How do you stop a possible building boom in the Florida Keys? It’s in lawmakers’ hands
A Florida Keys lawmaker amended a bill this week that, if left alone, could have led to a building boom up and down the environmentally sensitive island chain that most agree is already almost built to capacity.
The bill is meant to limit the state, local and county governments’ liability resulting from anticipated lawsuits filed when Monroe County stops issuing building permits in 2023.
But because of language added in early February by a Naples Republican, it could have resulted in thousands of new homes throughout the one-highway archipelago that already comes to a standstill during busy weekends and after traffic accidents.
State Rep. Holly Raschein, R-Key Largo, took out that language this week, and her version of the bill unanimously passed the 15-member House Judiciary Committee in Tallahassee on Tuesday.
Raschein’s legislative aide, Sarah Craven, said the bill, HB 587, is likely next headed to the Appropriations Committee.
Monroe County will stop issuing building permits in 2023 because the Keys are under strict, state-mandated development rules that go back to the 1970s aimed at protecting the environment and giving residents and tourists enough time to leave when hurricanes approach.
The permits, under the state mandate, are known as ROGOs, or rate of growth ordinances.
However, as the deadline nears, there are still between 6,000 and 10,000 undeveloped properties in Monroe owned by people hoping to develop them, most of which will likely stay vacant.
Whether the owners receive what they deem fair market value for those lots will likely be a matter for the courts, and the county and state are bracing for billions of dollars in takings lawsuits.
Raschein, anticipating the flood of litigation, introduced a bill last legislative session with language written with the input of county legal staff that would split the liability in these cases evenly between the state and local or county government.
Monroe legal staff explained that counties and municipalities usually defend such cases in partnership with the state with the understanding there will be a 50-50 apportionment at the end of the litigation.
But, if the state delays payments to the affected parties, which happens often, the county’s share could grow because of interest, said Bob Shillinger, Monroe County attorney.
That bill, however, died last year in the committee process. Raschein reintroduced it this year. But a colleague from Naples, Rob Rommel, inserted an amendment earlier this month at the behest of GOP House leaders that aimed to stave off the lawsuits by doing away with the 2023 deadline.
To do this, Rommel’s amendment increased the mandated hurricane evacuation time from 24 hours to 30 hours. The time is directly linked to population and growth, so increasing it could have meant thousands more homes would be allowed to be built in the Keys.
The amendment outraged a spectrum of interest groups — including local politicians, environmentalists and emergency managers, who all considered cramming more people into the storm-prone island chain irresponsible.
“Maintaining the 24-hour time frame ensures that our infrastructure is not overburdened, our sensitive environment is not overtaxed and that any changes to our evacuation model are based on hard data,” Raschein said Wednesday.
Monroe County Mayor Heather Carruthers said this week that allowing 8,000 more properties to be built in the Keys could cost as much as $500 million in sewer costs alone.
“Our community has been built to accommodate the population that could fill the number of developed properties predicted at the end of ROGO,” Carruthers said. “Exceeding that population would require significant infrastructure investments.”
More housing in the Keys would also likely mean there would need to be more fresh water pumped from the mainland to Keys West, wider roads and bridges and new schools built, Carruthers said.
Ed Davidson, a longtime Keys and state environmentalist and Monroe School Board member from 2012 to 2016, said new school construction alone could top $100 million.
“So extending hurricane evacuation times from the Keys without detailed and extensive analysis of — and provision for — the staggering true costs of impacts on public services, infrastructure, community character and the environment would be lamentably irresponsible, and should be abandoned as a destructively untenable concept,” Davidson said.
The Keys population has long bounced between 70,000 and 80,000 people. Under Raschein’s bill, the only way the evacuation time can increase is after the 2020 Census figures are released. That decision would then be made by the state Department of Economic Opportunity, according to a fact sheet provided by Raschein’s office.
This story was originally published February 20, 2020 at 6:57 AM with the headline "How do you stop a possible building boom in the Florida Keys? It’s in lawmakers’ hands."
