Scrapping Tier 2 will harm conservation
For years, Monroe County
has been struggling to come up with a new growth management system,
something to replace the rate of growth ordinance, popularly known as
ROGO.
ROGO, adopted by the
county in the early 1990s, uses a point system to award building
permits. Monroe County, along with the municipal governments, has a
limited number of permits to give out each year.
Points were awarded based
on whether a lot was in an already scarified area, and whether the
proposed home used conservation-friendly building elements. Would-be
builders can also win points by buying lots for conservation.
For the past several
years, the county's growth management staff has been working on the
replacement for ROGO called the tier system. The county even formally
designated the tier system as its next growth management strategy in its
comprehensive land-use plan.
The tier system, as
proposed by county staff, would have divided undeveloped property in
unincorporated Monroe into three categories, or tiers. Tier 1 is the
most environmentally sensitive land, targeted for acquisition by the
state and county. Tier 2 was to have been the buffer area. Tier 3 was
the most scarified property.
The aim of the new system
was similar to that of ROGO, directing development toward the least
environmentally sensitive areas. It was also to bring clarity and
transparency to the growth management process. The idea was that once
the system was adopted and categories assigned, everyone would know
where they stood.
As the county staff has
developed the tier system, it has frequently taken a shellacking from
the public and the commission, who were concerned about the proposed
maps that assigned tiers to different areas of the Keys. The county
staff worked to double check and ground truth the maps. Members of the
public across the political spectrum from contractors to
environmentalists gave their input.
It looked like the county
was nearing a final approval of the system. Then last week, the County
Commission suddenly and unexpectedly took a sharp turn on the road and
reduced the number of tiers from three to two.
What used to be Tier 2 —
the area intended for transition and sprawl reduction — was scrapped.
Everything that is not Tier 1, targeted for conservation, is now Tier 3.
The move came as a
welcome one to developers and property rights advocates, and a blow to
conservationists, who were supportive of the tier system even if not
thrilled with its every permutation.
In the county's adopted
comprehensive plan, the goal of Tier 2 is laid out: "New development is
to be discouraged and privately owned vacant lands acquired or
development rights retired to reduce sprawl, ensure that the Keys
carrying capacity is not exceeded, and prevent further encroachment on
natural resources."
Instead, the commission
now is defining all of what used to be Tier 2 as the same as the
"infill" areas, where "new development and redevelopment are to be
highly encouraged."
The commission also took
steps to make it easier to build in Tier 1, the most environmentally
sensitive areas.
It's hard to understand
the commission's reasons for this change — unless it is to encourage
development in as many areas of the Keys as possible. The one part of
the Carrying Capacity Study that received wholehearted endorsement from
National Academy of Sciences reviewers was that the Keys have already
lost too much natural habitat.
It is true that
protecting what's left is a heavy burden for a small county — but that's
why the state of Florida has stepped in with significant funds in the
past, buying thousands of acres throughout the Keys from North Key Largo
to the pinelands of the Lower Keys.
It's too bad that the
County Commission, after years of work by its staff and participation
from the public, chose to make such a radical change in a system that
had potential to help guide future development in a commonsense way.
The new version of the
tier system is scheduled for another hearing June 14 in Marathon. We
hope that before then, commissioners (who voted unanimously in favor of
the change) think better of their actions and go back to refining the
three-tier system that has already received so much work and is outlined
in their own comp plan.
— The Citizen
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