Jacob T. Cremer

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Tampa
813-222-5051
jcremer@stearnsweaver.com
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Jake is obviously a market expert. Very professional, articulate and certainly delivers.
Chambers USA 2023

Practice & Industry Groups

Overview

Jake Cremer counsels developers, investors, and landowners in their interactions with the government on land development issues. He focuses on complex strategies requiring a combination of land use entitlements, environmental permitting, and property rights protection. His unique approach is to create opportunities in working with the government—whether through negotiations with staff, developing new policy and legislation, or when necessary, litigation to protect property rights.

Recently, much of Jake’s work has focused on the Live Local Act, which has been hailed as one of the country’s most significant pro-housing policies. Jake has been intimately involved in improving the Act, processing applications statewide, and litigating with local governments intent on blocking new housing.

A sixth-generation Floridian, Jake grew up in Palatka working in his family’s timber operations. This informs his perspective in long-term strategic land planning with clients in agriculture, silviculture, and heavy industries to unlock alternative income streams.

Jake began his law practice in Tallahassee, where he gained experience dealing with the legislative and regulatory process of state government. As a Gubernatorial Fellow at the Department of Community Affairs, he developed relationships with regulators and participated in executive-branch policymaking. He also gained insights as part of a team that took a case before the United States Supreme Court.

Areas of Concentration

Land Use & Zoning

Local Development Order Approvals & Amendments – Annexation, Comprehensive Plan Amendments, Conditional Uses, Right of Way Vacations, Special Exceptions, Special Uses, Legal Nonconforming Designations, Variances, Zoning
Affordable, Attainable, and Workforce Housing – Live Local Act / Florida Senate Bills 102 & 328
Agricultural Permitting and Exemptions – Agritourism, Greenbelt Classifications, Right to Farm Act, Agricultural Enclave, Conversion of Agricultural Lands
Large Scale Planning/State Regulation – Master Planned Communities, Developments of Regional Impact (DRI), Rural Land Stewardship
Industrial Development – Master Planning, Conversions, Redevelopment
Economic Development Tax Incentives – Missing Middle Ad Valorem Tax Abatement, Statutory & Local Density Bonuses, Graywater Density Bonuses, Brownfields Tax Credits, Jobs Tax Refunds

Land Use & Property Rights Litigation

Administrative Hearings and Appeals
Ad Valorem Tax Assessment Challenges and Appeals
Bert J. Harris Jr. Private Property Protection Act Claims
Comprehensive Plan Compliance and Consistency Challenges
Constitutional Property Rights Issues
Dispute Resolution & Florida Land Use and Environmental Dispute Resolution Act (FLUEDRA) Proceedings
Inverse Condemnation, Regulatory Takings & Eminent Domain

Environmental & Natural Resources

Property Contamination and Redevelopment – Brownfield Redevelopment, Environmental Due Diligence
Natural Resources Permitting – Conservation Easements, Wetland Mitigation Banking, and Wetland Permitting

Notable Experience

Permitting, Entitlements and Regulatory Matters

Represents several of the largest affordable housing developers in Florida in projects throughout the state. On their behalf, serves as lead land use and environmental counsel for three of the largest redevelopment projects in Tampa today—West River, Rome Yard, and Robles Park. These are all large, mixed-use, mixed-income developments located just outside of downtown Tampa. In this role, coordinates with the City of Tampa on comprehensive plan amendments, rezonings, platting, permitting, development agreements, maintenance agreements, and community benefits issues. The total value of the construction of all projects is anticipated to surpass $1 billion.
Represented numerous landowners in Hillsborough on large-scale comprehensive plan amendments, including securing for an agricultural landowner one of the first significant expansions of the Hillsborough County Urban Service Boundary in decades, resulting in 2,204 potential dwelling units, and a sweeping rewrite of the Energy Innovation Park future land use category, adding 1,200 dwelling units to approvals for 7.35 million square feet of industrial along with renewable energy and resource recovery facilities.
Represented master developer in land use, environmental, and permitting issues related to the Westshore Marina District, the largest recent master development project on the waterfront of Old Tampa Bay. This $600 million mixed-use project consists of 55 acres of the Tampa Bay waterfront and will include 200+ marina slips, a hotel, retail shops, boat-up restaurants, a public esplanade connected to a 1.4-mile public park, and 1,250+ apartments and condos.
Represents one of the country’s largest minority-owned companies in obtaining entitlements for its Florida headquarters located on 152 acres in Hillsborough County, including complex environmental permitting such as wetland impact approvals and designating the site under Florida’s Brownfield Program to address on-site contamination that resulted from a prior agricultural use.
Lead counsel representing the developer of a dual-flag hotel adjacent to City Hall in downtown Tampa in the purchase of the site from the City of Tampa, obtaining all development approvals, and partnering with the City to rehabilitate the site prior to redevelopment and obtain a cleanup grant from FDEP for $1 million.

Legislative and Policy Matters

Intimately involved in legislative updates to the Live Local Act, including SB 328 (2024), as well as collaborating with local governments to adopt revisions to their Comprehensive Plans and Land Development Codes to comply with the law.
Lead drafter of numerous growth management and land development bills adopted into law, including statutes regarding Florida’s property rights, exactions, impact fees, and concurrency, and development of an expedited port permitting process.
Testified before a Florida Senate Committee on the effects proposed legislation would have on a client’s subsurface property rights and interests in oil, gas, and minerals.

Land Use, Property Rights, & Environmental Litigation Matters

Lead land use counsel representing a landowner in a groundbreaking property rights case finding that the Tampa City Council has no authority to conduct rezonings and its past zoning actions related to the property were void ab initio.
Lead counsel representing commercial agricultural operation in defense of agricultural tax classification (greenbelt), including a case of first impression appeal, that confirmed that even unusual agricultural uses must be allowed greenbelt classification. McLendon v. Nikolits, 211 So. 2d. 92 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017).
Assisted counsel of record defending oceanfront property rights before the U.S. Supreme Court in Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, 130 S.Ct. 2592 (2010), a case of first impression considering the doctrine of judicial takings.
Authored amicus brief supporting the successful landowner before the U.S. Supreme Court in Koontz v. St Johns River Water Management District, 133 S.Ct. 420 (2013), a case that limited the government’s ability to exact concessions during the land development process.

Credentials

Education

J.D., magna cum laude, Florida State University College of Law
- Law Review
- Gubernatorial Fellow
- Order of the Coif
M.S.P., Department of Urban & Regional Planning, Florida State University
- University Fellow
B.A., cum laude, Rhodes College
- Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society

Admissions

Florida
United States District Courts for the Northern, Middle and Southern Districts of Florida
United States Court of Appeals for Eleventh Circuit
The Supreme Court of the United States

Professional & Community Involvement

City of Tampa, Tampa Forward: Building Tomorrow Together, Land Development Code Advisory Team, Chair, 2024-Present
Tampa Bay Builders Association, 2015-Present
- Board of Directors, 2022-Present
- Secretary & Executive Committee, 2024-Present
The Junior League of Tampa, Community Advisory Board, 2019-2021
Association of Florida Community Developers (AFCD), 2015-Present
Florida Brownfields Association (FBA), Former Board Member
Florida Eminent Domain Conference, Co-Chair, 2021-2024
Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services’ Silviculture Best Management Practices Technical Advisory Committee, 2018-Present
Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, Gubernatorial Appointee, 2015-Present
Florida State University College of Law, “Legislation and Regulation”, Adjunct Professor, 2019-2020
Leadership Tampa Bay, 2016
Tampa Connection, Class of 2015
Hillsborough County Farm Bureau, Board of Directors, 2015-2024
Leadership Florida Connect, Class II, 2012
Board of Directors, 2013-2015
Rhodes College Alumni Association Executive Board, 2011-2014
The Florida Bar Environmental & Land Use Section (ELULS), Former Executive Council Member and Co-Editor of the Reporter
Florida Forestry Association, 2010-Present
Forest Landowners Association, 2010-Present

Recognition

Chambers USA
- Real Estate: Zoning/Land Use (North & Central Florida), Band 2, 2018-Present
- Environment (Florida), 2021-Present
The Best Lawyers in America®, 2023-Present
- Lawyer of the Year, Litigation – Land Use and Zoning (Tampa), 2025
Florida Super Lawyers, 2024-Present
- Rising Star, 2013-2023
Florida Trend’s Legal Elite, 2017, “Up and Comer,” 2012-2016
Florida State University Alumni Association, 30 Under 30, 2014
Tampa Bay Business Journal, “Up and Comer,” 2013
Florida Forestry Association, 40 Under 40 Young Leader, 2011
American Planning Association, Florida Chapter, Outstanding Student Urban Planner, 2009
Jeb Bush Outstanding Achievement Award, 2009
National Merit Scholar