Land plan headed to state

By Steve Estes

The visioning process for the Lower Keys from Little Torch to Sugarloaf Keys is in the home stretch.

During a special meeting of the Monroe Board of County Commissioners Monday, the Liveable Communi-Keys Plan for the Lower Key area is expected to be approved for transmittal to the state Department of Economic Opportunity. The old Department of Community Affairs, the overseer for land use activities in the Keys, with its designation as an Area of Critical State Concern, is now contained in the DOE.

With the transmittal, both DOE and local residents will get up to 60 days to review the proposal and make comments.

The LCP has been on the drawing board for more than five years, starting with a series of resident meetings, then a series of island-specific meetings to get input on whwat those residents wanted for the future of their islands.

And the input was generally similar across the spectrum.

Almost to a person, residents in the area from Little Torch Key to Sugarloaf Key asked that future land use rules maintain the rural character of the area, and that increases in density, residential and commercial, be discouraged.

They also asked that stronger safeguards be built into the county’s comprehensive land use plan against the development of buildings taller than 35 feet.

Once implemented, the LCP becomes a part of the county’s comprehensive plan, according to County Comprehensive Planner Mitch Harvey.

The LCP provides a framework for planners to evaluate development requests in the future. When the county receives a development request, planners compare it to the adopted LCP to see if the project would meet the vision of the islands.

According to Harvey, the LCP makes few changes because the Lower Keys area under consideration already has significant safeguards against increasing residential and commercial density and building height.

In the plan, residents asked that county officials encourage practices that would revitalize the commercial centers of the various islands. Harvey said the primary business areas are US 1 along Summerland Key, a small stretch of US 1 along Cudjoe Key and the Sugarloaf Lodge and resort area.

The plan also outlines methods for controlling invasive exotic plants and continuing the purchase of environmentally sensitive parcels to protect against future development.

The area of the proposed LCP is one of the least developed in the Keys with only about 25 percent of the total land available actually developed in some fashion.

Denser islands like Little Torch and Summerland Key are offset by sparsely developed islands such as Middle Torch and Big Torch Keys.

County officials will take public input at Monday’s meeting, and residents will have a final chance to chime in on their thoughts about the plan when it returns from DOE in two to three months.

After that, the LCP will become part of the county’s comprehensive land use plan, barring changes from the comment period.