In the late 80s Pritam Singh purchased the property known as Truman Annex. Truth of the matter is, city officials at the time could not make up their minds on much of anything and the property slipped through their fingers and went to Pritam.
Elaborate plans were drawn up, a lot of promises were made and the process of development began.
At the time, the city government, with little foresight, had a flash that they might need some housing for some of the working people in town. The city commission pressed Pritam Singh into agreement to build some affordable units in the Shipyard section. Back then, the prices were to be something between the eighties and high nineties.
Needless to say, the agreement went to hell when Pritam learned how easy our city government was to (in the words of Sally Lewis) hoodwink. He saw that he could promise them anything they demanded— but, in reality, had to give back nothing in return.
Shipyard sold a few "token" units to the needy and the rest went to out of state investors such as Pat Mansman for use as vacation homes and transient rentals. Not much in the original agreement was ever given, or enforced.
You may or may not know that the City actually has a transient rental law in place that bans rentals for less than 30 days, including inside the gated communities. I recently went to the www to see what might be going on, especially at the Annex.
Listed with one realtor were a total of 97 properties advertised between $800 and $3,000 per week. The majority of these are our designated affordable units in Shipyard. For the curious (I hope code enforcement is among the curious), here are the units in Shipyard and the Foundry that are UNLICENSED transient rentals.
Shipyard #206-3, Shipyard #264, Shipyard #162, Shipyard #161, Shipyard #204-9, Shipyard #192, Shipyard #269, Shipyard #202-5, Shipyard #206-8, Shipyard #202-11, Shipyard #279, Shipyard #168, Shipyard #204-6, Shipyard #102-6, Shipyard #104-6, Shipyard #194, Shipyard #191, Shipyard #208-4, Shipyard #155, Shipyard #210-11, Shipyard #218, Shipyard #202, Shipyard #278, Shipyard #208-9, Shipyard #190, Shipyard #188, Shipyard #157, Shipyard #210-9, Shipyard #271, Shipyard #268, Shipyard #104-6b, Shipyard #164, Shipyard #265, Shipyard #273, Shipyard #285, Shipyard #182, Shipyard #290, Shipyard #296, Shipyard #297, Shipyard #257, SST #2237, SST #229, Shipyard #108, Shipyard #208-8, Shipyard #210-15, Shipyard #202-1, Shipyard #258, Shipyard #210-4, Shipyard #249, Shipyard #172, Shipyard #208-1, SST #216, Foundry #23, Foundry #24, Foundry #11-2, Foundry #7, Foundry #16, Foundry #19, Foundry #4, SST #209, SST #221, SST #205, SST #213
The above are but a few of what is going on at Truman Annex alone.
If anyone has just arrived in town and is wondering how we got into this mess of a housing shortage, take a good hard look at the track record of our mayor. I am not into just beating up on this particular politician, but I have watched Jimmy Weekley through this entire process. In the early days, it was Jimmy who fought hard to give Pritam everything he asked for. It was Jimmy who fought for the gated communities to include transient rentals and it was Jimmy who sabotaged the implementation of the ordinance we have now.
His doggedness in supporting transient rentals in the gated communities effectively delayed the implementation of the current ordinance for months. It was definitely Jimmy Weekley who gave the transient rental people the millennium season, this past season and the lobster mini season.
Every time I have pursued Jimmy on this matter, he has smugly replied that these people are his constituents. In reality, these are constituents that live outside Monroe County, not to mention Key West. However, as the last election demonstrated, they are registered to vote here. Isn't there something Federal about that?
Other than thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the transient rental landlords, has Jimmy received any perks for his water-carrying? How about one or more paid vacations at Pritam's estate in Alaska?
But there's a downside for Jimmy. You should know that the State Ethics Commission told him he can no longer vote on issues that involve the regulation of transient rentals. He has a conflict of interest. His family's grocery store has set up a side business to stock illegal rental units for incoming guests.
Jimmy supports short-term transient rentals in residential neighborhoods because it is financially beneficial for him to do that.
Every day that this enforceable ordinance goes unenforced is another day the rents remain higher all around the island and that more working people determine they can no longer afford to live here.
The City Attorney tells us that the transient rental law is now being enforced. If you think illegal renting might be going on in your neighborhood, Key West The Newspaper has a list of all of the legal residential transient rental units, listed by street. You can get a copy at 422 Fleming. If the short-term rental unit in your neighborhood is not on this list, call Code Enforcement at 292-8191.
Let us know how your complaint is handled.