Housing chair pitches height waiver
BY ANN HENSON
Citizen Staff
The county's affordable
housing task force chairman ventured into a political minefield when he
asked the County Commission if it would relax height limits on
construction of affordable housing.
Height restrictions have
been in place in unincorporated Monroe County since the 1980s and have
been credited for saving the county from becoming another Miami, with
huge high-rise buildings.
Two feet could mean the
difference between building 69 or 140 homes for low- and very low-income
residents from Key
Largo to
Key West,
said Jerry Coleman, an attorney the county hired to address its
affordable housing crisis.
"If we are going to do
affordable housing in this county, some allowances have to be made,"
Coleman said.
The Carlisle Group, which
plans to build affordable housing in several areas of the Keys, will
lose state grant money if it cannot get a variance to construct
buildings 37 feet high, 2 feet taller than is currently allowed, he
said. The 2 feet would allow more units to be built.
Coleman said the Carlisle
Group builds affordable housing with grant money that requires at least
50 units be constructed. Applications are due in January or February but
there can be no contingencies on the property.
"Either you have things
in place or you don't," Coleman said.
The height waiver also
might help with construction of affordable housing above stores.
"What I am looking at in
the future is building over the Kmarts, but you would have to put
columns because they were not built to have additional floors," he
added.
With commissioners Dixie
Spehar and Glenn Patton in favor of easing the restrictions, Coleman
needs one more vote to win approval. Mayor Sonny McCoy has advised
Coleman to develop a rationale based on aesthetics if he wants to win
over commissioners.
"You must predicate the
exemption on something," McCoy said. "I created this whole thing when I
was mayor of Key West. I took the tree canopy as a determining height;
if you are arbitrary you will get a fight just for the sake of the
fight.
"Predicate it on
something that has aesthetic concerns, not economic concerns," McCoy
said.
Key West
voters will be asked to ease height restrictions for affordable housing
during the Sept. 5 primary election. The binding referendum question
asks voters to allow the City Commission to make variances to its height
restrictions, which range from 25 feet to 40 feet depending on the
zoning district, without having to ask voters first.
Coleman said Marathon was
going to allow exemptions, although Fred Gross, the city's planning
director, said there were no plans to waive the city's 37-foot height
limit.
Spehar said the
County
Commission should
allow the variance, but Commissioner George Neugent said the commission
must be careful about such decisions.
"If you want my approval,
bring something with strong teeth and justification to do so," he said.
Neugent said it is not
necessary to go above the current height limit and that Coleman is
inviting "the biggest war and putting affordable housing at risk by
doing this. I see ongoing litigation, challenges at [the state] level
and in the courts."
Coleman said when dealing
with affordable housing, the county needs to make the most of the land
available by giving density bonuses, height allowances and public
subsidies.
"These are tools for
making affordable housing happen," he said.
Spehar argued the height
allowance would be used for "mom and pop" businesses to put a second or
third floor above their stores.
"I strongly support the 2
feet," she said. "It also is a gabled roof instead of a flat top."
Patton said a height of
37 feet was not unreasonable. "We have condos greater than 35 feet," he
said.
ahenson@keysnews.com
(Note: A correction
was published the following day, noting that Jerry Coleman is legal
counsel for the Task Force, not its chair.) |
