GUEST EDITORIAL: The Key West Height Referendum
This legislation is a proactive measure to protect our homes against flood waters. Today, 85% of the City of Key West is in the regulated floodplain. The majority of New Town and Mid Town homes are 2-3’ below floodplain. Although a section of Old Town is in the X- zone, over 50% of all Old Town properties lie 1-3’ below flood. We collectively pay over $ 11,800,000 in annual flood premiums paid by 7,792 Key West flood policy holders.
Passage of this referendum provides an opportunity for a homeowner currently at or below flood to raise their home a maximum of 4’ out of the floodplain. This will not create “high rises” in Key West and is certainly not a “developers dream”. This is not an opportunity to build more floors on current homes; it is an opportunity to raise your current floor joist system out of flood waters. The 40’ cap was instituted to assure that we maintain our height characteristics. Homes in the HARC district must obtain HARC approval to raise their “below base flood elevation” homes. This adds another level of scrutiny assuring that the historic district will maintain our unique and historic character and property values.
I will tell you what changes the character of a Community however! It is losing over 500 Key West families during the 2 years post-Wilma. It is families who no longer qualify for mortgages.
Beyond protection of your home, family and possessions, passage of this referendum will improve our CRS class rating reducing all of our flood premium rates. The CRS or Community Rating System was created by FEMA in 1990 as a voluntary program for recognizing and encouraging community floodplain management activities. City staff has been improving our rating by aggressively administering FEMA regulations, hiring our Floodplain Administrator, requiring elevation certificates and seeking additional federal funding to assist our 228 Key West repetitive loss properties. This rate reduction could be as much as 15%, whether you raise your home or not.
The Biggert-Waters act should have been a wakeup call for all of us. There will be additional Federal legislation coming to address flood prone properties. They have to! FEMA is $24 billion dollars in debt.
With the anticipated 9”-24” sea level rise we must take pro-active measures to protect our homes while maintaining our character. Passing this referendum will give us that opportunity.
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NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: Many residents have expressed concerns over how the building height exemption would apply to new buildings if the referendum were to pass. This year the City began recieving ROGO building allocations again and many of the buildings in new town in the Single Family zoning areas are concrete homes that will be difficult if not impossible to raise so that, at some point, those homes can be expected to be torn down and rebuilt. So, those are two avenues by which we will see new buildings constructed in Key West. It is important to understand the implications of this referendum in terms of how it would be applied to new buildings.
We had the opportunity to speak with both Commissioner Teri Johnston and Planning Director Don Craig about the referendum this week. Both have assured us that the following interpretation is correct: EXEMPTIONS APPLIED TO NEW BUILDINGS WILL BE LIMITED TO NO MORE THAN THREE FEET ABOVE THE ZONING HEIGHT RESTRICTION
New buildings will be required to be designed to conform with the current mandatory elevation laws [new buildings must be elevated to base flood elevation [BFE] – as per FEMA – plus one additional foot of what is called “freeboard”. The referendum -if passed- would allow homeowners who build new homes to voluntarily add an additional [up to] three feet of “freeboard” beneath their homes to raise them even further than what is already required. For new homes, ONLY this additional [up to] three feet of freeboard will be eligible for this height exemption if the referendum passes. Additionally there is a 40′ overall cap that will apply in cases where the [up to] three feet of freeboard would exceed that 40′ limit.
The referendum language is as follows:
“To protect property against flooding and reduce flood insurance costs for taxpayers citywide, should the City permit an exception to building height regulations when buildings are voluntarily raised off the ground, up to four feet above FEMA established flood levels, yet no more than 40 feet in height?” [emphasis added]
Vote NO on the building height referendum question!!! Do the math. One story house is 10 feet high. A pitched roof adds 8 feet. That’s 18 feet total. You can raise it ten feet off the dam ground and still only be 28 feet high!!!
who needs 40 feet? Hotels. period. It’s a commercial trick and the beginning of the end for KW ambiance.
I disagree with the previous comment and strongly urge a YES vote on the height referendum.
Having carefully followed both the development of the referendum’s language and the resulting interpretation of same (read Commissioner Johnston’s explanation again), passage of the height referendum is a good thing. Homeowners and renters will benefit from increased storm surge safety and lower flood insurance premiums.
Yes, all of us will have to monitor how the Planning Department implements the revised height policy, assuming the referendum passes. However, a YES on the referendum is a win-win for Key West.
I have some thought, but first I have a question I hope Teri and the blue paper can answer, which I will begin with saying the mid-town in which I rent a room sits on a concrete slab and cannot be raised up without destroying it. Suppose the referendum passes. Will this homeowner, if she wishes and can afford, be able to get a permit to tear down her home, and a permit to built an elevated new home on the same lot, without going through the ROGO process? I think if her home were destroyed by a hurricane, she could, if she could afford it, build a new home, elevated, without going through the ROGO process? Thanks.
Sloan, the referendum doesn’t affect ROGO in any way. An existing building has a ROGO unit associated with it and can be rebuilt without applying for a new ROGO allocation. To build a home on a vacant lot that doesn’t already have a ROGO unit assigned to it one would need a new ROGO allocation.
Thanks, that’s what I thought was the case. Which brings me to my thoughts about the building height referendum, if it passes.
Using my landlady again as an example of many similarly situated Key West homeowners…
Her home is built on a slab and cannot be raised without being destroyed. She cannot afford to demolish her home and build a new, elevated home. The referendum does not help her, unless it enables her to sell her home more easily and/or at a higher price to a rich person/developer. If she sells her home, where does she then live in Key West? Or does she move somewhere else? The city has no data on how many such homeowners as my landlady are in Key West. Several thousand?
If a rich person owns a home which cannot be elevated without destroying it, where does the rich person live while the home is being torn down and a new, elevated home built in its place?
What about homes which can be elevated? How many people owning such homes in Key West can afford to elevate their homes? And where do do they live while their homes are being elevated? The city has no data on how many such homes exist. Several thousand?
What about buildings other than homes? Many of those buildings cannot be elevated without being destroyed. Some of those buildings can be elevated. But can the present owners afford either procedure? If not, do they hang in there, or do they sell to a rich person/developer?
If the referendum passes, I would be surprised to learn of anyone I know, who owns a home or building in Key West, taking advantage it. If the referendum passe, I would not be surprised to see lots of homes and buildings go on the real estate market, if not right away, then in due course.
I still say developers are really hoping this referendum will pass. If does pass, it will help people already owning homes and other buildings sell same, if they cannot afford to elevate or tear down and rebuild elevated.
From Mother Nature’s perspective, Key West and the Florida Keys are seriously over-developed, and probably the only sure way to stop further development is for the US Government to stop providing flood insurance down here.
The US Government never should have gotten into the business of providing flood insurance in flood-prone areas, and the sooner that stops, the better for the US Treasury and Mother Nature.
Going green is a big-time mantra in many segments of Key West society, including the city government. Same in the county government. However, going green in the pleasing Mother Nature sense historically takes a back seat to people and local governments losing green in the US greenbacks sense.