Monroe County Commissioner Craig Cates joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
Hurricane Melissa is bringing widespread devastation to our neighbors in Jamaica and Cuba.
Cates said, “My heart breaks for the Jamaican people where that storm went ashore. The only fortunate part about that, the eyewall was very small, considering the power of the hurricane and where the most damage was, but I’m sure it’s devastating wherever that eyewall went in, I started to see a few pictures this morning. The damage that was done was unbelievable, but we’ve been fortunate, but our responsibility, I believe, will be to help those countries that have all that damage and the people down there. I’m sure there’ll be fundraisers and supplies being sent down there for the Jamaican people.”
The Boca Chica mooring fields will be moving forward.
Cates said, “That’s a great project, and we’ve definitely got to thank our Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez and State Representative Jim Mooney, did amazing job and all the staff at Monroe County worked so hard. This project has been going several years of legislative change, zoning changes for the property there, the permitting with the DEP and Army Corps engineers for the mooring balls is just a long, drawn out project, but it’s finally coming together. The upland facility, the funding that we just received is so important and a big part of this project, because we couldn’t move forward with the mooring balls until we had the upland facility started, which we will now and we can move forward. We have the funding for that and that area, there’s so many vessels out there. A lot of them are derelict. They just abandoned them out there, and they eventually sink. A lot of them, people are living on. They have no place to dock because all the shoreline is privately owned. They pull up next to the highway, leave their dinghies tied to the mangroves. Well, now they’ll have a facility where they can come and dock. There’ll be restrooms, and there’ll be a pump out boat based out of that area to go and pump out the boats. There’ll be showers there for them, parking for their scooters or bicycles or cars, whatever they have. It’ll be great for live aboards that work in our community, and be able to stay here safely and not anchor and drag the anchor and tear up the bottom. We have a million dollar grant also, once we get the mooring field in, to go up and clean all the debris off the bottom. There’s so much stuff that’s been thrown there over the years, and that whole area will come back and be pristine like it was many years ago.”
Downstairs enclosures will also be available now for storage.
Cates said, “We worked very hard, the staff and the residents of Monroe County, to come into compliance with the FEMA regulations, and now they released us from that requirement, which was basically a penalty, because what happened years ago in the county that they had stricter regulations than any other municipality in the county with the 299 square foot and inspections when you sold your property, you had to be inspected by the county to make sure that there was nothing illegally downstairs. So it was a big inconvenience, a problem. Any little thing would set back a closing. So now they released that. We’re in the process of changing our comp plan land development regulations to allow that whole bottom be enclosed for storage, protection from the weather for your cars or whatever you want to put under there, just not live aboards, and to remove that requirement of the inspection for when you sell your property and any closings.”
The ROGO issue is still in discussion.
Cates said, “It’s complicated, and to all your listeners, what ended up happening, yes, it was a long process. We got that approved, thanks to our legislators, to move that through with the 900 units over 10 years, affordable housing. We had guardrails, is what we call them, to make sure they went towards affordable housing, went towards single family, single lots. That way it would help with the takings cases in the future. That’s everybody’s concern and not go to transient rentals, hotels, that kind of stuff. These have some restrictions there. Well, because of regulation and that area of state of emergency, that the state had put on after Ian and the other hurricane on the West Coast, Monroe County was part of that state emergency and declaration of damage. We fall under the same regulations that you can’t change any of the building rules until 2027 and that was to keep the people from changing regulations on so they couldn’t rebuild and put undue hardship on residents who were trying to rebuild with new regulations, but this is completely new units, that weren’t even allowed before, so we’re trying to get those restrictions removed so we can have the guard rails on these 900 units, which is so important to the Keys to protect it for the future. So we’re going to Tallahassee. I’ll be going up in December. Some other commissioners will be going up before that, and we’ll take turns walking the halls and trying to convince them to move forward with that, and we should not be affected by that regulation.”
Does that mean multi dwelling units, multi family units will not be issued a ROGO?
Cates said, “There are the early evacuation units that we’re working on changing that process so they can be used. It’s not an issue with that, I don’t believe at this time, but those can be for multi unit projects, but affordable. Anytime they have transfers that’s still allowed, like a trailer parks will be transferred. It could turn into hotels or larger projects, those kind of things. But that won’t change any of that. It just these new 900 ROGO units will be restricted.”
The Monroe County Planning Commission voted 4-1 to amend zoning and future land use maps. The planning board suggested increasing the maximum height of homes in unincorporated areas to 42 feet. A 35 foot cap exists right now. The planning commission will likely make that recommendation to the commissioners.
Cates said, “That’s the process that goes to them first, and there’ll be discussions on that. I’ve been a big advocate on not raising the height limits, because we don’t want huge tall buildings everywhere. I think a lot of people feel that same way about the Keys. That’s how we’ve been able to keep it from being Miami Beach. But now the reality is, we need to build the homes higher because of sea level rise, and the flood map changes, so we’re going to have to raise the height limit. So the amount will be discussed, and that’s a reasonable amount that I agree with. We’ll see where that goes, but I think that’ll move forward. I just want to wish everybody a safe Halloween. It’s a great time for the kids. Be careful, look out for them out there having fun, not paying attention. But it’s a great time of the year for all the families. The adults had their celebration last weekend in Key West with the Fantasy Fest, and now this is for the kids coming up there this Friday night. So everyone have a great, safe time.”