Michelle Lincoln, Monroe County Commissioner District 2, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the county.
A special meeting was held yesterday to talk about road elevation projects.
Lincoln said, “We have been battling this for years upon years, I think, ever since I’ve been a commissioner on what are we doing in low lying areas that are currently suffering from seasonal king high tides that are flooding their roads and oh my goodness, we’ve brought in the engineers, we’ve done designs and studies, and we’ve involved the public through this whole process, and have aggressively gone after funding sources for these totally expensive projects. If you’ll recall, years ago, we received a price tag of $1.8 billion to identify all of the roads that we felt would need to be elevated within the next 20 years and we’re starting with the ones that truly are flooding right now, but it’s expensive, and it also takes the neighborhood to be on board with it. For example, the ones that we’ve been working on, the one at StillWright Point, which is why we held our special meeting on Tuesday night. This is not the first special meeting we’ve had with this neighborhood, but it became evident a while back that in order to do their project, because to lift a road, you then have to figure out where that water is going to roll off to, and by state statute, it cannot roll into anyone else’s property, because if it does, then you’re legally liable for that. So it’s going to require swale, and it’s going to require drainage, and it’s going to require a pump system, because again, by statute and law we’re not allowed to let that water back into the ocean unless it’s been cleaned. So it’s very complex, it’s very expensive, and this neighborhood, and StillWright, unfortunately, was built on low lying ground, and their road is only 20 feet, when most roads are 50 feet, and so it would require an easement, and it would require a 10 foot easement by every single solitary neighbor that would be receiving this road project and they don’t want it, they don’t want to give the easement. So we’re kind of at a humongous stopping point, and we didn’t have all of the funds, so we it was a very difficult decision to make, but it was the one that we felt was the right one to make, because it’s like, why would we continue this project if you all are not going to sign the easement to let us do the project? It’s painful, and I get it. I don’t know that I would want 10 feet off of my front front drive. So we understood that, and I hope that they understood.”
The commissioners received an email from the administrator about a policy in Lee County.
Lincoln explained, “They do the normal, what’s expected maintenance of a road, but if you want anything additional, that neighborhood has to poll the neighborhood and have 50% plus one agree they want to do this, then they can approach the county and say, we want your help. Will you manage this for us? But they form an MSTBU, one of those little areas where they completely fund it, because it’s only a benefit to their neighborhood, but the county will help oversee it, put them in line with the scientists, put them in line with the engineers, help them through the permitting process, but the cost is on the backs of the people who receive the benefit of this enhanced service. So at the end of the meeting, we asked staff to get us a ton more information on exactly how that works. So at the end of years and years and years, this is what we’ve come up with. The good news is, this engineering, the design will be in a binder on a shelf that that neighborhood, if they then decide they want to do this and they can get all the people to agree to it, then they can pull this off the shelf and and run with it.”
Could there be some support from the county for StillWright Point?
Lincoln said, “We explored with them six different alternatives, and the only one that was clear that we could do with the signing off by the state legislators was the one alternative that they didn’t want right now. So we’ll see what happens. Then the very next day we we had to tackle Twin Lakes, which is the pilot project that is currently under construction and should be finished by May 2026 and that project is completely in the works, and we have decided that we’re not going to require those residents to put in $25,000 to offset the cost of the capital project, because we realized that wasn’t fair to them, to give them a price tag after we’d already started the construction, after we realized it came in more expensive than we thought. However, we did approve at yesterday’s meeting at our hearing, a yearly assessment that will pay for the ongoing maintenance of the pump station and the five injection wells. That price, divided by the approximate 105 homes, will be a moderate number to pay for their ongoing maintenance, to take care of a benefit that is only for their neighborhood. Unfortunately, a few people got up that are second homeowners in the Keys, and they attended this meeting, and they’re like, we knew nothing about this. I’m like, well, it’s been pretty much talked about for over six years and we just explained to them that it would be an insult to the rest of the county if we made everyone up and down the county pay for their pump system, that they’re the only ones who ever will benefit from it.”
The county commissioners had their regular meeting yesterday as well.
Lincoln said, “Positive, great news. We finalized, they’re get about to get their CO at the South Cliff Estates housing project where it kind of did an about face and these 12 units are going to open soon, like any day now. These 11 units will be for the tourist related business, and one of the units will be for a Monroe County employee. We’re super excited about that, because this is part of that tourist development tax money. So now we have this project in Key Largo that we’re about to open, these 12 units. We also did some final approving of the project we’re going to have in Marathon that will be at our old fire emergency management building that we’re converting to housing, and we approved the one in Cudjoe Key that’ll be 19 units, and the one in Poinciana Garden. So I am just super excited that we are not waiting on any of these projects. We want to do what we said, which was get our workers in quality homes sooner than later.”
The state budget has passed and is waiting for the governor’s approval and it looks like the TDC funding will remain.
Lincoln said, “I was speaking with the CEO of Visit Florida and our Tourist Development Council. She made a very interesting point that I did not realize. But each individual homeowner, taxpayer in Monroe County saves $11,600 a year on our tax bill because of the money that the Tourist Development Council spends on infrastructure projects here in Monroe County — $11,000 per household. That is huge.”
The commissioners also approved potentially raising the height limit for homes in unincorporated Monroe county.
Lincoln said it would be “up to 42 feet, which would mimic what Marathon has and what Key Colony and a few of the other municipalities have. So that is a year out. It will have to go through all the comp plan changes and be open for more public hearings, but this was the second time we’ve met about this to potentially raise the height of houses, as we know, flood elevation requirements, and as we are making our structures more resilient. So we’re excited about that as well. So we really had a very productive meeting.”
Transportation is also an ongoing topic.
Lincoln said, “The Florida Department of Transportation will be having a meeting here next week that’s open to all the public. They encourage the public to attend, either via Zoom or in person. It’ll be in Marathon. It is to be discussing the Seven Mile Bridge and the Long Key Bridge and what where we are in the process of either creating new bridges or rehabbing what we have. So they are coming in town to give an update on that.”
It’s also hurricane season.
Lincoln said, “I hope people have their plan in place. If you have not picked up your re entry sticker, you may go to the tax collector and show your proof that you live here and get your sticker to come back in make sure you’ve made a plan with your family and that you have the supplies you need on hand now so that you’re prepared for season.”