380 agreement may violate code
BY ANN HENSON
Citizen Staff
Going by the book,
Monroe County commissioners violated their own code Tuesday when they
unanimously approved an agreement to redevelop a Stock Island mobile
home park.
The county approved
what's called a "380 agreement" for the Overseas Trailer Park.
Some call it a legal
way to do something illegal.
The agreement is a
three-way contract between the county, state and developer that allows
project approval in exception to ordinances. The state does not approve
such agreements if the deal doesn't favor the county. State laws
describe such an agreement as a way to bring two sides together when
there's an impass in a lawsuit.
"The state land
planning agency shall have power and the duty to enter into agreements
with any land owner, developer or governmental agency as may be required
to effectuate the provisions and purpose of this act or any rules
promulgated therein."
But county code
prohibits transferring building rights outside of planning areas. The
Overseas Trailer Park agreement allows market-rate housing units to be
transferred to an undetermined site. The county will pay the developer
$2.5 million to purchase the 3.5 acre tract, then lease it back to the
developer for $10 per year for 99 years. The developer plans to build 49
workforce homes on that land, which will sell in the mid $200,000s.
In a similar
redevelopment project, the Seahorse Mobile Home Park on Big Pine Key
would be turned into workforce housing in exchange for transferring the
market-rate housing units to Key Largo so the developer can build an
upscale condo/marina. That 380 agreement was pulled from the agenda and
tabled until next month's
County
Commission meeting
in Marathon.
Don Craig, owner of a
planning firm that carries his name, said the rules are not cut and
dried.
"A 380 agreement
applies to Areas of Critical State Concern and the agreement can be
entered into when it furthers the principles of guiding development," he
said. "There can be a certain amount of flexibility of the rules applied
to a certain situation. In the case of Overseas Trailer Park, what
happened was that though the county regulations are not in place to
allow the transfer of market-rate units from the property, the 380
allows the transfer to happen because the result [of 49 workforce homes]
is better than what is allowed by law."
Alicia Putney, an
environmentalist, has problems with 380 agreements.
"It concerns me when
the county relies on the vague language of chapter of 380, when it is
Chapter 163 that drives our comprehensive plan and county code that
specifically does not allow development agreements that are inconsistent
with our comprehensive plan or code," she said.
Assistant County
Attorney Jerry Sanders told commissioners at Tuesday's meeting that the
agreement says the market-rate units cannot be transferred out of the
planning area, which was at the request of the state Department of
Community Affairs.
Attorney Jerry Coleman
told the board that an ordinance is being prepared that would allow
market-rate building units to be transferred if they are connected with
affordable housing.
"The only change to
the ordinance is it's in conjunction with a developer providing
affordable housing and if they don't reach that agreement, the transfer
cannot take place," said Coleman.
Coleman said he
believes the tightly worded 99-year lease is an extremely important part
of the package, because it guarantees the homes will remain affordable.
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