Regional Planning Council: Preservation proposal too vague, hotel doesn't belong

Some last-minute additions last month to an ordinance aimed at preserving Monroe County's working waterfront might have sunk the whole idea, or at least slowed it substantially.

The South Florida Regional Planning Council plans to object to the pending ordinance when it meets Nov. 5 in Hollywood.

The County Commission unanimously passed the ordinance in September. It provides incentives to landowners to maintain existing uses ranging from boat repair to fish houses. The ordinance would amend the county's comprehensive plan.

The proposal now rests with state Department of Community Affairs. That agency is collecting comments until a Dec. 8 deadline.

“It's not clear ... how natural resources would be protected,” according to a memo outlining the Regional Planning Council's objection.

The memo also says the ordinance doesn't make clear how maritime uses would be preserved if new residential and public lodging establishments are allowed on the waterfront.

Plans for a large chunk of Stock Island include residential units as well as a hotel. David Paul Horan, an attorney for the Safe Harbor landowners including Charlie Renier, convinced the County Commission to include an addendum to the ordinance at the last minute at the Sept. 19 commission meeting. The addendum would allow for a hotel where zoning now precludes it.

The proposal didn't go over well with a number of people at the meeting, including Monroe County Planning Commissioner Sherry Popham and County Commissioner Sylvia Murphy.

“Since when do landowners, developers and their attorneys write up things to go to the DCA?” Murphy asked. “Why does this not have to go to the Planning Commission?”

Horan pointed out that the plans for the waterfront include commercial fishing.

Despite concerns, the commission approved the add-on allowing the hotel to meet a DCA deadline.

DCA spokesman Jon Peck says the Regional Planning Council's objection to the waterfront ordinance will be heeded.

“It carries a considerable weight,” Peck said Tuesday. “It's not the final determining factor, but as an agency we support the idea of a regional perspective on things.”

“We're going to work on having some very specific language that we would suggest they include [in the ordinance],” said Carolyn Dekle, executive director of the Regional Planning Council.

“This is the time we can articulate what our concerns are,” she said. “Monroe County is in a situation that many or most counties are in, which is that we're having competing interests competing for use of the waterfront.”

The council also objects to the ordinance because it contains “vague language” and because it has no clear means of implementation.

Monroe County has been working for years to come up with a way to protect the working waterfront so luxury residences don't replace traditional commercial uses that support the fast-disappearing fishing industry.

If DCA does not approve the ordinance, the agency will send it back to the County Commission for further work.