Last Stand Director and Treasurer Mark Songer has posted the following personal editorial message to today's KeyNother newspaper....
Don't give developers a free ROGO ride
EDITOR: I would like to challenge a recommendation that Monroe County Mayor Di Gennaro is reported to have sent to state Department of Community Affairs Secretary Pelham regarding a 300-room hotel proposed for Stock Island.
To an ordinary citizen, the purpose of the rate-of-growth ordinance is to regulate development. The fear Mayor Di Gennaro expressed that the developer would acquire 300 ROGO units from affordable housing is not remedied by granting this hotel development new ROGOs for free. If there is a problem where developers purchase permanent housing ROGOs for use in transient lodging, then the solution would seem to be to further regulate the use of permanent housing ROGOs.
Granting 300 new ROGOs will only increase the chances that permanent residents will be forced to evacuate Monroe County at the same time as tourists from this hotel when the inevitable short-notice hurricane evacuation order comes.
In addition, the purchase of 300 ROGOs for an estimated $4 million is not a hardship to the hotel developers. Let's do the math.
Let's assume that instead of a reasonable occupancy expectation of 70 percent that the hotel only achieves 65 percent occupancy because it is offline serving as housing for emergency first responders 5 percent of each year. If the developer wants to recover the ROGO investment over 20 years and has a 10 percent cost of capital, an additional $6.61 per night room rate covers the $4 million investment. This development is proposed to serve owners of super luxury yachts, who can easily afford a less than 2 percent up charge for the room.
I am a full-time resident of Key West. I welcome Monroe County's status as an Area of Critical State Concern because I want an impartial government agency making the final decision on granting exceptions to the rules put in place for my safety. I want this oversight continued so that I have a reasonable chance to evacuate from mile marker 1 to the mainland on short notice.
I urge Secretary Pelham not to grant free ROGOs to this proposed development. I encourage DCA to continue to exercise oversight so that any exceptions to laws promoting the safety of Monroe County residents are necessary and well justified.
Mark E. Songer
Key West