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> Florida Keys Area of Critical State Concern
Habitat and Lands:
Florida Keys Area of Critical State Concern
Our Position: monitor
Bill Number: SB2098/HB1299
Sponsor: Senator Mike Bennett and Representative Ken Sorenson
Legislative Session: 2006
7/5/06: Approved by Governor; Chapter No. 2006-223; See also HB 749 (Ch. 2006-252) on Thursday, June 15, 2006 9:22 AM
4/27/06, SB2098 substituted for House bill 1299 & passed 4/28 and sent to Governor
The Florida Keys were designated an Area of Critical State Concern in 1974. This status provided Governor and Cabinet oversight on local land use decisions made by the local government. This oversight provides for protection from adverse impacts to wildlife refuges, state parks and aquatic preserves, coral reef system, wetlands and more. Even with this oversight and required ACSC designated standards, the local government has not done a good job with building wastewater facilities; protecting the natural habitat; providing for affordable housing; updating hurricane evacuation routes and more.
A survey done by Lakes Research, found that 82% of respondents sampled oppose the removal of the ACSC designation. 52% believe that the Florida Keys environment has gotten worse over the past 5 years.
Status
7/5/06: Approved by Governor; Chapter No. 2006-223; See also HB 749 (Ch. 2006-252) on Thursday, June 15, 2006 9:22 AM 4/28/06: Senate passed HB1299 and now the bill is on the way to the Governor.
4/27/06: Senate bill laid on table and substituted for HB1299.
4/25/06: The House version HB1299 passed out of the House on 4/20/06, with 26 NO VOTES. Now in Senate messages; Senate bill on Senate Special Order 4/27/06. 4/20/06: The Senate version SB2098 still has to go to Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations on 04/24/06. The House version passed the House today, Thursday. See the vote here. 4/18/06: Senate version is up in Government Efficiency Appropriations.
4/11/06: 4/3/06: passed with amendments supported by Audubon, Everglades Trust, WWF. The bill passed with amendments agreed to by several environmental organizations and the sponsors of the bill. Basically the bill extends the ACSC designation up to 2009 (instead of dissolving it immediately) and gives the parties the opportunity to actually fulfill the requirements/standards as an ACSC. Click here to read one of the Senate adopted amendments: barcode 033618 the other Senate adopted amendment: barcode 930672 Click here for the bill history SB2098 Click here for the bill history HB1299
Action Needed
Contact your legislator and tell them: In the thirty years since the Keys were designated as a critical area, there has been little progress made. There is less habitat and the water is more polluted. Don't let them take away state protections. If anything, instruct the members to require the local government to abide by the requirements of the Area of Critical State Concern requirements.
Background
Article published Apr 3, 2006
Development, protection of Keys pushed
By Aaron Deslatte
CAPITOL BUREAU Tallahassee Democrat
In 34 years, Jean Borel has restored homes on the Florida Keys, opened a French restaurant in the 1970s called Chez Emile and become an environmentalist. Today, the string of islands that draws millions of tourists worldwide for scuba diving, sportfishing and street parties looks a lot like it did decades ago. She credits this to the heavy-handed role state government has been forced to play to cause the Keys to clean up its image. ''It doesn't have the over-development,'' Borel says. ''It's kind of kept the low-rise character of the Keys.'' Now lawmakers, Gov. Jeb Bush and Keys lawmakers feel it's time to cut Monroe County loose. They are pushing legislation to let the local government start making its own development decisions. Unlike most local governments, the Florida Keys have been designated an environmental disaster in the making since lawmakers stripped it of local growth decision-making in 1979 and mandated it address pollution, affordable housing and wildlife habitat problems. But the state development limits have also kept away the high-rises that have engulfed the rest of South Florida. Borel and other environmentalists testified Monday that the state should give up its only legal weapon to force the Keys to protect its natural resources. Bills moving through the House and Senate would lift the government's Area of Critical State Concern label as soon as 2008, if locals can convince the governor and Cabinet they're making progress. And on Monday, the push drew surprising supporters: environmental groups, who only a week earlier denounced the push as an open door to developing the fragile ecosystem. They say the Keys has made only token progress toward cleaning up fouled waters, building affordable housing or protecting threatened species habitat.______________________________ Article published Apr 3, 2006 Tallahassee Democrat State can't give up in the Florida Keys
By Richard Grosso
MY VIEW
The current legislative proposal to remove the special “Area of Critical State Concern” protections for the Florida Keys would turn over Florida's most imperiled and fragile place to the real estate market - with devastating consequences. The Critical Area designation, first applied 30 years ago to allow the state to ensure that the development rules and their enforcement protected the statewide interest and investment in the Keys, is more necessary now than ever. Its purpose was to have the state partner with the Keys' local governments to remedy many critical problems related to inadequate infrastructure, water quality, habitat degradation, threats of extinction, evacuation capabilities and other issues. While the state has mostly done its part over the years, county government has consistently dragged its feet, being largely unwilling to fund its share of land acquisition and infrastructure needs, or to adopt and enforce, against local real estate interests, development standards that were adequate to the unique ecological needs in the Keys. The major features of the current effort to protect and restore the Keys - the annual limit on new development, extra-stringent wastewater and habitat protection rules, and annual work program of tasks designed to improve infrastructure and land management - exist because the state insisted on them over local objections. What's more, these measures are absolutely necessary, and may in fact not be enough, if we are to avoid losing the Keys as we know them. By the state's own studies, the three most critical issues in the Keys - water quality, habitat loss and degradation, and evacuation capabilities - have exceeded dangerous levels. If they are not resolved, irretrievable damage to the Keys' ecology and economy, as well as loss of life, are the likely results. Yet, while this has been known for many years, the implementation of the infrastructure improvements, regulation changes and funding sources needed to address the problems lag years behind. Some landowners, developers and politicians in the Keys have long sought removal of the Critical Area designation so that the state could not longer insist on higher levels of protection or legally challenge permits issued in violation of adopted rules. This year, despite the fact that the county's growth-management efforts were again found inadequate in the most recent state review, which recommended that the Critical Area designation be maintained, a bill has been filed to legislatively remove the designation. Apparently seeking the “de-designation” of the Keys as his legacy, term-limited Rep. Ken Sorenson, R-Tavernier, is championing the bill. If he succeeds, annual growth limits, special habitat protections, and requirements to bring water quality and evacuation capacity up to adequate levels surely would be repealed by local interests who always have opposed them. The results would be devastating to the Keys, and to the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment that all Florida taxpayers have made in the Keys over the years in the form of sensitive land acquisition, water quality improvements, planning and technical assistance. Repealing the Critical Area designation now, with most the work needed to save the Keys still to be done, would be the act of a quitter, not a hero. The state of Florida must not give up on the Keys. _____________________4/4/06 FLORIDA KEYS Miami Herald Developers dealt a setback Environmentalists got a big win by stopping a developer- backed effort to remove Keys development from state scrutiny. BY MARC CAPUTO AND JENNIFER BABSON mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com TALLAHASSEE - Aided by a group of powerful Republicans, environmentalists won a major fight Monday to keep a lid on development in the fragile habitat of the Florida Keys -- at least for now. A coalition of environmental groups won enough votes from a state Senate committee to keep the Keys under close state scrutiny until 2009 to ensure that the water is cleaned up, the environment protected, more affordable housing built and building proceeds slow enough to keep roads clear for safe hurricane evacuations. Developers, the majority of the Monroe County Commission and state Rep. Ken Sorensen, a Tavernier Republican, wanted the state to butt out of the Keys development scene as early as October 2007. But they didn't have the votes. ''What a shame,'' said a stunned Murray Nelson, a county commissioner who pressed vigorously for the plan to remove the Keys next year from the designation as an Area of Critical State Concern, which has given the state broad oversight on development since 1975. ''I can't even believe it,'' Nelson said. ``This had gone through every committee, and the Senate was supporting it and the governor was supporting it. . . . Gee whiz. If they are going to make it 'til 2009, it's not really de-designation because anything can happen between now and then.'' And that's exactly what 1,000 Friends of Florida, Audubon of Florida and the World Wildlife Fund wanted when they picked up enough votes on the Senate Environmental Preservation Committee to either kill the bill or shape it to their liking. Joining them were a few Republican big guns: former Everglades czar Allison DeFoor, power lawyer Thom Rumberger of the Everglades Trust and Keys fishing guide Mike Collins, a South Florida Water Management District appointee of Gov. Jeb Bush. They predicted a ''stampede of development'' were the state to undo designation of the Keys next year -- before the County Commission had a chance to clearly demonstrate that it would continue building affordable housing as well as a central sewer system to stop leaky cesspits from fouling the water. Under the complex and byzantine rules of the Area of Critical State Concern designation, the governor and Cabinet could lift the state oversight every year. But the County Commission could never successfully persuade them that it was making enough progress to be left to its own devices. Now, under the legislation approved Monday, the county will still have to meet all of its benchmarks -- but the review to critical-concern designation will be in 2009 rather than annually. ''This buys us time. It buys the Keys time. If the past is any indication, the County Commission will never be able to meet this,'' said Debra Harrison, South Florida program director for the World Wildlife Fund. The sponsor of the legislation, former Keys Mayor Sorensen, downplayed the concessions. He said he made them to ensure that, for the first time, the state finally looks at an end game to managing development in the Keys. ''The problem is that for 32 years everybody has been at each other's throats. Now we see the end. And, trust me, the Keys will get the job done,'' Sorensen said, pointing to a $424 million spending plan approved by local governments just to clean up the wastewater. Sorensen said he is frustrated by environmentalists when they suggest that the state needs to list the Keys as an area of concern because it brings money. Sorensen, responsible for winning millions of dollars for the Keys year after year, pointed out that it takes a savvy politician to get money in the budget. ''It's a food fight up here,'' he said. ``Nothing is guaranteed.'' Except for one thing: Suspicions of Monroe County. With a former mayor pleading guilty in connection to an alleged zoning scam and a federal investigation into another project winding up, residents of the Keys have long looked at politicians and developers with a jaundiced eye. After the county made plans to lift the critical-concern designation, one activist paid for a poll of 400 Keys voters that reportedly showed 82 percent of residents opposed the idea.
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