Keys eye thousands of new permits
BY LAURIE KARNATZ
Citizen Staff
The final meeting of the
Monroe County Hurricane Evacuation Working Group, set for Friday, is
likely to clear the way for thousands of new building permits for the
Florida Keys.
The group, created last
year by the state Department of Community Affairs and comprising
officials from the county and Keys cities, was charged with analyzing
hurricane evacuation issues and developing strategies to reduce
hurricane clearance times.
Since 1992, new
residential construction in the Keys has been limited based on a
requirement that evacuation not take more than 24 hours. Exceeding the
clearance time could put a halt to new building permits, while reducing
the clearance time below the 24-hour threshold would allow the state to
increase the number of new residential building permits that could be
awarded each year.
In September, at the
group's first meeting, state officials revealed that the county had
slightly exceeded the 24-hour requirement. But based on recommendations
made by the group in December, it appears that the current 371 annual
permits available Keyswide could be dramatically increased.
What's not clear is just
how many new building permits will be allowed. Rumors over the past week
have put the number as high as 14,000, but specifics — though promised
by DCA staff last month — are not yet available.
"The big thing that we
want to know is how many permits are they talking about over what time
period? That is the crux of it," said former National Weather Service
meteorologist and Cudjoe Key resident Dennis Henize.
On Tuesday, Monroe County
Growth Management Director Tim McGarry said the number would be in the
"thousands," but expressed doubt that they'd be released in any
wholesale fashion. Instead, he said, he expects any new permits to be
released over a number of years.
But some in the Keys
question the methods used for arriving at the reduced evacuation times,
referring to it as a shell game. Others claim any Keys evacuation plan
is a sham because it ends at the Miami-Dade County line without taking
into account a possible exodus of mainland residents as a storm
approaches.
John Hammerstrom, an
Upper Keys community activist, said the reduced clearance times are the
result of "irresponsible manipulation" of data contained in a
three-year-old evacuation model created by a consultant for the state
Department of Transportation.
"No manipulation of the
[evacuation model] considers the rampant growth in Miami-Dade County and
its impact on our safety; and no responsible official can say honestly
that Monroe County's evacuation problems have been improved by this
paper shuffle," Hammerstrom wrote in a Jan. 24 letter to members of the
working group.
Others have pointed out
that the primary tool being used to reduce evacuation time is so-called
"phased evacuation," which begins 48 hours ahead of a storm with the
evacuation of tourists.
Phased evacuation of the
Keys has been in place for a number of years with local officials
working closely with the tourism industry to ensure visitors leave 24
hours ahead of residents. State officials, however, offered to use it as
part of the clearance time improvements if the county and Keys cities
would include it in their land-use plans.
That action appears to
fly in the face of earlier recommendations by state officials to "avoid
paper solutions" to the evacuation conundrum.
"We've always done
[phased] evacuation," said Henize.
Henize also pointed to
shifting numbers from meeting to meeting.
Based on information
provided by the DCA, some of the data used to come up with the new
clearance time includes a reduction — from 65 percent to 45 percent — in
expected hotel occupancy rates during hurricane season. But other data
presented by the DCA indicated that "actual hotel occupancy rates in
summer" were 75 percent.
Other data relies on 100
percent of visitors leaving the Keys when they're asked, despite the
fact that a survey presented by the DCA showed 38 percent of visitors
ignore the request to leave before a storm.
"Any additional permits
because of this reshuffling of hurricane numbers is too many because
there's absolutely nothing about this process that really shows an
improvement," Henize said.
lkarnatz@keysnews.com |
