Habitat Preservation

Affordable Housing

Last Stand has taken many positions favoring affordable housing over the years.  We support sensible and reasonable solutions to the affordable housing problem.  The problem is not just in the Keys; Last Stand did not create the nationwide "housing bubble".

Because we're challenging a proposed state rule change to increase the rate of development in unincorporated Monroe County and Marathon (not Key West), some of our developer-critics say Last Stand "is opposed to affordable housing".  They say that because a number of permits that would be allowed by the rule change we challenged would be designated for workforce housing.  But those are permits in addition to the established annual permit allocation, the rate-of-growth that was established in the Keys for very good reasons, none of which are going away. 

The Comprehensive Plan calls for the county's building allocation to be reduced if goals related to environmental protection, wastewater, and ironically, affordable housing, are not met.  The county has fallen short of its goals for years.  In fact, affordable permit allocations went unused for several recent years, because developers were making money hand over fist building luxury projects and didn't want to bother with building housing on which they'd make less profit.  Now we are expected to accept an increase in the overall rate of development in order to address affordable housing.

Last Stand simply does not buy the premise that an increase in the overall rate of growth in the Keys is the answer, and being opposed to such an increase does not mean we oppose affordable housing.  

The efforts to protect our natural habitat are not the cause of the affordable housing crisis.  Rather, wrong-headed local government policy, and greed on the part of developers who for years ignored affordable housing needs, got us where we are today.  There has always been a need for affordable housing, but need was ignored in favor of the market for more profitable development.

The very officials and special development interests who are maligning Last Stand for our defending the natural environment are largely to blame for the current situation, and they expect everyone to believe that further sacrificing the Keys' environment is the only solution.  We beg to differ.

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18-Mile Stretch Safety

Last Stand supports sensible safety improvements to the 18-Mile Stretch.  We did oppose 4-laning it because that would only move serious traffic problems that much farther down the Keys.  Without determined resolve on the part of the county to limit population growth in the Keys, any hurricane evacuation improvement gained would automatically be lost by increased growth it would allow by reducing evacuation time. 

Safety on the 18-Mile Stretch could have been significantly improved without major wetland destruction, and without the ~300 million dollar price tag of the current project.  As for hurricane evacuation, the 18-Mile Stretch already has an additional lane, in the form of Card Sound Road.  Traffic on The Stretch is the fastest anywhere in the Keys, and The Stretch is not an evacuation bottleneck.

Many effective safety enhancements could have been made on The Stretch years ago without being challenged.  Strict enforcement of speed limits is the most obvious.  The 18-Mile Stretch ought to be the most famous speed trap in the US, but it's a racetrack.  Excessive speed is the killer.  Physical barriers to prevent head-on collisions could have been installed years ago, at small expense and little or no environmental impact. 

(Incidentally, although we expressed opposition to the phenomenally wasteful project that is now underway, Last Stand was not a party in the legal action which delayed it.)

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Tourism

Nobody doubts that tourism is vital to the local economy.  Last Stand recognizes that.  Many of our members make at least part of their living from tourism.  Tourism helps keep taxes lower; it's commonly held that without tourism, Florida would have a state income tax.  Tourism is a relatively clean industry, and we'd be fools to try to eliminate it. 

But the needs of the tourist industry must be balanced against the needs of the resident community and the natural environment.  In many instances, the needs of visitors and residents overlap, but not always.  (And often, the needs of neither visitors nor residents are compatible with the needs of a healthy environment.)  The desirability of being in the Keys, whether for 2 days or a lifetime, depends hugely on the natural environment.  Lower Duval Street is not all there is to the Keys.

There's no question that the "charge what the traffic will bear" character of the tourist economy is part of why housing is out of reach of working people.  A finely-tuned tourism economy is a two-edged sword.

In one of our Keys in the Balance programs, we dared to ask the question:   Tourist Development: Are We There Yet?  (LINK)   The tourist industry was included on the panel, as well as resident panelists who expressed the view that we have either enough tourists or too many.  Nobody expressed a view that we shouldn't have tourism.  Last Stand did not tell anyone what to believe; the panel was balanced.

All the panelists were asked if there could be such a thing as too many tourists, and whether tourist advertising has been effective.  All said that advertising has been effective, some saying "too effective".  Four of the six panelists said that there is such a thing as too many tourists and that we've reached that point, and the other two had "no opinion" on that question.

A survey conducted by Monroe County in 2000 asked "Should Monroe County try to attract: More visitors, Same number of visitors, or Fewer visitors?".  The response: an overwhelming 80% wanted the Same number or Fewer, with 2/3 of those choosing "Fewer".  Just under 15% wanted More tourists, and 5% were undecided.  That was Monroe County residents saying that, not Last Stand. 

Last Stand has never asked that tourism be curtailed, though we have asked that more of the bed tax be spent on capital projects (including things that residents can enjoy) and less on advertising.  And we reserve the right to raise questions such as "when is enough enough?".

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Habitat Preservation

Last Stand closely followed development of the Florida Keys Carrying Capacity Study, and some of our members participated in the Carrying Capacity Study Implementation Working Group.  Completed in 2001 at a cost of $6 million, the study concluded that upland terrestrial habitat (hardwood hammocks, pinelands) in the Keys, habitat for many threatened and endangered species, cannot withstand further development pressures without ecosystem collapse.

Last Stand participated in two years of meetings, workshops and hearings at the county level, in the process to implement the findings of the Carrying Capacity Study in retooling county development regulations, intended to direct future development away from environmentally sensitive land.  (Also required by the county's Comprehensive Plan.)  The revised county plan for doing this came to be the Tier System.  If applied correctly, the Tier System could be an improvement over the previous point system used to determine eligibility for a building permit under ROGO (Rate-of-Growth Ordinance -- the Tier System doesn't replace ROGO; it just establishes a new & improved means of directing new development into already scarified areas).  We participated in the process at the table with county officials and developers.  Last Stand argued for stronger environmental protection, and many compromises were made.  When a much-weakened Tier System came before the County Commission for approval, we supported it, although it was already a  compromise.  Slick maneuvering by development interests got the County Commission to further gut much of the environmental protections in the final version passed In August.  Then at its September meeting, the BOCC was asked by Commissioner Murray Nelson to modify what they had unanimously approved in August, to even further weaken environmental protection.  More bait-and-switch.

This further makes the case for us that our challenge to the rule allowing an increased rate-of-growth is valid.

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Cruise Ships

Cruise ships are part of the tourist economy.  That cannot be denied.  Last Stand, through legal action, caused the city of Key West to commission the Quality-of-Life study, to examine impacts, positive and negative, on the local community.  A task force of Last Stand members is analyzing the findings reported in the Study.  Based on their report, Last Stand will be working with the city to develop Study-based recommendations for action by the City.  Last Stand recognizes the importance of Key West as a cruise port, but we remain active trying to hold the city to disembarkation limits it set for itself, and we strive to see that the balance be maintained between economics and quality-of-life. 

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Transient Rentals

Last Stand strongly advocates limiting the number of housing units used for transient (or vacation) rentals, and we strongly encourage aggressive city and county enforcement of the regulations. 

Transient rentals are a problem that go with tourism, and a problem that local governments have difficulty addressing.  There are many neighborhoods in which transient rental "mini-hotels" are incompatible with neighborhood character and residents' quality of life, such as rights to the enjoyment of their privacy.  Vacation rentals also have a high impact on utilities -- people paying $2,000+ a week aren't likely to conserve power or water.  Transient rental occupancy is often more intense than would be a family or individual renting a unit; that's more people bathing, more people flushing toilets, more people partying down and making noise in our closely-spaced neighborhoods.

Transient rentals work against affordability of housing for working people.  Show us a housing unit that's rented by the week, and we'll show you a housing unit that's not available for long-term rental that a working person could afford.

The proliferation of market-rate housing in the Monroe County has encouraged vacation rentals as well as absentee ownership, a double-strike against affordability of housing.  Absentee owners are more able to swing a 2nd home in the Keys if an agent can rent it out for them short-term for big bucks.  Many new condo units resulting from conversions will be used for transient rentals.  The profit motive along with short-sighted government policies continue to work against affordability while developers try to pin the blame on environmentalists.

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