Emily Schemper, Growth Management Director for Monroe County, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about issues facing the county.
Schemper got her new role recently. What does Growth Management Director mean?
She said, “It does have more and different responsibility. It’s mainly an umbrella over planning and environmental resources, code compliance and the building department. So those three departments at the county obviously have a lot of overlap, interrelation, coordination between departments, and you may recall that Christine Hurley was actually in this position years ago, when she started at the county and she’s bringing this position back to help with that coordination and we have a lot of big things happening right now. ROGO, FEMA’s rules changing, potential updates to our code and other ways, and they affect all of the departments. So my role will be to help coordinate between those, to help be a liaison with the construction industry and homeowners, and if they need help coordinating between building and planning, for example, I can help make that happen and with my background and history here, I already understand to some degree how the other two departments that I wasn’t previously over operate and how their rules work. So that will help, but I do have a lot to catch up on as well, and a lot to learn so well I’m excited.”
There still isn’t any update on the ROGO situation.
Schemper said, “We will see what happens still feels like the saying of the day. There’s some talk of an 800 some number for the whole county, that’s in a couple of bills, but there’s a bigger number in other bills. So we’re still waiting to see.”
The restrictions on downstairs enclosures are loosening up a bit.
Schemper said, “We did meet with FEMA at the end of March, and we did get official word back from them now that they do agree that the programs we have in place, and our great record of compliance over the last 10 plus years is justification enough for us to be able to release what was known as the remedial plan. So the board, on April 16, next week, will officially direct staff to go ahead and process those code amendments in our local code that have these requirements also written in, we’ll process amendments to take those take those out. So that’s the limitation on storage enclosures. They still can only be used for storage, but they’ll be able to be used for the full footprint of the building now. You can enclose that for limited storage, parking, etc., but it’ll take about eight months to a year before the actual amendments to our code go through. So there’s still a little bit of wait time, but it’s moving now, so that’s good.”
What’s going on with height limits?
Schemper said, “I know the official agenda for next week is not published yet, but there is a possibility, and I’m expecting a discussion item regarding height on the agenda next week again, April 16. It’s in Marathon. The meetings are starting again at 9am, just so everyone knows, we’re going back to 9am. Discussion item on height limits. So we’ll talk about how the height limits currently work in Monroe County and the board can discuss if they have any direction or thoughts at this time about possibly changing those limits. The kind of the golden rule for years has been 35 feet within Monroe County, but we have adopted some exceptions over the years, one of those being for residential structures that want to add extra elevation above the required flood elevation. So, they’re required to elevate to eight feet, but they want to go to 11 feet for extra protection, we’ve given an extra up to three feet on the top there. So the county has had a few different exceptions they’ve adopted over the years. We’ll have to see if there’s any desire to go higher than that, whether or not to include more flood protection, or just up to higher limit. I know Marathon has a higher limit at this point. I think it’s 42 feet. Key West has some between 30 and 40 feet, and there are variances available for things like the roof structure, the non habitable portion of the structure and Ocean Reef now has some exceptions as well, just for their master planned community up there. So I know some people, it’s a very important discussion for some people, so I want to make sure people know that that is happening next week during the commission meeting.”
Did something prompt this to come up at this time?
Schemper said, “We do get questions about height all the time. Sometimes it’s specific to extra flood elevation. Sometimes it’s just, people can’t fit their higher ceilings in. I know the commissioners get questions all the time as well. One Commissioner requested it to be put on the agenda, and I’m guessing it’s because of questions that they’ve gotten from the public ongoing. We talk about it in the background a lot, but I think now the thought is, it’s time to have the real discussion if anything is to be done, and then that would require code and comp plan amendments, of course, to actually change the rules. So nothing coming really soon, but a year out, if they decide they want to do that. I would not anticipate something with high rise buildings, but you never know.”