Comprehensive plan and future land use map — Malabar, Florida

The Malabar comprehensive plan is the Town of Malabar's long-range land use policy: nine elements plus a Future Land Use Map, last updated through an evaluation-based amendment adopted as Ordinance 06-2018 and approved in December 2019.

The town's Comprehensive Plan page says the Town Council adopted Ordinance 06-2018 incorporating an EAR amendment updating Chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5 to include new statutory regulations, including the Peril of Flood legislation (Malabar Comprehensive Plan page). The posted documents carry the title E.A.R. and Legislative Update, approved December 2019 (Malabar plan table of contents). The nine Malabar elements are Future Land Use, Transportation, Housing, Public Facilities, Coastal Management, Conservation (with Appendices A to E on soils, listed animals, native plants, invasive plants and land cover), Recreation and Open Space, Intergovernmental Coordination, and Capital Improvements, along with the Future Land Use Map 2030.

The Future Land Use Element states its purpose as the designation of future land use patterns, shown on Map FLU-9, and says the Malabar plan guides development over two planning periods, a 5-year short term and a 10-year long term (Malabar Future Land Use Element). The element also says the town remains proud of its rustic and rural roots and that the future land use rules support Malabar's desire to retain its rural heritage. Last verified: October 13, 2026, on the Town of Malabar website.

Florida law sets the review clock. Florida Statutes 163.3191 requires every local government, Malabar included, to evaluate its comprehensive plan at least once every 7 years to decide whether amendments are needed (Florida Statutes 163.3191). The Malabar Land Development Code then turns the plan into parcel rules: Section 1-2.1 says the zoning regulations are established to implement the Comprehensive Plan consistent with section 163.3201, Florida Statutes (Malabar LDC Article II).

Malabar's Future Land Use Map uses twelve designations, from Rural Residential at one home per 1.5 acres up to High Density Residential at six units per acre, plus commercial, industrial, institutional, conservation and open space categories.

Page 1-16 of the Malabar Future Land Use Element lists the map categories: Rural Residential; Low, Medium and High Density Residential; Multiple-Family Residential or Offices; Residential and Limited Commercial; Limited Commercial; General Commercial; Industrial; Institutional; Conservation; and Open Space and Recreation (Malabar FLUE page 1-16). Each designation is then given a maximum density or intensity, and the element stresses that a stated maximum density is not guaranteed by right (Malabar FLUE page 1-17).

Rural Residential is the backbone of the Malabar map: Policy 1-2.1.2 says those areas shall be maintained as rural residential areas with a density of one and one-half acres per dwelling unit, a designation intended to protect and preserve existing agricultural and rural residential lands (Malabar FLUE Policy 1-2.1.2). Low Density Residential allows up to two dwelling units per acre and Medium Density Residential up to four (Malabar FLUE page 1-18), while High Density Residential ranges up to a maximum of six units per acre (Malabar FLUE page 1-19). The non-residential limits come from Policy 1-3.1.9, which sets a 35 foot height in every category and building coverage from 5% in Conservation to 42% in Industrial (Malabar FLUE page 1-39).

The Malabar Town Charter backs the rural density. Section 3.06 says no area zoned for single family residences shall contain a density greater than one unit for every one and one-half acres, or as set forth in the comprehensive land use plan, with all lots of record grandfathered (Malabar Charter Section 3.06). The zoning column in the table comes from Table 1-2.1 of the Malabar Land Development Code, which links each adopted map designation to the zoning districts that implement it (Malabar LDC Table 1-2.1).

The Malabar plan counts 8,315.59 acres in town, with single-family homes, vacant residential lots, conservation land and the Intracoastal Waterway making up most of it.

The existing land use summary in the Malabar Future Land Use Element says single family residential designations make up approximately 55% of the land area, commercial, industrial and agricultural uses 12%, and conservation and municipal uses 33% (Malabar FLUE page 1-1). Table 1-1 opens with 1,009.45 acres of conservation land (Malabar FLUE page 1-1) and continues with 1,714.11 acres of single-family residential use and 1,987.30 acres of vacant residential land, for a total of 8,315.59 acres (Malabar FLUE page 1-2). The vacant residential figure is the reason the Rural Residential density rule matters: nearly a quarter of Malabar is unbuilt residential land.

Natural land still dominates the Malabar land cover count. The element puts wetland and open water coverage at 2,702.57 acres and undisturbed native upland habitats at 4,047.11 acres, citing a 2003 Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission source (Malabar FLUE page 1-6). Goat Creek and Turkey Creek cross the town, and the Indian River Lagoon forms its eastern boundary (Malabar FLUE page 1-7).

Services shape the map too. The element notes that most of Malabar relies on septic systems for wastewater, and that the town sold its sewer transmission lines and water distribution system to the Palm Bay Utility Department, which serves the part of town with central service (Malabar FLUE page 1-2). That limit appears in the plan's own rules: residential sites in the R/LC designation in a high surficial aquifer area on the Atlantic Coastal Ridge without central water and wastewater are held to two units per acre (Malabar FLUE Policy 1-2.2.6).

The plan steers future development on Malabar Road (SR 514) toward mixed commercial and office use, and the 2018 map update changed land along both sides of the road from Rural Residential to Residential/Limited Commercial.

Under its Need for Redevelopment heading, the Malabar Future Land Use Element says the town identified Malabar Road for a corridor plan with added setbacks, landscaping and pedestrian amenities, and that the general consensus favors a corridor plan requiring all new development there to comply with the Malabar Vernacular regulations in Article V of the town's Land Development Regulations. It states that the 2018 update of the Future Land Use Map indicates the change in designation from Rural Residential to Residential/Limited Commercial along the corridor on both the north and south sides of SR 514 (Malabar FLUE page 1-8).

The element gives the reason: studies found no new residential directly on Malabar Road since the mid 1980s, and the homes along the road are no longer considered appropriate because it functions as an arterial road rather than a local access road (Malabar FLUE page 1-9). The same passage warns that density and design standards must be weighed carefully to preserve the town's overall rural character.

The R/LC designation along Malabar Road carries its own numbers in Policy 1-2.2.6. Limited commercial uses must have a minimum floor area of 900 square feet and a maximum of 4,000 square feet, and R/LC lots need at least 20,000 square feet, 100 feet of width and 150 feet of depth (Malabar FLUE page 1-23). Buildings are capped at 35 feet or three stories, and limited commercial uses at a floor area ratio of 0.20 (Malabar FLUE page 1-24).

The Malabar plan places Brevard County Environmentally Endangered Lands in the Conservation designation, limits building there to 5% coverage, and sets a parks standard of five acres per 1,000 residents.

Policy 1-2.10.4 of the Malabar Future Land Use Element directs that lands managed by the Brevard County Environmentally Endangered Lands (EELS) program be allocated as Conservation on the Future Land Use Map (Malabar FLUE page 1-27). The element credits the town as a partner to the EEL program, which manages approximately 913 acres of wetland and upland habitat within Malabar. The same page traces the trail network from the Malabar Scrub Sanctuary along the Al Tuttle Trail and the Malabar Sand Hill Trail south to the Jordan Scrub Sanctuary (Malabar FLUE page 1-4).

For recreation, the Malabar plan adopts a level of service of five acres per 1,000 residents and says the 20-acre Malabar Community Park meets that standard until the town reaches 4,000 people. It describes the Richard E. Cameron and Volunteers Wilderness Preserve at the north end of Corey Road as 100 acres of multi-use trails, and the Al Tuttle Trail as the link between the Malabar Scrub Sanctuary and the Turkey Creek Sanctuary in Palm Bay (Malabar FLUE page 1-4).

Changes to Malabar's plan start with the Planning and Zoning Board, which compiles plan updates for the Town Council, while a rezoning petition naming a new land use map designation gets a board public hearing and written recommendation before the council acts.

The Malabar Planning and Zoning Board meets on the fourth Wednesday of each month at 6 pm in Town Hall, and its listed duties include reviewing and compiling updates for the comprehensive plan and presenting them to the council (Malabar Planning and Zoning Board). A property owner's petition under Section 1-12.5 of the Malabar Land Development Code must identify the current and proposed Comprehensive Plan Land Use Map designation of the property, and the board must hold a public hearing, submit a written report and recommendation to the council, and first consider whether the proposal is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. When the board recommends denial, an affirmative vote of three council members is needed to approve (Malabar LDC Section 1-12.5).

State law sorts map changes by size. Under Florida Statutes 163.3187, a small scale development amendment involves a use of 50 acres or fewer and changes only the future land use map for a specific site, not the plan's goals, objectives and policies (Florida Statutes 163.3187). Before any Malabar request, the town's Zoning Maps page posts maps showing the current zoning and future land use designation for every property in Malabar (Malabar Zoning Maps).