A disagreement between the City of Marathon and the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) could keep Marathon permit applicants waiting up to 75 days for state review and approval.
As Marathon is designated as an Area of Critical State Concern, the city is required to render all development orders – Planning Department decisions and permits – to the state unless a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) grants an exception. The previous 17-year agreement between the city and state, in place since 2005, required the city to render only a specific subset of orders, including developments in areas of critical wildlife or vegetation, new hotels, conditional use approvals for new non-residential developments over 2,500 square feet, developments for dredging and excavation, developments for mining operations, and conditional use permits for RV parks. The rescinded MOU also stated that the city must render “conditional use permits, but not the subsequent building permits, for Transfer of ROGO Exemptions (TREs), Transfer of Development Rights (TDRs), institutional residences, community parks located in a hammock, any development activity that provides overnight sleeping quarters, new marinas or expansion of existing marinas.”
On Feb. 25, the DEO issued a Notice of Violation (NOV) concerning a development at the end of 39th Street in Marathon, more commonly known as the Boatworks project. The multi-phase project will see 52 affordable housing units split between two buildings, with market rate homes developed along the waterfront.
Though the Boatworks project had obtained a conditional use permit for the site, the state appealed a revision to the development agreement that allowed previous live-aboard units to become upland residential units when determining the number of market rate units allowed.
DEO then contended that the city’s decision to issue building permits for four units in the project during the pending appeal violated the appeals process. It subsequently terminated the 17-year MOU, meaning that all permits previously handled exclusively by the city will now make their way to Tallahassee, even for small projects like installing pavers or putting up a fence.
“We are resolving the matter as quickly as we can,” said Marathon City Manager George Garrett in a statement on March 9. “In the meantime, the city is complying with the state directive and sending every Marathon development order for review in Tallahassee.”
To illustrate: according to the DEO’s website, over a five-month period from Aug. 2, 2021 to Dec. 28, 2021, the department received a total of nine development orders from the City of Marathon. During the week of March 9 to 16, it received 171.
At its March 8 meeting, the Marathon City Council unanimously voted to approve a draft of a new MOU that was immediately sent to the state for consideration.
“I think the answer is that we’re headed in the right direction,” Garrett told Keys Weekly. “I don’t know exactly what they consider the appropriate timeline to be, but I think it’s clearly sooner rather than later.”
