At their July meeting, the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) discussed at length many of the concerns that continue to loom over the future development of the Florida Keys: increased traffic, hurricane evacuation and ROGO allocations. 

The day began with a presentation by consultant AECOM on its 2019 travel time and delay study of U.S. 1.

“I think we have a major traffic problem, and it backs up for miles. There’s no way we can’t address that today,” said Commissioner Craig Cates. 

Dottie Moses, from Key Largo, agreed and advocated against further development of the Keys, saying, “We now have a rush hour. We never had a rush hour in the Keys.” 

Moses suggested that traffic is worse than the latest study showed and that it couldn’t all be attributed to construction due to Irma repairs. She also suggested that more “compromised” segments of U.S. 1 be dealt with now, rather than waiting for the new study to get included in reviews and assessments. 

Mayor Heather Carruthers added, “I will say no one on this commission is trying to justify additional development. We all know what the traffic problems are, and we all want to find the solution, but my question is which of these solutions will get us the most mitigation for our traffic problems?”

The mayor also brought up a critical unknown for the future: the recovery of tourism in the Keys in light of the current pandemic and shutdowns, and how that will affect traffic. 

“We don’t know what normal life will be,” she said.

After further discussion, the commissioners voted 4-1 (with Craig Cates dissenting) for the staff recommendation regarding the traffic study. The selected option will use a previous 2017 study instead of the new 2019 study because the former will allow for and require actual mitigation of traffic issues, said Emily Schemper, senior director of planning & environmental resources. 

Next, the commission received an update from Jon Rizzo, the warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Key West. 

Rizzo reminded the commissioners and the public about the dangers of rapid intensification of hurricanes and the unpredictability in forecasting weather events.

“Hurricane Dorian in 2019 went from 105 mph to 140 mph in 24 hours,” Rizzo said. “(Hurricane) Rita in 2005 went from 70 mph to 175 mph, a tropical storm to a Cat. 5, in a day. And Charley in 2004 went from 110 to 145 mph in 5 hours.”

Rizzo also explained the challenge in forecasting: 48-hour forecasts based on National Hurricane Center (NHC) measurements aren’t actually “48-hours” in advance due to the way data is measured and shared. They are closer to 45-hour advanced forecasts. They also include normal tracking and intensity measurement errors. 

The result, Rizzo said, is that the NHC could only forecast a Category 3 or higher hurricane a full 48 hours ahead for 6% of the surveyed storms (5 out of 78). Four percent (3 out of 78) of the storms did not have any 48-hour forecast available. 

“These storms form literally in our backyard and become a Cat. 3 in two days,” Rizzo said, sometimes before NHC forecasts can even pick them up. 

Rizzo emphasized that he wanted to help ensure the decision makers understand how important proper communication to the public of risk is and how quickly storms can intensify from relatively benign to Irma-esque. 

The mayor said, “That was pretty depressing, sobering.”

Commissioner Sylvia Murphy added, “It was also informative. I’ve seen it before, and I could happily see it again two more times. It has more information than we’ve seen in a long, long time.”

It all came together with the commission’s discussion of the 294 remaining Market Rate ROGO units. The commission discussed whether to direct staff to move a portion of those to the affordable housing allocation pool. 

The commissioners discussed the frustrating lack of affordable and workforce housing preventing companies from attracting workers to come to and stay in the Keys. Staff presented seven distinct plans for the BOCC to vote on regarding the county’s 300 ROGO allocations, which included a mix of shifting to workforce and/or affordable allocations, creating new owner-occupied categories to prevent vacation home build-outs and requiring occupants to derive their income primarily in Monroe County. 

Stuart Shaffer, representing property owners in Sugarloaf, said, “You heard Rizzo’s presentation — it’s scary; 48-hour evacuation is dangerous.”

Christine Russell, a long-time Lower Keys resident, said, “You cannot allocate ROGOs on the basis of people leaving in 48 hours because the big storm is out there, and we don’t have 48 hours. You will never build your way out of affordable housing. We need to talk about preserving our existing affordable housing. We need to talk about a living wage. Lives are at stake, so I ask you to stop building. We already can’t get out now. If you think COVID-19 won’t kill us, the big one is out there.”

Murphy and Carruthers agreed, and voted not to take the county’s 300 ROGO allocations to prevent further development. The other commissioners did not agree, proposing instead to accept the 300 and “bank” them for future takings cases and continue discussions with developers to accept deed-restricted allocations with the 48-hour evacuation requirement. 

No final selection was made. Staff will review the discussions and suggestions on how to convert market rate allocations into affordable and workforce housing and revisit the issue.