A new-look Marathon City Council will get a heavy-hitting start in its first session, as a resolution on the agenda for next week could cement Marathon’s recommendation for new building allocations within the city.
Resolution 2024-121 is set to provide “a recommendation to the Monroe County Board of County Commissioners regarding the number of additional residential building permit allocations Marathon would like to receive in potential future allocations.” The decision comes as county leaders and Keys municipalities prepare to make requests to the Florida state Legislature for statutory changes during the 2025 Legislative session that would allow additional development within the island chain.
County staff have organized an extensive series of public meetings and online surveys throughout 2024 to gauge community interest in additional building rights. Input was designed to weigh the possibility of development against infrastructure, environmental, traffic and quality-of-life concerns along with the financial implications of takings cases, triggered if owners of otherwise-buildable lots are denied the opportunity to build on their property.
Results of those surveys and meetings were delivered to the county commission at its Oct. 16 session, during which the commission unanimously voted to request at least an additional 220 units from the state – the maximum number that would allow the Keys to maintain its legally-required 24-hour hurricane evacuation time for permanent residents.
A timeline presented at that same session laid out a special county meeting on Dec. 19 in Marathon to decide a number, if any, of additional units beyond the 220 to request from the state for the entire Florida Keys. That same timeline said the commission expected to receive input from other Keys municipalities with their individual requests in January 2025 if they wished to receive a portion of the 220 units. The potential timeline should the county choose to request more than 220 units did not include a deadline for individual municipal requests.
A final county-sponsored town hall meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 7 at Marathon Government Center at 5:30 p.m. A meeting in Marathon on Nov. 20 will see county staff report the results of public input at town hall meetings throughout the Keys and a final online survey, and a Dec. 11 session in Key Largo will present an infrastructure study to determine infrastructure needs with additional building units.
The village of Islamorada has previously mirrored the county with a series of locally-sponsored workshop sessions and surveys, eventually approving a request for 104 additional building allocations at the village council’s Oct. 10 meeting.
Marathon, however, has yet to hold a city-sponsored workshop session or survey related to additional building allocations, and is set to decide its allocation request before the county publicly presents its infrastructure study or town hall and final survey findings.
Speaking with the Weekly by phone on the morning of Nov. 6, Planning Director Brian Shea said the number of units to be requested in the draft resolution was still undetermined at press time. Marathon currently has 575 vacant parcels, he said, but roughly 123 of those are likely unbuildable due to habitat conditions. Transferable building rights and allowable densities on properties that can accommodate more than one building further muddy the waters when determining a number of units needed to stave off takings cases.
Marathon Mayor Robyn Still said she hadn’t had a chance yet to closely examine the resolution, but that she would prefer to hear directly from residents before a request is made.
“Residents need to contact their council members and say that they want to have the opportunity to have their opinion be known in front of the Marathon City Council,” she said. “They should have the option to do this in person, just like everybody else does. They shouldn’t be penalized because they’re not members of some of these other civic organizations that were part of the county speakers’ rounds.”
Fresh off his election victory Tuesday night, re-elected councilman Kenny Matlock told the Weekly by phone that the agenda item was “a red flag – one that could make locals justifiably mistrust the city.”
“I know that it’s a work in progress, and there’s no number in the resolution (yet),” said Vice Mayor Lynn Landry by phone. “It kind of came out a little quick – I thought we had more time to deal with this, but we’re going to have all the information there to be discussed.
“It’s a difficult situation for everyone. We have to come up with a plan for Marathon and realize that if we ask for nothing, we’re in trouble,” he added. “The biggest thing is to ask and make sure we have control of how they go out.”
Councilman Jeff Smith said that while the compressed timeline could serve to better inform the county’s final request, rather than a January 2025 decision, the distribution of units and types of structures constructed, not the total number requested, should drive conversations moving forward.
“I don’t know if a number will be locked in by the end of the night,” he said. “There’s a lot of noise around the number of units, but the noise needs to be around getting as many as you can, so that then you can decide how you dole them out and for how long.
“I care more about how long we’re going to draw them out, if we’re still going to permit large developments, if you’re still going to allow maximum density. Because you’re going to run out if you do, and those are the hard questions we have to look at.”
The Weekly reached out to City Manager George Garrett for clarification on the resolution, but did not receive a response before press time.
The council’s session is set to begin at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 12. Public comment on any agenda item is limited to three minutes per commenter.
