Well before Christmas the Monroe County Board of County Commissioners will make a decision that will shape the Keys for decades to come: How many new homes will be built along the 113-mile island chain that stretches from the Miami-Dade County line to Key West?
At it’s most simple they will ask themselves: What does it mean to say “We live here, too”?
The Hobson’s choice started in early November 2023, when the Florida Department of Commerce (aka FloridaCommerce) identified upwards of 8,000 vacant parcels of land on which development could occur. We went nuts. Build new homes adding tens of thousands of cars, people and assorted nightmarish possibilities to the fragile Keys ecosystem? We think not.
In my Nov. 24, 2023 column I cautioned against the polarization that was swiftly escalating between no-growth and unrestrained-growth advocates:
“Can we put aside our fascination with minutiae and our escalating outrage with overdevelopment, failing infrastructure and political partisanship, and agree on this: Monroe County, Key West and the other Keys municipalities must speak with one voice when we tell the governor and the legislature that there’s no way under God’s blue sky our island chain can evacuate its visitors and residents before a hurricane if we add excessive building permits. To those who want all building stopped now and forever, get this straight: That’s not going to happen. To those property-rights folks who want 7,954 allocations to build insanely on vacant lots, that’s not happening either.”
In the year since the flame-throwing headlines, 7,954 potentially buildable lots have been whittled to a possible (though likely improbable) 1,618. That’s too high to suit me, but far less catastrophic than originally proposed.
Getting there has been a collaborative effort among commissioners, the county land use staff (major applause for Emily Schemper, senior director of planning for the county, who crunched more numbers than anyone should have to do), the National Weather Service and the Florida Keys ROGO Coalition. The coalition, which was pulled together by Last Stand, has more than 20 organizations representing local residents, homeowner associations and environmental activists.
“We live here, too” | This step could entice permanent residents
During a four-plus-hour public workshop on Nov. 20 in Marathon, one of the last before the BOCC makes its final decision Dec. 19, these things were clear:
Market-rate workforce housing: The Keys may finally get this long-needed category for which some of those additional building allocations could be used. Allocations would be limited to residents who get at least 70 percent of their income from employment in the Keys. There would be no upper-end income restrictions. There would be a 99-year deed restriction on the building allocation, meaning the house could only be sold to someone meeting the criteria. And if the homeowner retires, they can stay, but any future sale is covered by the 99-year restriction.
The cynics will drag out their tired trope, “No one can afford to live here,” but if we want to encourage local employment, family-friendly housing and permanent residents, market-rate workforce housing is an excellent start.
Rapid intensification of storms and hurricanes will make evacuation decisions more difficult. The state mandates that the Keys be able to evacuate within 24 hours of a hurricane. Even today it’s questionable whether we meet that standard. The addition of more homes and people could extend that time frame to 36 or more. And that’s just to get folks to the Miami-Dade County line, well before the 18-Mile Stretch ends. We all know what a mess mainland evacuation routes are thanks to Hurricane Irma in 2017.
You can’t fix stupid when it comes to mandatory evacuations. To put it delicately: Some people have greater risk tolerance and they’re going to stay. Law enforcement isn’t going to round up folks who refuse to leave. Thanks to Jon Rizzo at the National Weather Service, we now have rapid intensification data, but decisions to issue mandatory evacuation orders — and when — still rest solely with emergency management humans. Their track record thus far sticks with “better safe than sorry.”
“We live here, too.” There’s a tendency to paint the commissioners as pro-development, blithely going along with every mega-build proposal that comes their way — even in the face of the data and research that warns against overdevelopment in the Keys. But it’s not that simple.
Commissioners, as they repeatedly said, live here, too. They see exactly what the rest of us do: traffic congestion, vacation rentals run amok, dead reefs, spinning swordfish, questionable water quality with limited pressure, decaying roads and bridges, a fragile system of umbilical cords to the mainland for water, electricity and communications, stratospheric housing costs, a dearth of workers and deterioration of the quality of life for which the Keys long has been known.
But commissioners have to do something we don’t: make their decisions on those building allocations within local, state and federal laws and regulations. Those are often things over which they have no or limited control. Let’s cut them a little slack from the constant din of disparagement.
Learn More
Follow the Florida Keys ROGO Coalition
Watch the Nov. 20 BOCC ROGO workshop
Coverage of the workshop from The Citizen
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