To hear Key West city officials talk, you would think that affordable housing is their number-one concern. But talk is cheap. The sad fact is that city leaders have taken no real steps to address the root causes of Key West's affordable housing shortage. And the "solutions" they propose are likely to make the problem even worse.
The city's main strategy has been to ask the state Department of Community Affairs to allow the construction of additional residential units under the Rate of Growth Ordinance (ROGO). But the city has stood by while hundreds, perhaps thousands, of residential ROGO units have been turned into illegal transient rentals— thereby reducing the already meager stock of affordable housing!. So why should the state trust us with new units when we've so shamefully squandered the ones we've already gotten?
Another scheme for garnering additional ROGO units— endorsed by the business-dominated Affordable Housing Task Force— is to use these new units to build taxpayer-subsidized "employee housing" on Stock Island, which explains the city's eagerness to annex it. This proposal is nothing more than a rehash of the failed plan of a few years back to construct single-room occupancy (SRO) accommodations for service industry workers— structures more reminiscent of migrant farm-worker barracks than homes for valued members of our community. These facilities would be corporate welfare for businesses who pay their employees wages that are impossible to live on, with taxpayers picking up the costs of building their housing.
The fundamental flaw of these "solutions" is that they rely on additional development as the cure for overdevelopment. If city leaders really want to make housing more affordable in Key West there are several simple steps they can take without building another structure.
First, the city must vigorously enforce the transient rental law once it overcomes its remaining legal challenges. The law provides powerful tools for shutting down illegal transient rentals, with the double benefit of increasing the available long-term housing stock and restoring the quality of life in our neighborhoods. But the ordinance will be worthless if the city fails to enforce it fairly and consistently, as it has failed to enforce so many other measures in the past.
Second, city leaders must acknowledge the direct connection between new commercial development and an increased demand for housing. While bemoaning the affordable housing crisis on one hand, the city commission is rubber-stamping unrestrained commercial development and intensification of commercial uses with the other.
A perfect example of this shortsightedness is taking place right on city property at the Key West Bight, where the city plans to evict residents of a quaint trailer park to make room for parking and more retail space.
A third way the city can increase available housing is to crack down on businesses that hijack residential units for use as "home" offices that aren't really being used as residences at all. The city's land development regulations state that "the occupation must be clearly incidental and secondary to the use of the dwelling for dwelling purposes."
But the city is looking the other way while this practice increasingly robs us of available housing.
And finally, we must make the best use of housing that already exists. For example, we need to make it easier for people to create accessory or "mother-in-law" apartments in larger homes. This would not only increase the number of affordable housing units available, it would also provide income to help retirees pay the high property taxes on the ridiculously inflated assessed values of their homes— allowing them to stay in Key West instead of having to move to a more affordable community. We all suffer the effects of high housing costs and the intense financial anxiety it generates. It doesn't have to be this way.
And high housing costs also have a negative impact on our tourism industry. While visitors are initially drawn to Key West by its incredible natural beauty and unique history, what brings them back again and again is the community we have created. When tourists remember their Key West vacations they talk about the local people who made their trip memorable.
Our government and business leaders need to wake up to the fact that Key West's residents are our most precious resource. And its time for them to get serious about making housing affordable for all of us — while there are still some of us left.