrounding property, but I can see 50 acres being required, especially on the flat ground of Florida.
 
Usry Pass Range in suburban Phoenix AZ has a Mountain as a back stop. It is impossible, Laws of Physics, for a round to escape. Still homeowners try to blame the range for damage to their homes.

Your big problem is noise. Usry has a problem in that Develpments have grown up near the range. The owners did not conduct due diligence and are now trying to close the range.

If you build your range. It would probably be wise to file a notice on all properties within hearing range that a commERCIAL outdoor firing range is located within X distance from the property and they may hear gunfire. Then if a housing developement is built on an ajoining property the prospective buyers will have actual notice as a part of their title search. This notice will preclude a legal challenge.

A noise study by a certified noise consultant would also be a must.
 
I would think an indoor range would be cheaper than 50 acres of land. With thiose requirements, for an outdoor range, what are the property requirements for an indoor range?

The cooling and ventilation system would be your only real expensive items I would think.

All depends on the cost of land of course.
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Buy the land, getting electric to the range from the road???????
We were given a price of $60,000 by the electric company to get power from the road.
There ia a company that sells and installs indoor ranges out of Arizona and here is the link,
http://www.ais-sim.com/index.htm
 
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