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FLORIDA KEYS
Developers dealt a setback
Environmentalists got a big win by stopping a developer-backed effort to
remove Keys development from state scrutiny.
BY MARC
CAPUTO AND
JENNIFER BABSON
mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com
TALLAHASSEE -
Aided by a group of powerful Republicans, environmentalists won a major
fight Monday to keep a lid on development in the fragile habitat of the
Florida Keys -- at least for now.
A coalition of environmental groups won enough votes from a state Senate
committee to keep the Keys under close state scrutiny until 2009 to
ensure that the water is cleaned up, the environment protected, more
affordable housing built and building proceeds slow enough to keep roads
clear for safe hurricane evacuations.
Developers, the majority of the Monroe County Commission and state Rep.
Ken Sorensen, a Tavernier Republican, wanted the state to butt out of
the Keys development scene as early as October 2007. But they didn't
have the votes.
''What a shame,'' said a stunned Murray Nelson, a county commissioner
who pressed vigorously for the plan to remove the Keys next year from
the designation as an Area of Critical State Concern, which has given
the state broad oversight on development since 1975.
''I can't even believe it,'' Nelson said. ``This had gone through every
committee, and the Senate was supporting it and the governor was
supporting it. . . . Gee whiz. If they are going to make it 'til 2009,
it's not really de-designation because anything can happen between now
and then.''
And that's exactly what 1,000 Friends of Florida, Audubon of Florida and
the World Wildlife Fund wanted when they picked up enough votes on the
Senate Environmental Preservation Committee to either kill the bill or
shape it to their liking. Joining them were a few Republican big guns:
former Everglades czar Allison DeFoor, power lawyer Thom Rumberger of
the Everglades Trust and Keys fishing guide Mike Collins, a South
Florida Water Management District appointee of Gov. Jeb Bush.
They predicted a ''stampede of development'' were the state to undo
designation of the Keys next year -- before the County Commission had a
chance to clearly demonstrate that it would continue building affordable
housing as well as a central sewer system to stop leaky cesspits from
fouling the water.
Under the complex and byzantine rules of the Area of Critical State
Concern designation, the governor and Cabinet could lift the state
oversight every year. But the
County
Commission
could never successfully persuade them that it was making enough
progress to be left to its own devices.
Now, under the legislation approved Monday, the county will still have
to meet all of its benchmarks -- but the review to critical-concern
designation will be in 2009 rather than annually.
''This buys us time. It buys the Keys time. If the past is any
indication, the County Commission will never be able to meet this,''
said Debra Harrison,
South Florida
program director for the World Wildlife Fund.
The sponsor of the legislation, former Keys Mayor Sorensen, downplayed
the concessions. He said he made them to ensure that, for the first
time, the state finally looks at an end game to managing development in
the Keys.
''The problem is that for 32 years everybody has been at each other's
throats. Now we see the end. And, trust me, the Keys will get the job
done,'' Sorensen said, pointing to a $424 million spending plan approved
by local governments just to clean up the wastewater.
Sorensen said he is frustrated by environmentalists when they suggest
that the state needs to list the Keys as an area of concern because it
brings money.
Sorensen, responsible for winning millions of dollars for the Keys year
after year, pointed out that it takes a savvy politician to get money in
the budget.
''It's a food fight up here,'' he said. ``Nothing is guaranteed.''
Except for one thing: Suspicions of Monroe County.
With a former mayor pleading guilty in connection to an alleged zoning
scam and a federal investigation into another project winding up,
residents of the Keys have long looked at politicians and developers
with a jaundiced eye.
After the county made plans to lift the critical-concern designation,
one activist paid for a poll of 400 Keys voters that reportedly showed
82 percent of residents opposed the idea. |
