A Few Questions About Adding an Island 

by Nancy Klingener

For decades, Christmas Tree Island has sat in Key West Harbor, a 21-acre question, the ultimate example of neglected open space, providing shelter and succor for hundreds, if not thousands, of people over the years.

Not all of them stayed on the island though it has served as a campsite for various vagabonds  including, at one time, the young man from Fitchburg, Mass., who would become Pritam Singh. The island and its nearby baybottom, also privately owned, are a favorite anchorage for boaters who live here year-round and boaters who pass through and stay awhile.

The question it has been posing, all these years, is this: In a place with limited land and even less waterfront, with massive amounts of money to be made from development, how long will this island just be left to sit there, undeveloped, not making money for anyone?

We may, at long last, be nearing an answer.

'We've been stewards of that property for a very long time," said Roger Bernstein, part of the family that owns the island. "We now feel we are ready to move forward. We have the right partners. We think the city of Key West will benefit from what we're about to do."

The first step for developing Christmas Tree Island, officially known as Wisteria Island on nautical charts, is for the city to annex it and bring the island into its jurisdiction and out of unincorporated Monroe County.

That's because Monroe County's land-use plan, crafted after decades of legal battles with the state and environmentalists, has strict rules about building on "offshore islands," as those unconnected by bridges to other Keys are called.

Under the county's rules, you can build two homes on Christmas Tree Island, one for every 10 acres.

The city, were it to annex the island, could conceivably re-zone under a similar scheme as Truman Annex, historic redevelopment. That would allow a maximum of 168 new units.

Ginny Stones, attorney for the proposed developer, Ocean Properties, said that's way more than they would actually use and the developer plans to propose a new zoning category that would allow five units per acre. The proposed zoning mirrors Sunset Key (and Truman Annex) because that's the closest and most similar property. But the developer wants to look at zoning which would provide "substantially less than any density that exists in the city right now," she said.

The first reading of the ordinance to annex the island went through smoothly, approved on a 5-2 vote. The developers' annexation proposal assures the city that any development there would provide its own water (through desalination), power (through alternative energy and generators) and on-site sewage treatment.

The city planning staff recommended approval of the annexation -- even though "the annexation proposal does not address potential traffic and parking impacts associated with the proposed development either on the island or in Key West."

As far as the utilities go, Stones said the developers wanted to make sure the project could be supplied as a self-contained entity if necessary, and "make the issue as low impact for the city as possible."

Ocean Properties is the same company that developed the Westin Hotel and Sunset Key.  Wisteria, like Sunset Key, would be "part residential, part resort" but Stones said the general thinking is not to create a twin of Sunset Key. The feel at Wisteria would be less manicured, with more native vegetation and less imitation of Old Town.

Commissioner Bill Verge, whose district would include the island if it is annexed, was one of the two votes against it in the first reading. (The other was Commissioner Mark Rossi.)

"Give me one good reason why it should be done," Verge said this week.

The annexation ordinance mentions "expanding the tax base of the city of Key West" as one benefit. Several have pointed to Sunset Key, formerly known as Tank Island, the other spoil island in Key West Harbor that was developed a decade ago. Sunset Key, in 2006, brought the city $309,000 in property taxes.

And that's before the Legislature decides whether to limit the amount local governments can levy in property taxes. "If that gets chopped, we're going to sell ourselves out for $150,000 to $200,000 in taxes," Verge said.

"The project is just not thought out well. Its value on the books right now is $270,000. As soon as you do the annexation, the property becomes worth millions overnight. What's the city of Key West getting in return, other than an additional load on our infrastructure"

Since the annexation ordinance was approved on first reading May 1, a movement has been quietly growing to oppose the annexation, as a way to oppose development. The second and possibly final reading has been postponed until mid-July, when the entire commission can be there. A petition demanding that the island be zoned as green space by the city has gathered almost 1,000 signatures. Suanne Hitchar, a Key West resident since 1984 who lived on a boat near the island for two and a half years, said she's been telling a lot of people not to give up.

"People are so worn out with Key West, they think this is unstoppable," she said. But it's not your standard development proposal. "This is new and unusual. It hasn't been zoned. It's not even ours yet."

That's the same point -- from a different angle -- that Mayor Morgan McPherson makes. The discussion now should be about annexation and annexation only, he said. He favors annexation because, he said, the island is so close to Key West that "if anybody should have a say-so as to what happens out there, it should be the city."

If the island is developed similarly to Sunset Key, "I definitely would consider that an asset to our community," he said. But development, he said, is "a secondary issue. Unless the island's annexed, that's not even a consideration.

"People are already trying to answer questions before it's even up to us to make any decisions," he said. "They shouldn't be answered until it's up to us."

But the annexation ordinance contemplates changing the zoning of the island. It says the property owner would have 24 months to submit amendments to the city's land use map. After that, the ordinance states, the city "shall include the applicant's Future Land Use Map amendment within the City's next available comprehensive plan amendment cycle." So even at this early stage, it's not only about annexation.

Another question is what will happen to the anchorage that now surrounds the island. It's a major supply of affordable housing in a community desperately in need of affordable housing.

It's also private property, so those boaters are trespassing and have been for years.

McPherson said he'd love to see a city-regulated mooring field -- and that state environmental authorities are already worried about trash and sewage generated by boaters in that area. And he said the Bernsteins are the last people who should be accused of not caring about the community.

"There's no other family in the Keys that has done more than they have," he said. "The Bernsteins have always made community their first priority."

Roger Bernstein remembers his father building Lincoln Gardens in the 1960s, 400 trailer park units. His father sold the lots to the trailer owners for $4,000 apiece, $32 a month.

More recently, the family donated the land for Bernstein Park on Stock Island and helped develop Park Village.

Then there's the question of this island's ecological status, or importance.

It was created from spoil from harbor dredges, probably dating back to the 1800s, said Tom Hambright, historian with the Monroe County Library in Key West. It was added to during later dredging, up to World War II. "It's one of those things that grew over the years," Hambright said.

In 1960, another dredge was planned and the spoil was to be added to the island, "even though it was privately owned by that time," he said. "But the shrimp boat people primarily protested. It would have made a longer trip for them, coming out of the Bight."

Instead the spoil created a second island, Tank Island, which the Navy used and later sold to Singh as part of the Truman Annex property. Wisteria Island never belonged to the Navy. "It was just a dredger's island, part of the state submerged land sales," back when that was common.

The Bernstein family bought the island in 1967, adding 150 acres of surrounding baybottom in 1972. "It's manmade, scarified. It's covered with exotics," Roger Bernstein said. It has suffered damage from nature, especially the hurricanes of 2005, and from humans. "There's evidence of a very large fire at the center of the island," Bernstein said.

Development opponents say it still has natural value.

"It has, over the years, developed into its own ecosystem. I think it should be picked up by Florida Forever [the state land conservation program], either that or Monroe County should turn it into some sort of a park system," Verge said. "The city of Key West is reaching its maximum current development potential right now. We've got too many developments going on at the same time."

Left alone, the island developed major growths of exotic vegetation including Australian pines (about 18 acres), as well as some saltmarsh wetlands (about 1.8 acres) and mangrove wetlands (about 1.4 acres), according to a report prepared for the property owner by Consulting Engineering and Science, out of Miami.

The report describes a "series of site visits" late last year and early this year. "No state or federally protected animals were observed during the evaluation of the Wisteria Island property," the report states. "Because the habitats are disturbed and the island is isolated from other natural areas, the potential for use of the island by state or federally protected animals is unlikely."

The report goes on to say that "highly mobile species" like wading birds could get there "and may occasionally use portions of the island, especially the mangrove wetland, for foraging.  State-listed wading birds such as the White Ibis, great White Heron, Snowy egret and Little Blue Heron almost certainly use the island periodically, but were not observed."

I went to check out the island this week -- in 16 years in Key West I had never been there. The first thing I saw on approach was a great white heron. There was an osprey perched high up, keeping an eye on me. Later I saw a cormorant, a brown pelican, two more osprey and about a dozen white-crowned pigeons, a bird listed by the state (but not the federal government) as threatened.

And, it turns out, the island is included on the list of natural areas in Monroe County known as the FEMA list.

It's called that because the list is the result of a lawsuit brought by environmental groups against FEMA, claiming that the agency was encouraging development in Keys endangered species habitat by underwriting flood insurance.

The result was a court requirement to create a list of every property in the Keys that could possibly have habitat for endangered species and deny flood insurance for new building on those properties. So while the island remains on the FEMA list, new building there could not get flood insurance.

Henry Lee Morgenstern, the attorney who brought the FEMA case on behalf of environmental groups, said there are lots of reasons to challenge zoning and comp plan changes to the island.  "It should be difficult, if DCA does its job, for the island to be rezoned for the extensive kind of use they're talking about,' Morgenstern said.

He is not currently representing any of the individuals or groups opposing annexation or development, but said he thinks 160 units is a "terrible idea" for the island.

"I don't know where they're going to get water, sewer, police, fire. The people that live there are going to commute and have to park their cars somewhere. There already is not enough parking," Morgenstern said.

"There already is not enough open space, and to convert what is now a natural view to feeling like you're in downtown Miami -- if that's their vision of Key West, a crowded and urban downtown when they're advertising in all of their tourist advertising as being retreating to the  tropics -- it seems crazy."

nklingener@keysnews.com