Dear Mayor Raschein and Monroe County Commissioners:
Our 17 organizations represent many thousands of residents of the Keys. We have been watching with interest the county’s efforts toward taking a position on how many (if any) new ROGOs should be requested from the state. In our view, the county has not performed and provided to Keys residents the necessary analysis of the potential “takings” liability to justify requesting new ROGOs.
One of the alternative evacuation models run by the Florida Department of Commerce was for 7,954 new ROGOs, representing the number of privately owned vacant lots in the Keys. In response to this run, the BOCC asked county planning staff to determine the number of “buildable” privately-owned residential lots in the Keys. This was clearly done with an eye toward potential takings liability. Planning staff has computed the number of such buildable lots at 2,220 for the unincorporated county and 2,997 for the entire Keys (that number includes Islamorada and Marathon, the Keys municipalities which have buildable lots in excess of still-available ROGOs).
Based on what we have been hearing, including public statements by individual commissioners, there is support among the commissioners for requesting approximately 3,000 ROGOs Keys-wide. We believe such a number of new ROGOs is based, for the reasons discussed below, on a flawed and incomplete analysis.
The determination of the total number of buildable residential lots seems designed to come up with a number of new ROGOs that would eliminate ANY potential risk of takings liability. We believe the actual takings risk is much lower than 100%, however, for the following reasons:
1. There is a clear public benefit of drastically limiting new development in the Keys that outweighs the private property interests of the owners of the buildable lots.
2. The vast majority of those buildable lots were acquired after the adoption of severe development limits in the Keys and thus the owners did not have a reasonable expectation of development.
3. Most owners of those lots have made no efforts toward their development.
We have been asking the county for years to prepare and release to the public a more realistic computation of the amount (or range) of the potential takings liability, and the county has refused to do so. How can you come up with a number of new ROGOs without such an analysis being done? We request that the BOCC direct the county attorney to prepare a realistic analysis and computation of the actual potential takings liability based on the current state of the law and our particular facts.
Moreover, we believe that the number of privately-owned buildable residential lots that has been computed by county staff is vastly inflated. It includes lots in zoning districts that allow commercial or other reasonable nonresidential uses of the property. It includes lots in every tier system, and environmentally sensitive lots should be excluded. If only Tier III lots were taken into account, the 2,220 number for the unincorporated county would be reduced to 1,553. At the very least, the number should be reduced based on the expected number of lots to be acquired by the county or the state for conservation purposes. Staff’s number includes lots that are platted lots in areas without any infrastructure.
The number also ignores measures that will be taken in the future, under both existing programs and programs that staff has already proposed, to take vacant lots out of the ROGO system. And the number has not been reduced to account for the 444 administrative relief ROGOs that are currently held by the county. We request that the BOCC direct county planning staff to come up with a more accurate number of buildable residential lots. Once a more accurate number of buildable lots is determined, staff should compute how many of those lots were acquired before the adoption of the ROGO system and the number of such lots for which the owner has not attempted to obtain a building permit, in order to derive an accurate number for input into the analysis of takings liability.
Once a more realistic analysis of potential takings liability has been performed and a more accurate number of privately-owned buildable residential lots with reasonable expectations of development has been determined, the BOCC, with meaningful input from the public, will need to decide whether the takings liability is an expense the county could afford without accepting any new ROGOs for market-rate units and, if not, what is the smallest number of new ROGOs that could be issued each year.
Without more work being done to justify any new ROGOs along the lines stated above, the county needs to request NO MORE ROGOs for market-rate units because:
1. We are already at the 24-hour evacuation limit under the state’s evacuation model. And, if anything, that limit should be reduced to account for recent rapid intensification of storms due to climate change.
2. The state’s evacuation model is flawed. It assumes evacuation ends at Florida City, ignoring any evacuees from South Florida and Ocean Reef. It assumes evacuations will occur evenly throughout the 24-hour period. It excludes certain permanent residents, such as mobile home residents, liveaboards and college students. It understates the number of evacuees that will be in vacation homes and vacation rental homes during hurricane season. And it ignores future conversions of mobile home sites into constructed home sites.
3. Due to overdevelopment, the infrastructure of the Keys (roads, water, sewers, schools) has been stressed to its limits and the quality of our nearshore waters and the condition of our reef have been compromised.
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the 24-hour evacuation requirement and the ROGO system were implemented in order to ensure the safety of Keys residents in the event of a hurricane evacuation and to preserve the significant natural resources of the Keys.
Given the tight deadline we are facing with the state, please make the directions to county staff that we are requesting in this letter at the July 17 BOCC meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
Ann Olsen
On behalf of the Keys Last Stand board and the undersigned groups: Coco Plum Beach Property Owners Association Inc., Islamorada Community Alliance, Cudjoe Gardens Property Owners Association, Island of Key Largo Federation of Homeowner Associations, Florida Keys Citizens’ Coalition Inc., Friends of the Lower Keys, Izaak Walton League of America, Florida Keys Chapter, Key Deer Protection Alliance, South Point Homeowners LLC, Stock Island Association, Keys Accountability Project, Sugarloaf Shores Property Owners Association Inc., Tavernier Community Association, Key West and the Lower Keys Fishing Guides Association, Save-A-Turtle of the Florida Keys, Upper Sugarloaf Residents Association