With Marathon’s now-infamous 300 affordable housing units still in question, an attempted workaround may be in the pipeline for the upcoming development known as Seaview Commons on Coco Plum Drive.
With three members present, the City of Marathon Planning Commission voted 2-1 on Oct. 17 to renew a conditional use permit with additional conditions for the 60- and 64-unit affordable housing developments at the bend in Coco Plum Drive. The project was initially the beneficiary of a large portion of the 300 affordable housing allocations given to Marathon by the state at the order of then-Gov. Rick Scott.
However, a surprising opinion handed down by Miami’s Third District Court of Appeals on Aug. 3 revoked the units, leaving the project approved in theory but unable to proceed with permitting.
New language added to the permit’s conditions states that the project “must obtain … affordable residential allocations to be transferred via the Transfer of Building Rights (TBRs), BPAS process, or any other legally established process, including statutory, prior to building permit issuance.”
Addressing the commission, attorney Bart Smith indicated that developers would look to proceed with the project by “utilizing certain statutory exemptions” and avoid taking from the city’s existing affordable housing stock.
“We’re also working with the legislature and hopefully addressing other parts of the new statutory language that will allow for such projects to proceed forward,” he said. “By doing these things, we want to have these opportunities provided for in a conditional use approval.”
The statute in question is Florida state statute 166.04151(1), which provides the ability of a municipality to adopt “an ordinance, rule or other measure that is adopted for the purpose of increasing the supply of affordable housing using land use mechanisms such as inclusionary housing or linkage fee ordinances.”
A later section in the same statute (166.04151(5)) indicates that certain sections of the statute do not apply in areas of critical state concern – including Marathon – but does not include section 1 in that clarification, raising the question of whether the statute’s first section could be used to develop additional affordable housing in Marathon outside of the typical ROGO/BPAS system.
Planning commission chair Lynn Landry clarified with Smith that the attempt to build outside of typical allocations would still require the same local and state-level appeal process as well as approval through the state Department of Economic Opportunity.
Landry and commission member Mallory Pinto voted to approve the permit, with commission member Mike Cinque as the lone “no” vote.
The commission found itself with an identical split on a request for a conditional use permit to develop a six-unit affordable housing building at 11990 Overseas Highway near Vaca Cut. While the project filed for the conditional use permit, it did not yet have the affordable housing units secured to begin construction at the time of the meeting.
“I still have a problem with us issuing development agreements when there’s no development rights available. … I want to put that on the record,” said Cinque. “It’s kind of like putting the cart in front of the horse.”
“It’s beneficial to have the conditional use approvals in place first, because then when they come, say, for a TBR (Transferable Building Right), we look at that previously-approved conditional use to allow for those units to be transferred on site,” responded planning director Brian Shea.
“I think it just puts pressure on the city, especially with the lack of housing,” said Cinque. “I’ve been watching it for 30 years. I just have a problem with some of the issues the city has now in litigation.”
