On Jan. 28, in a flutter of celebrity-adjacent enthusiasm, the Monroe County Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously to let season two of the hit Apple TV series “Bad Monkey” use 1445 Long Beach Dr., Big Pine Key, as a staging site for filming at the Big Pine RV Park.
No biggie, right? I mean, who wants to be the curmudgeon who grouses about ecosystem protection when a Vince Vaughn sighting could be in the offing?
Definitely not the county commissioners, but first they had to hurdle a pesky rule: County ordinances Section 2-426(2) explicitly says that conservation land shall be “preserved in perpetuity and shall not be considered or used for any other purposes.”
Oops. The county bought 1445 Long Beach Dr. for $1.5 million on March 25, 2024 through its Voluntary Home Buyout program, which restricts the use of the property to open space, stormwater improvements and flood plain control. If “Bad Monkey” wanted to stage there, the only way around the restrictions was for the county to enact an emergency ordinance.
In its Jan. 28 resolution, commissioners “whereased” the possibility that “Bad Monkey” could, gasp, pack up and film elsewhere (bear in mind that much of the series is filmed on a California stage set). And that “Bad Monkey” encourages tourism and a positive image of the Keys. Failure to film here would bollix up a great marketing angle. Def emergencies.
Commissioners also tucked this tidbit into the resolution for future “just in case” requests: “Whereas, there may be other instances where conservation land may be useful on a temporary basis when no harm will come to the native plants and animal species that utilize the site.” In other words, the land’s sitting there doing nothing. Who knows what else we might be able to do with our fragile ecosystem? Let’s just declare emergencies and get around the whole conservation thing.
“Bad Monkey” came to town, locals lined up to be extras, social media tracked celebrity sightings, film locations touted their delight, a Florida Keys sheriff’s deputy got arrested for stalking a woman he met during filming and we spent 19 days in February gushing about how cool it all was.
But commissioners aren’t done, and they’re using that tucked-in tidbit to rewrite land use policy. On March 11 they agreed to explore a code amendment that would allow four of the five commissioners to repurpose conservation lands for “other uses of extreme importance” beyond just temporary filming. They also set an April 15 public hearing on the proposed amendment.
Let’s call it the “‘Bad Monkey’ Land Use Rule”
The irony of “Bad Monkey” reshaping Florida Keys land use policies is classic Flori-duh. The 2013 novel “Bad Monkey” was the first in the Andrew Yancy series (“Razor Girl” was second) and comes from author Carl Hiaasen, whose political satire has skewered Florida’s excessive land development and political duplicity for decades. Indeed, “Bad Monkey” is a saga of the Keys’ greed, corruption and quirks.
The cynic in me wants to drag out Mary, Joseph and the Wee Donkey. What part of “no other use” do we not understand? What’s the purpose of spending millions of dollars annually to purchase and preserve environmentally sensitive land if we’re just going to turn around and declare all manner of exceptions?
This seems a place for full disclosure: Since July 2017 I have been a member of the Monroe County Land Plan Authority Advisory Committee. We make recommendations to the Land Authority (the county commissioners) on land purchases in the Keys for environmental protection, affordable housing and density reduction. And though my committee work has no involvement with the code amendment, it’s a safe bet I’m more interested than most, especially since I start from “no exceptions” even for “Bad Monkey.”
I’m going to take a deep breath. The proposed code amendment is carefully crafted and narrowly defines exceptions. It clarifies squishy language in the original code and delineates between temporary and permanent exceptions.
One example of why such specificity is crucial: an existing request to install redundant power lines along South Roosevelt for the Key West airport. Much of the land along that route is county conservation land (there are power lines there already). A redundant line would be prohibited under the current code. The proposed code would not automatically approve installation. Instead, after a lengthy research and planning process, a supermajority of commissioners would have to vote to move ahead. That beats the heck out of the willy-nilly one-off emergency exception we had with “Bad Monkey.”
I think the proposed code language walks the line between protecting and abusing our fragile Keys. I will, however, keep Mary, Joseph and the Wee Donkey at close hand. This is, after all, Flori-duh.
Carl Hiaasen is the biggest hypocrite. He writes about the abuse of Florida’s natural resources then has the gall to film in one of the most environmentally sensitive areas in Big Pine Key. They snuck in without informing the island and disturbed the Key Deer and residents, He is immoral,