KEY LARGO — Mobile-home park owners would be allowed to transfer building rights from their park property to another site under a proposal considered last week by the Monroe County Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission delayed voting on the change to land development regulations until its Oct. 10 meeting.

Under the proposal, drafted by the county's Workforce Housing Task Force, mobile-home park owners could transfer building rights off-site to build market-rate housing, provided they donate the original site to the county for construction of affordable housing.

Ray Fries, a resident of Seahorse Trailer Park in Big Pine Key, criticized the plan for allowing developers to leapfrog over people who have been waiting to build housing under the county's stringent rate-of-growth ordinance, or ROGO.

"You're giving developers the right to do these new units over top of people ... who have been waiting all this time," he said.

Seahorse, purchased by Boca Developers last year, was targeted for redevelopment under a plan that involved building affordable units at the Big Pine site and transferring some of the building rights to Rowell's Marina in Key Largo for pricey waterfront condominiums.

The proposal, called a "380 agreement" for a state statute that allows developers to negotiate special deals with local governments, was criticized by residents on both ends of the Florida Keys.

Fries said the proposed change to county land development regulations is no better than the previous proposal from Boca Developers.

"The new ordinance is doing nothing more than ratifying the 380 agreement," he said. "You're allowing a developer to come in and take our park away."

The county enacted a six-month moratorium on accepting applications for mobile home park redevelopment. That moratorium expires Nov. 16.

The proposed change requires an affordable development that replaces a mobile home park to include a mix of 25 percent very low-, 25 percent low-, 25 percent median- and 25 percent moderate-income residents. The County Commission could change those percentages.

Planning Commission Chairman Jim Cameron said the plan is aimed at encouraging mobile-home park owners to maintain the affordable aspect of their property, but said the state Department of Community Affairs must approve more affordable housing allocations for it to work. DCA oversees development in the Florida Keys, and decides how many new homes can be built each year.

"There are a lot of safeguards here. The idea behind this, as I understand it, is incentive — it's a way for us to try to maintain the park, not put anybody out," Cameron said. "This particular ordinance won't go anywhere unless we get more allocations from the state."

Planning Commissioner Sherry Popham said she was concerned that the building rights could be transferred from a mobile home park on one end of the Keys to a "receiver site" on the other end. That action was one of the most controversial aspects of Boca Developers' plan for the Seahorse and Rowell's developments.

Popham added that mobile-home park residents are displaced even when their former homes are being replaced by an affordable apartment or house.

"All of our alternatives and options seem to be an effort to build our way out of this affordable housing crisis," she said.

County officials claim there is a 7,317 affordable-home deficit, though there is no comprehensive data indicating the actual extent of the shortage, or what type of housing is needed where.