| The Monroe County Comprehensive Plan is required to
be periodically overhauled, and it's time. The process is being
kicked off this week with a series of meetings throughout the Keys.
The article below, from the April 5 Key West Citizen,
describes the process. Last Stand's
board of directors will be participating and we urge our members to
follow, as well as participate in, the process. The consultant the county hired for the
Comp Plan overhaul, a project which will last about four years, has
established a website for disseminating information about the project.
CLICK HERE
for the Keys Comp Plan site. |
Don't like it? Help change it
Monroe County seeks public input on
development regulations
BY TIMOTHY O'HARA Citizen Staff
tohara@keysnews.com
Development has long been a thorny issue in the
Florida Keys and has led to a political tug of war between
conservationists and property owners.
Environmentalists argue government agencies are not doing enough
to protect sensitive wetlands and endangered species. Landowners
and
developers contend there are too many rules preventing
development in the Keys.
Monroe County will begin taking public input this week on a
four-year, $1 million process to update the county's guiding
development rules. The
state requires city and county governments to evaluate their
comprehensive land use plans every seven years. As part of that
process,
governments must take public input, conduct a vacant land
analysis and evaluate development patterns, according to state
statutes.
The County Commission has hired the Fort Lauderdale-based
planning and engineering firm Keith and Schnars PA to update the
comprehensive plan,
and the group is holding three public meetings this week -- in
the Lower, Middle and Upper Keys -- to solicit input. The group
plans to ask
residents six questions that include why people came to the
Keys, what they like best and what are the most important
aspects of living here,
Keith and Schnars Vice President Michael Davis said.
"We plan to start out with an informal living room discussion on
what the comp plan is and why it is important," Davis said. "We
will then
talk about the components, land use, wastewater requirements, et
cetera. ... We want to identify the major issues."
Keith and Schnars also will meet with officials from the Florida
Keys Aqueduct Authority, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission
and other government agencies to obtain their input.
Community input is the most important aspect of the process,
County Administrator Roman Gastesi said.
"This is the community's plan and they should have input,"
Gastesi said. "A big component of the cost is taking public
input. We think it's worth
it."
Keith and Schnars may not be based in the Florida Keys, but they
contracted with local land-use experts to help develop comp plan
amendments. Key West-based land use planner Owen Trepanier,
Lower Keys marine planner Sandra Walters and former Marathon
city planner Debbie
Love are part of the team working on the amendments.
Love helped draft Marathon's first land-use plan shortly after
it incorporated. Trepanier was a Key West city planner and has
worked for
major developers such as Pritam Singh and a group that sought to
redevelop the waterfront along Safe Harbor on Stock Island.
Walters, who
has operated her own planning and environmental services
consulting business since the early 1980s, has worked on several
high-profile
projects and is the current chairwoman of the South Florida
Regional Planning Council.
One aspect of the comprehensive plan the county has been working
on in recent years is revamping regulations dealing with
preserving working
waterfronts and docks that cater to commercial fishermen. The
County Commission has been unable to reach consensus on the best
way to
preserve those uses.
The county spent several years working on the last proposal,
only to have it shot down by the state Department of Community
Affairs, which
oversees development in the Keys. The County Commission agreed
last year to take the amendments back to the drawing board.
The County Commission and the county planning staff most likely
will handle those comprehensive plan changes themselves, instead
of having
the outside form address them, Gastesi and commissioners have
said.
tohara@keysnews.com
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