Cynthia Guerra, executive director for Monroe County Land Authority, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
There is a governing board for the Monroe County Land Authority.
Guerra said, “Just like the county commission that last month elected a new mayor, this month, our governing board is going to either reaffirm or elect new leadership. And it’s interesting people sometimes don’t understand this, but the governing board of the land authority is the same five people as the county commissioners. They conduct our business, they actually adjourn as county commissioners, and then convene as our governing board, and then when they’re done with our business, they re adjourn as county commissioners. So one of the things we have in our upcoming agenda in December is they will choose their chair and vice chair for the coming year. Just the same way that the county conducts their business. All of the county business goes to the Board of County Commissioners to be ratified or approved, and that’s the same for us. The five commissioners that serve as our governing board will meet during the regular meetings, and they will review our agenda and all of our items, and they’ll approve our contracts to purchase property, or they’ll approve conveyances of property to the county if we’re working on an affordable housing project, funding for different affordable housing projects, they have all the same responsibilities that a legislative body would have over a municipality.”
What does the Monroe County Land Authority do?
Guerra said, “The land authority has a pretty complex mission. We are the entity that will purchase land for conservation and habitat protection and species protection, and everybody sort of knows that part. But somehow the affordable housing mission somehow gets overlooked. The land authority purchases land for affordable housing, or we also provide construction funding for affordable housing, and we have a lot of partners in this effort. The county certainly is an important partner to us in helping to facilitate some of these projects through their approval process. But we also work with Habitat for Humanity, who develops primarily single family housing up and down the Keys. Or we work with the Key West Housing Authority, who is generally the ones that we partner with on larger, multi family projects.”
How does the land authority fit in with the ROGO situation?
Guerra said, “We sort of are an intermediary to assist the county with the implementation of their land use plans and their growth management, but we also want to help landowners that maybe are concerned that they won’t be able to get a permit at some point, so we can buy properties, even if they don’t have necessarily a conservation or affordable housing nexus to them. We’re always happy to answer the phone and talk to anybody about it. Our phone number is 305-295-5180. We have our primary office down in Key West, but we have staff located throughout the Keys.”
Are there any projects coming up in the future?
Guerra said, “Coming up in this next agenda that the governing board is going to be reviewing, as I mentioned before, they’re going to be choosing their new leadership. Our current chair is David Rice. He’s been the chair for a long time, but they get to pick amongst the five of them who wants to be chair and vice chair of our board. Then we’ve got a few conservation parcels that we’re really excited about acquiring, provided our contracts get approved by the board. I think we have one lease with Habitat for Humanity that’s going through this month. So we don’t have a whole lot of affordable housing projects this month, but we’re just chugging along every month trying to sort all of these different goals and objectives.”