Christine Hurley, county administrator for Monroe County, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM Friday morning to talk about what’s been going on in the county.
What has been happening with the square footage restrictions for downstairs enclosures?
Hurley said, “It’s been years in the making, but you’ll recall that the county was in big trouble with FEMA decades ago and almost lost National Flood Insurance, which would have been devastating, because everybody knows if you have a mortgage, you have to have flood insurance. So we had very, very specific rules put in place by FEMA in order to stay in the program and one of those was that if you have a house on piers, you couldn’t build larger than 299 square feet of an enclosure for storage. And that’s because when we let people build the larger ones, back in the day, we didn’t monitor them. We let them put bathrooms, kitchens, and we also turned a blind eye to people doing illegal improvements, which created thousands of illegal apartments. It went well with affordable housing challenges, but not for safety and not for flood problems. When a structure floods that all gets wet, has to be removed, FEMA ends up reimbursing us for debris removal. So we started following the rules, became in good standing, and this week, we received a letter, after visiting FEMA in Atlanta last week, that we would be allowed to eliminate those restrictions. It will take us about a year to amend all of our codes to make way for people to apply for permits. They will be able to enclose the whole area below their structure for limited storage only, though, and that’s the key. We will never, never be able to put back apartments into those enclosures. So we’re pretty excited. Our commission really pushed for this the past two years, and we think it’ll be really good for the residents. Let’s face it, when you live in the Keys, you’ve got a lot of fishing equipment, different nature type things, and 299 square feet is not very big for storage.”
It will require permitting.
Hurley said, “When you go through the permitting, you will sign what’s called a non conversion agreement, and what will be included in that is a description and a plan view of what you’re allowed to have in the downstairs. That’ll get recorded in land records, and then a future buyer, say that you’re going to now sell, they will get that document when they get their title work, and that will show them what is legally allowed in that area to hopefully prevent them buying anything was illegal improvements, because that was a big part of our remedial plan. We had so many people that bought things, people improved illegally, and then they would get stuck with the code enforcement problem. That non conversion agreement is key, and that was a big part of why FEMA will let us expand the square footage.”
Tina Bowen is the new assistant administrator.
Hurley said, “I’m very excited. Tina’s going to take over management of a lot of departments. We’re also going to in April, put on a new organizational chart to show the department she will manage and get board adoption of that. So Tina has literally 30 years of experience, either in the county side or the clerk side, incredible skills when it comes to fiscal management, and we think she’s the perfect fit right now for what we’re dealing with. We still are responding to audits, and there’s a lot of cleanup we’re doing, I will tell you, and this is could be the subject of another day, but there’s going to be a lot of changes from the federal government and the state government, with their whole efforts for DOGE, which is evaluating government efficiency, we are starting to see cuts trickle into some of our programs, and with Tina’s expertise, we’ll really be able to navigate that well. We are still monitoring the property tax question, and even a broader, seems like it has more support is a sales tax reduction and in our county, we rely heavily on sales tax, because the tourists pay more of that than our own locals. If they shift and start decreasing sales tax, that’s going to make and have a big impact on our operations.”
The voluntary home buyout program will be discussed again on April 16 and is coming to an end.
Hurley said, “We’ve wrapped everything up. Cynthia Guerra, who’s the now land authority director, has led that program for the whole time we’ve had it, and frankly, did an amazing job. We acquired damaged homes. We’ve reused the ROGO allocations. We’ve saved them up for takings liability, and we’ve actually used a couple of them to settle decades old lawsuits. So that program gave off so many benefits. We were very fortunate to have that funding.”
Emily Schemper was promoted to Growth Management Director for Monroe County.
Hurley said, “We’re excited for Emily. That resource was eliminated a few years ago, and frankly, it needs to be put back. Coordination between the departments that give out permits and approve development has to occur. So she’ll bring that back together, we hope and work with the construction industry and the clients that we serve to make things better, I can’t say easier. We have complex regulations in the state, but we will do our best to give good service. That’s the key.”