But the Navy has a problem in early going

The U.S. Navy this week released the newest rendering of its noise and safety contour maps, putting a potential obstacle in the path of Cay Clubs and others looking to develop a project in the vicinity of Naval Air Station Key West.

Navy spokesman Jim Brooks and Ron Demes, the Navy's business manager and top civilian employee, say conceptual plans by Cay Clubs to convert a 40-acre parcel of undeveloped land on Boca Chica into an RV park is not compatible with the AICUZ.

The 2007 Air Installation Compatible Use Zone, or AICUZ, recommends the kinds of land use the county should allow around NAS based upon safety and noise levels.

“The AICUZ is not meant to be anti-development,” Brooks said. “It's all about compatible use.

“Land-use definitions in zoning tend to have different meanings. When the AICUZ say residential, that means habitating whether it's one day or a month.”

The chunk of land owned by the Alfred M. Sears Trust has seven deep-dredged canals known locally as the sub pens. The parcel is nestled in the middle of government land, accessible to U.S. 1 by a restricted access road across Navy land.

George Halloran, a long-time board member of Key West environmental organization Last Stand, says Cay Clubs came to his board hoping for support of its purchase and development of the parcel.

“They have asked us to support this whole idea because of what they considers the benefits,” Halloran said, “including long-term affordable housing at West Isle, space for commercial fishing and a public boat ramp access. We have concerns with the environmental aspects of it and with the objections that the Navy as well would have.”

Cay Clubs, he said, has presented a plan that would transfer more than 290 development rights from the West Isle Apartments in Key West to the Boca Chica site. Cay Clubs would seek to divide those rights into some 500 RV development rights and dedicate the existing West Isle for affordable housing.

Calls to Cay Clubs officials were not returned by press time Friday, and the company's ties to the West Isle complex are unclear.

Brooks says Cay Clubs is in the due-diligence process, but he says there are some serious problems with the compatibility, including the fact that the entire parcel is just under the approach of one of the NAS runways and considered an accident potential zone.

“One compatible use for that site might be environmental mitigation,” Brooks said.

New developments often require some sort of trade-off environmental improvement, and he says the sub-pens area could provide a kind of mitigation bank.

“We are still discussing with [Cay Clubs'] Dave Clark,” Halloran said, “about what we feel would be the most appropriate use for that area.”

The AICUZ may also have some impact on the proposed redevelopment of a number of Stock Island properties, including the eventual construction of 43 new luxury homes on Key Haven and the adjacent Enchanted Isle. Already the Navy has registered an objection to the proposed residential units at Kings Pointe at the old Oceanside Marina on Stock Island.

Outside of lodging objections, however, the Navy's recommendations don't have a lot of teeth.

“History is the best warning for developers who choose to ignore the military recommendations,” Brooks said. “Take the Naval Air Station Oceania in Virginia. Encroachment finally resulted in the base being closed.”

A full one third of salaries paid in the Keys, he said, are military payroll.