MONROE COUNTY COMMISSION GREENLIGHTS BUILDING RIGHT REQUEST, EVACUATION TIME CHANGE

a group of people sitting at a table in front of a screen
The Monroe County Commission weighs elements of a request for additional building rights throughout the Florida Keys at a special session on Dec. 19 in Marathon. ALEX RICKERT/Keys Weekly

The Florida Keys could see up to 3,550 new building allocations added to the island chain over the next 40 years, according to a request approved by the Monroe County Commission on Dec. 19 at a special session in Marathon.

But that request will lie in the hands of state lawmakers during the 2025 Florida state legislative session, and is mired in unclear recent messaging from state leaders.

Thursday’s resolution, approved 4-1 with commissioner Craig Cates dissenting, formally requests a change to the statutes governing the Florida Keys as an Area of Critical State Concern (ACSC) – namely, a provision currently requiring a 24-hour clearance time for permanent residents in the event of a hurricane evacuation, used to cap the number of building rights throughout the islands. 

The resolution requests an increase for the hurricane evacuation time of up to 26 hours – a time frame that, according to previously-discussed hurricane evacuation models, could add roughly 3,550 new units to the Keys. 

The resolution requires an even distribution of any new building rights over a 40-year period, but allows for units to be “borrowed forward” from future years if they’re used for affordable or workforce housing.

Of any new residential permit allocations within the unincorporated Monroe, 1,350 would be reserved for issuance of only one allocation per vacant buildable lot, regardless whether the lot could accommodate more than one right, the request states. 

In addition, 70 percent of those 1,350 allocations will be designated as 99-year deed-restricted workforce market-rate housing, a classification exclusively reserved for those who live and work in Monroe County while skirting the valuation limitations, income requirements and rent calculations of traditional affordable housing. Any allocations above the 1,350 that may be approved by the state for unincorporated Monroe County could be used for affordable, workforce, or market-rate housing. 

As the few remaining allocations throughout the island chain’s municipalities have dwindled over the past year, local leaders and staff have conducted extensive analyses and public outreach campaigns through meetings, surveys and workshops to determine a final number of building allocations, if any, to request from the state. 

The financial threat of takings cases, triggered if a property owner of an otherwise-buildable lot is denied the right to do so, largely drove the analyses in an attempt to determine how many vacant buildable lots remain in the Keys.

In October, the BOCC elected to move forward with a request for 220 additional building rights from FloridaCommerce – the maximum the island chain could theoretically absorb without a change to state statutes, as it would maintain the legally-required 24-hour evacuation, according to current modeling.

At that time, the Dec. 19 session was expected to decide a request, if any, for additional rights beyond those 220 via a legislative change to ACSC statutes, informed by individual requests from the Village of Islamorada, City of Marathon and City of Key West. 

In recent weeks, Islamorada has approved a request for 199 units, while Key West asked for a maximum number available. Marathon requested a hurricane evacuation clearance time change to 26 hours, with one unit allocated for each of roughly 575 vacant buildable lots in the city.

Expectations went up in smoke earlier this month, when officials with the Governor’s office and FloridaCommerce reportedly told county leaders they were unlikely to issue even the first 220 units unless and until all remaining allocations countywide had been given out. 

State leaders even went as far as to suggest that unincorporated Monroe, with the greatest number of building rights remaining, should distribute some of their remaining rights to Marathon and Islamorada, both of which have nearly exhausted their supply.

Thursday’s discussion opened with consideration of a moratorium on applications for, and distribution of, existing building allocations by the county, first floated by staff at the commission’s Dec. 11 session following the bombshell from the state. 

Supported by Cates, County Administrator Christine Hurley and County Attorney Bob Shillinger told the commission that the moratorium could allow the county to stretch its remaining allocations over more years if the state remained unwilling to budge, and could allow for amendments that would direct those allocations toward newly-classified workforce market-rate units. 

But the remaining commissioners said they couldn’t yet support a moratorium, preferring instead to wait until the results of the state legislative session to put the brakes on building. 

“The emphasis that commerce put on was workforce housing,” said Shillinger. “This is showing a sign of good faith – ‘Look, we hear you. We want to spend the limited ones we have on workforce housing, but this is the only way we can do that without running out.’ We don’t know when we’re going to get any or what we’re going to get.” 

“If FloridaCommerce and the governor’s office are saying, ‘Why do you need more? You haven’t used what you have,’ and our response is a moratorium, then we’re not using any of what we have,” said Mayor Pro Tem Michelle Lincoln. “We’ve been talking with FloridaCommerce and the governor’s office now for weeks, trying to explain to them why we wanted the 220 (units) so that we can rewrite our comprehensive plan, and they’re not getting that.” 

County and municipal leaders and staff openly voiced frustration with conflicting messaging from FloridaCommerce officials, who last year presented multiple scenarios to the county for hurricane evacuation changes that could have yielded up to 8,000 new units.

They’ll now turn to state Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez and state Rep. Jim Mooney for a push through the Florida Legislature. Mooney, Hurley said, told county and municipal leaders in a Dec. 17 meeting called after last week’s surprises from the state that while his preference was for no additional units to be given, he would sponsor a bill bestowing up to 500 units to the Keys via a hurricane evacuation clearance time change to 24.5 hours.  

The first 220 of these 500 units would effectively “fill in” the remaining gap allowed by the current 24-hour evacuation, while the remainder would be distributed to jurisdictions based on their proportion of remaining vacant lots.

Public comment throughout the session mirrored prior meetings, with multiple representatives of environmental organizations and property owners associations urging the commission to request the fewest possible building rights while others touted the multimillion-dollar threat of takings cases.

Multiple commenters stressed the danger of overloaded highways preventing an increased population from evacuating in the case of a future major storm. Commissioner David Rice contested these claims.

“Why do you use a model to attempt to predict something that human eyes can look at in real time?” he asked. “Most of us know that 24 hours before a hurricane, there’s nobody on the road.”

“I’ve been in law enforcement here for 38 years, been here through every storm, and we’ve never had an issue,” Sheriff Rick Ramsay told the Weekly by phone on Dec. 20. “The people who want to leave have always been able to get out quickly and safely, and the roads are empty for hours before high wind events arrive.” 

Marathon City Attorney Steve Williams, addressing the commission as “co-defendants” in potential takings cases, blasted inconsistencies in messaging throughout the prior year as the county and its municipalities attempted to arrive at a unified request for building rights.

In January, Marathon and county leaders found themselves at odds after sample legislation was sent from Marathon City Manager George Garrett that could have bestowed up to 8,000 additional building rights throughout the island chain. 

After a request from county leaders for Marathon to delay its ask by one year to allow for further analysis, the two governments agreed to a “loan” of county building rights that would allow Marathon and the county’s remaining stock of building permits to eventually expire at the same time in 2026.

Williams made a thinly-veiled reference to a “political climate” at the time of the delay that included Mooney and three county commissioners running active re-election campaigns.

“What’s a municipality supposed to believe when we go to one meeting and we’re told to do this, and we’re hearing on the radio (and) go to another meeting two or three days later, and we hear something directly contradictory?” he said. “The point is not and has never been whether the local government will lose all of its takings cases. … (But) no attorney can predict which parcels will have successful takings cases and which will not.”

“The municipalities and county passing resolutions in support of changes to the evacuation protocol is an important step for the entire Florida Keys to maintain its ability to deal with a myriad of issues, including workforce housing, affordable housing and takings liability,” developer Robert Spottswood told the Weekly by phone on Dec. 20. “I look forward to joining our state representatives in Tallahassee to fight for what we’ve asked for.”

The Weekly contacted Mooney by phone on Dec. 20, but was unable to reach him before press time.

Alex Rickert
Alex Rickert made the perfectly natural career progression from dolphin trainer to newspaper editor in 2021 after freelancing for Keys Weekly while working full time at Dolphin Research Center. A resident of Marathon since 2015, he fell in love with the Florida Keys community by helping multiple organizations and friends rebuild in the wake of Hurricane Irma. An avid runner, actor, and spearfisherman, he spends as much of his time outside of work on or under the sea having civil disagreements with sharks.