No higher, no more
Building height, density top list of area concerns in land use plan

The eventual implementation of a new community planning vision for the Lower Keys from Little Torch Key to Sugarloaf Key will probably include much of the status quo.

County planning staff and area residents have been working on the Liveable Communi-Keys plan for the area for more than four years. And residents are saying the same thing now they did when the process started.

Residents of the area have pulled no punches with county staff in asking that density of both residential and commercial development remain at least as low as it is today, and that intensity of uses, particularly commercial, remain no higher than it is now.

And, the residents also asked that current height restrictions remain in place.

County staff made yet another presentation of the draft LCP to residents recently.

“We updated the document to reflect existing conditions and tweaked the language to reflect more generic vision statements instead of policy directives,” said Mitch Harvey, county comprehensive plan manager.

When the LCP is completed, planners hope to have a guiding document against which further growth can be planned in the Lower Keys planning area.

“What the LCP will do is provide guidance to staff to plan consistency with the community vision laid out by the residents,” said Harvey.

No increases in density or intensity of use and continuing regulations on building height were issues espoused by a wide spectrum of Lower Keys participants in the several workshops and hearings already held.

But there were also more island specific concerns voiced.

Lower Sugarloaf Key has been quite interested in the possible redevelopment scenarios surrounding the Sugarloaf Lodge commercial center. Harvey said that staff plans to introduce an Activity Center Overlay district for both the lodge area and other Lower Keys commercial centers.

The overlay district, according to staff reports, would eliminate non-conforming commercial uses in areas where new zoning districts were put in place around older uses. The need to eliminate non-conforming uses is so that those uses can be rebuilt by the property owner should a storm destroy any or all of them.

Under current county policy, a non-conforming use that is substantially destroyed, considered to be 50 percent of its appraised value for repairs, cannot be rebuilt.

The activity center overlay would also for more flexible redevelopment of commercial centers.

Staff has also recommended that a community committee be formed, either district wide or island-specific, to look at existing land use policies and possibly recommend changes be made in the more long-term future.

Requests to relax permitting rules and use more “common sense” approaches to property redevelopment prompted that particular suggestion. However, the committee could also be tasked with things such as a highway beautification plan, sign regulations and sound attenuation buffers.

The draft plan also suggests that the county work with the Florida Department of Transportation to address bike path/intersection conflicts and proposed pedestrian crossings. It also suggests that county staff work with FDOT in drainage issues, particularly along the Summerland Key business corridor and with ingress/egress issues on Sugarloaf and Summerland Key.

FDOT has a plan on the books to address the Summerland Key drainage issues sometime next year, but that plan does not include changes to individual property ingress and egress.

The concerns of residents on Middle Torch and Big Torch Key were somewhat similar to the rest of the areas, but they were even more interested in maintaining the rural nature, in fact asking that no additional signage be erected on those two islands, along with no improvements to recreational access, no improvements to bike paths, and no commercial or industrial zoning.

Staff supported those wishes, but the final say will be held by the Board of County Commissioners in a few months.

According to Harvey, the draft version of the Lower Keys LCP will go to the Development Review Committee on Nov. 29. It will be heard, probably twice, by the county planning commission in December and January and might make it to the BOCC by February.

“It can get stalled anywhere along the line, but we hope to have the plan in place by summer next year,” said Harvey.

Those interested in looking at the recommendations for the Lower Keys planning area can find them on the county’s website under Planning & Environmental Resources using the Liveable Communi-Keys search.

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