The Real Estate Services Department provides professional real estate expertise and administrative support to the Tribal Council, Reservation Representatives, Tribal Members, and other departments and offices of the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
The Tribe currently has ownership or interests in more than 90,000 acres of land, including trust and non-trust land, distributed across six reservations and twelve Florida counties. The Tribe regulates, controls and enforces the occupancy and/or use of its lands through ordinances, policies, procedures, and regulations established by federal law and the Tribal Council for this purpose.
TRUST - An important act of the Tribal Council was to adopt a Land Use Ordinance in 1991 establishing policies, procedures and regulations for all land use and land use activity on Tribal lands. In addition to policies, procedures and regulations, the ordinance established a Development Review Committee and a Land Use Commission for the review of all applications for Tribal approval of permits, leases, and other grants of authority for the use or occupancy of Tribal land.
The Land Use Commission is comprised of eight Tribal Members appointed by the Tribal Council for two-year terms. The duties of the Land Use Commission are to review the submissions from the Land Use Coordinator and to approve, approve with conditions, or to disapprove said applications for recommendation to the Tribal Council. The right to give final Tribal approval of all leases, permits, and other grants of authority, including appeals are vested exclusively in the Tribal Council.
Pursuant to the ordinance, every person, or entity who intends to use or occupy tribal land must first obtain a Permit, Lease, or other formal authorization. The process begins with completion of an application available through the Real Estate Services Department that has responsibility for the progress of these applications through the process concluding with the ultimate submittal through the Land Use Commission and presentation before the Tribal Council.
Currently, there are more than 1,337 leases, permits and other formal authorizations for various purposes including home site and commercial purposes on Tribal trust properties.
NON-TRUST - Real Estate Services currently manages 86 fee owned properties. This management includes leasing, coordination with local governmental agencies with respect to any inquiries or outstanding issues that need to be handled, addressing property maintenance needs, and another issues that would otherwise be addressed by an owner of fee property.