Key West Mayor Teri Johnston joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the city.
A ribbon cutting for 103 brand new affordable housing units on Stock Island will be held tomorrow.
Johnston said, “We are so proud of this facility. It’s a joint partnership between the City of Key West and the Key West Housing Authority.”
During the ribbon cutting, tours of the units will be provided.
The state has recently passed a law that preempts Key West affordable housing protection that was put in place in August 2022.
Johnston said, “We’ve been trying to put legislation in place that protects our long-term rentals. What we did was we put an ordinance in place that requires landlords to give a 90-day notice if they’re going to raise the rent over 5 percent and that’s to allow people to decide whether they can afford to stay there and three months in order to look for a new unit, which in the city of Key West and the surrounding areas is very hard to find. We were just trying to give some more protection to our long-term rentals and apparently that was not the case for our representatives because our Representative and our Senator both sponsored this legislation. I know different parts of Florida have different situations as far as affordable housing levels, but Key West has been probably in the most dire need for the longest.”
Affordable housing has been an issue in the Keys for many years because of the limited land.
Johnston said, “We’re going to continue to try and protect our landlords and our renters who are renting out long-term for our workforce.”
There is one more hearing for the sound ordinance in Key West at 5 p.m. Wednesday, May 24, in City Hall.
Johnston said, “So please join us if you have an issue, if you have some suggestions for improvements, we would love to hear them.”
The previous workshops have been heavily attended by musicians and bar owners.
Johnston said, “There’s a misconception out there that we’re trying to eliminate music, eliminate creativity and that just isn’t true. What we have had is a number of complaints, particularly in residential areas where people have lived in their homes for 20 and 30 years and a new business has come into the community and has probably not been as respectful as they should be in the middle of a mixed-use area. So we are taking a look at those. We’re taking a look at anything that is an irritant as far as loud, jarring, ruckus noise. That’s not a normal musician playing. It is when you get into certain areas, somebody turns the music up and attracts a few more people, so the next business down the road wants to turn their music up to attract a few more. I think it was said best in our last workshop when you have this really loud music that you can’t even hear, that you’re not only impacting residents, but you’re impacting the businesses that are next door to you. It’s very hard to have a nice relaxing meal outside when you can’t even talk to the person across the table from you. It just comes down to really some common sense and some respect for your surrounding areas. I have every confidence that we’re going to get there.”
It has been nine years since the noise ordinance has been revisited in the city.
After the third workshop on Wednesday, the legal department and city manger will get together and look at the current ordinance.
There are areas in the Keys zoned for different levels of sound.
Johnston explained, “I think we all recognize that the 100, 200 and 300 block of Duval are certainly a little louder than they are when we get up around the 1200, 1300 and 1400 blocks of Duval. We set it up that way and we heard group after group after group and that’s pretty much what they wanted. They wanted to be able to play some loud music down in lower Duval and really when you get around upper Duval, you’ve got the nice quiet wine bars and some quiet restaurants. So we set up the ordinance to recognize that, but what we have because we’re such a small island is we’ve got businesses that are moving into residential areas and we always have a great concern there that you’re taking a business and moving it into an area where people may go to bed at 10 o’clock and really have that right to. So we’ve got to recognize the rights of both groups of people, our residents and our businesses and we’ve got to meet a happy medium as we do with everything.”
EMS Day will be held on Tuesday.
Johnston said, “We gave a proclamation to our local EMS group last Tuesday night and Lower Keys Medical Center as they always do recognized our EMS first responders.”