Public notices — Sebastian, Florida

The City of Sebastian prints its legal notices as hearing ads, and PDF copies of the notices sit in the Document Center on cityofsebastian.org.

The clearest record of where a Sebastian notice ran is printed on the notice itself. The comprehensive plan notice for Ordinance O-22-13 ends with the line Publish: Vero Beach Press Journal, Sunday, September 25, 2022, with ad number TR-GCI0948842-01 (O-22-13 notice). The annexation notice for Ordinance O-22-07 carries an ad number in the same TR-GCI format, TR-GCI1022909-01, but does not print the name of a paper (O-22-07 notice). The later townhouse notice for Ordinance O-25-12 records only a date, Published: Tuesday, June 10, 2025, without naming the paper (O-25-12 notice). The Press Journal is the only newspaper named on the Sebastian notices reviewed for this page, and that naming dates from 2022.

Online, the City Clerk section of the city website keeps a 2025 Ordinances page that lists each ordinance by title with its business impact statement, and the O-25-12 entry links the Public Notice for Ordinance No. 0-25-12 dated 6.25.25 (City of Sebastian 2025 Ordinances). The City Clerk office describes its own duties as including legal and local information noticing and posting City Council meeting agendas to the website (City of Sebastian City Clerk).

The county site is a separate channel. The Indian River County Public Notices page lists notices of the Board of County Commissioners, such as an August 27, 2025 hearing notice on an exchange of real property with the Sebastian River Improvement District and two September 24, 2026 business impact estimates for county land development regulations (Indian River County Public Notices). No City of Sebastian notice appeared on that county list when it was checked on October 12, 2026, so a Sebastian resident following a city hearing still starts with the city's own pages.

A Sebastian hearing notice gives the ordinance or resolution number and full title, the hearing date and time in the Council Chambers at 1225 Main Street, where to inspect the text, an appeal warning and an ADA contact.

The four notices below follow the same pattern. Each names City Hall, 1225 Main Street, as the place of the hearing, sets a 6:00 p.m. start, and invites interested parties to appear and be heard. The O-25-12 notice adds that the hearing is quasi-legislative and that no stenographic record by a certified court reporter will be made, so anyone planning an appeal must arrange a verbatim record under F.S. 286.0105 (O-25-12 notice).

Inspection details differ by subject. Land use and zoning proposals are kept in the Community Development Department at City Hall, Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; the O-22-13 notice also offers the complete metes and bounds legal description there and gives the department number as (772) 589-5330 (O-22-13 notice). The R-24-41 fee resolution was instead available in the City Clerk's office at City Hall during the same hours (R-24-41 notice).

The ADA line is not the same on every Sebastian notice. The current City Clerk page lists City Clerk Jane Garcia, MMC, at 772 388-8215 and Deputy City Clerk Tiara Hauskins at 772-388-8209 (City Clerk). Every notice asks for at least 48 hours of advance notice for an accommodation.

Section 166.041 of the Florida Statutes requires a Sebastian ordinance to be advertised once in a newspaper of general circulation at least 10 days before adoption, with longer two-hearing schedules for zoning use changes and large tracts.

The basic notice must state the date, time and place of the meeting, the ordinance title, and the place within the municipality where the proposal can be inspected, and it must say that interested parties may appear and be heard (F.S. 166.041). Those are the same elements printed on every Sebastian notice in the table above.

Sebastian's dated notices show the lead time in practice. O-25-12 was published June 10, 2025 for a June 25, 2025 hearing, which is 15 days (25 minus 10) (O-25-12 notice). The O-22-13 ad ran September 25, 2022 for an October 12, 2022 hearing, 17 days later (5 remaining days of September plus 12) (O-22-13 notice). Both clear the 10 day floor.

The two-hearing rule covers changes to a zoning district's use list and city-initiated rezonings of 10 or more contiguous acres. The 2026 statute text requires at least one of the hearings to be held after 5 p.m. on a weekday unless the council votes by a majority plus one to meet at another time, and a 6:00 p.m. Wednesday start like the one on the Sebastian notices meets that test (F.S. 166.041). The O-22-13 notice states that after the first hearing the council may transmit the ordinance to the Department of Economic Opportunity for review and then schedule a second reading and adoption hearing.

Florida law lets a Sebastian legal notice run in a qualifying newspaper or, when that costs less, on the Indian River County website or a site the county designates.

A qualifying newspaper is printed and published at least once a week, has at least 25 percent of its words in English, and either reaches an audience of at least 10 percent of the households in the county or municipality or is entered as periodical class mail at a post office in the county (F.S. 50.011). The Vero Beach Press Journal named on the 2022 O-22-13 notice is the paper the city used for that ad.

The website route has conditions. A municipality may use the publicly accessible website of the county in which it lies if publishing there costs less than a newspaper; notices posted that way must be searchable and show the date first published; the agency must announce at least once a year, in a newspaper or a mailed publication, that property owners and residents can register to receive notices by first-class mail or e-mail; it must keep a registry of residents who ask in writing for notices by first-class mail or e-mail; and a link must sit on the homepage or one click from it (F.S. 50.0311). For Sebastian the county website in question is indianriver.gov, whose Public Notices list carried county board items, not city ones, when checked on October 12, 2026.

For the 2024 stormwater fee increase, Sebastian printed a separate Notice to Property Owners for Resolution R-24-41 that gave the dollar change, the revenue it would raise and a 20 day window for written objections.

The notice set the hearing for Wednesday, August 28, 2024 at 6:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers at 1225 Main Street (R-24-41 notice). It stated that the resolution would raise an additional $826,275.00 for the Sebastian Stormwater Utility Fund by increasing the Equivalent Residential Unit fee from $10.00 per month to $14.00 per month, for total revenues of $2,892,000, and that the increase would apply throughout the corporate limits of the City of Sebastian.

Because the stormwater fee is collected by the Indian River Tax Collector on the annual tax bill, the notice also warned that failure to pay the assessment will cause a tax certificate to be issued, which may result in a loss of title. All affected property owners had the right to appear at the hearing and to file written objections with the local governing board within 20 days of the notice (R-24-41 notice). That combination of dollar figures, collection method and objection window is what separates a Sebastian fee notice from an ordinance notice.

A Sebastian resident can read the proposal at City Hall during weekday office hours, send written comments, speak at the 6:00 p.m. hearing, and arrange a verbatim record if an appeal is likely.

The O-22-13 notice states that interested parties may appear and be heard or may submit written comments to the City Council, and that the hearing may be continued from time to time (O-22-13 notice). It also says the notice does not authorize challenges or appeals not otherwise allowed by law. Podium rules and time limits for Sebastian City Council hearings are covered on the council meetings and public input pages of this guide.

The business impact estimate is a second document worth reading. Florida law requires Sebastian to post one on its website no later than the date the ordinance notice is published, with a summary of the ordinance, its estimated costs to businesses, and a good faith estimate of how many businesses it affects; ordinances on budgets, debt and compliance with state or federal law are exempt (F.S. 166.041). The Sebastian 2025 Ordinances page pairs each listed ordinance, from O-25-01 on the 3.96 acre Day Drive tract near Schumann Waterway onward, with its business impact statement (2025 Ordinances).

Last verified: October 12, 2026, on the City of Sebastian website.