Five of the 67 applications requesting a building permit in the village of Islamorada sit atop a ranking list due to a system that afforded residents an opportunity to purchase and donate buildable land back for extra points. Now they’re hoping the village keeps its promise by granting them a building permit.
Only problem is there’s no more permits available through the BPAS (building permit allocation system); the council approved the final allocations a month ago. And there’s no mechanism currently in the village code granting land dedication applications the ability to go through what’s known as administrative relief. It’s another avenue where an application in the BPAS system could obtain a building permit, so long as they’re in compliance with certain requirements, received consideration for four consecutive allocation periods and failed to get a permit.
Applicants like George Perez continue to wait, hoping the village grants his application through an administrative relief pool containing 23 building permits. The administrative relief process could give him and others in a similar situation a building permit if he foots $1,500 for the application, goes through a quasi-judicial hearing and garners council approval. In order for that to happen, the council must amend a village ordinance to allow such a process to occur for land dedication applications.
Council members weren’t all on board with such a change, however, for land dedication applications during a special Sept. 21 land use meeting at the Founders Park Community Center. The dais ended what was at times a tense discussion by deferring the decision on a proposed ordinance to an Oct. 10 council meeting.
Months back, the council directed attorney John Quick to draft an ordinance granting administrative relief to individuals who submitted applications for a market rate building permit allocation and earned additional points by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on land to donate back to the village before July 6, 2023. Jennifer DeBoisbriand, village planning director, told the council members that those individuals could immediately apply for administrative relief if the ordinance passes through the council.
Councilwoman Elizabeth Jolin said there were unanswered questions with the proposal, including how the village would give out the remaining administrative relief allotments. She also had major concerns over the fact the ordinance didn’t come out of the planning department, but rather as a request from the council that was drafted by the attorney.
DeBoisbriand said the planning department hasn’t examined how the ordinance affects the larger picture as it relates to the remaining administrative relief allotments.
“I assumed that this was something supported by the council and requested by the council,” she said.
Councilman Mark Gregg said he wasn’t comfortable handing out administrative relief allotments to the five applicants with land dedications. He said he didn’t like the idea of giving some people opportunities to leapfrog other applicants in the regular BPAS system.
“If we gave away all five of these, that’s five less people who could apply for this down the line,” he said.
Vice Mayor Sharon Mahoney said the applicants with land dedication played by the village’s rules to get an additional 10 points onto their scores.
“Now we’re having a hard time owning up to what the council promised, and I have a problem with that,” Mahoney said.
George Perez took to the podium and addressed the dais. He recalled a May 2022 meeting when then-mayor Pete Bacheler realized the issue and expressed urgency in coming to some kind of resolution.
“That was positive for me. That was encouraging to hear,” he said. “We’ve been waiting and waiting and pushed, and here we are at the bitter end of the road.”
Perez added he could have received a building permit by now if he went through the transfer of development rights process. But he said he was assured the land dedication was the right thing to do and that it’d move forward.
Ty Harris, former planning director, told the council preserving habitat and hammocks, taking buildable lots out of the BPAS system and minimizing takings cases were among the land dedication program’s goals. He said a former LPA discussed giving land dedications only 2 points, but decided on 10 to get people to take the path.
Harris delivered strong criticism of the current LPA and statements among members that rich people were jumping the line through land dedications. Harris represents the five applicants who’ve dedicated land in order to get a building permit. He said they should be applauded, not vilified, for stepping up to donate buildable lots to the village for preservation and one less takings claim.
Rather than tinkering with the administrative relief pool, Gregg proposed the village give land dedicators credit from the time they initially submitted an application into the BPAS system and give them administrative relief once they reached the required four-year mark. Fellow members on the dais weren’t on board with Gregg’s idea.
“We’re the ones that pulled them (land dedication applications) out and moved them into another category,” Pinder said. “We weren’t awarding land dedication in BPAS. Every one of those people would have had a permit through BPAS.”
Gregg responded by stating that the land dedication applicants opted to do “something different and came out with a different result.”
More discussion on the item will be heard at the meeting at Founders Park on Oct. 10 at 5:30 p.m.
