Key West building height restrictions set to change this summer

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

 

An effective yet expensive flood protection measure approved by voters last November is expected to go into effect in early to mid-summer, according to acting Key West Planning Director Kevin Bond.

 

City commissioners unanimously approved on second reading the language to be sent to state officials requesting permission to change local building laws, allowing residential and commercial property owners in specific areas to lift their buildings up to 40 feet, five feet over the current allowable maximum building height. Aimed at reducing damage from flooding as well as lowering property insurance rates, voters last November passed a referendum that will allow property owners in the federally designation VE and AE zones – which essentially cover the entire city except for property in the X zone – to raise the roof height of their property one foot for every foot they lift their first floor, up to four feet above base flood level as established by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

 

Bond said the state has 60 days to review the proposed change to the city building charter. Assuming state officials approve the height change, there is a 21-day appeal process after that.

 

“We’re looking at roughly June or the beginning of July at the latest,” for the new building heights to go into effect, Bond said.

Over 82 percent of voters in the November election approved the charter change, hoping for a break into the soaring insurance rates that have hit the Florida Keys. Federal flood insurance rate charts predict annual savings in Key West’s VE zone of 25 percent, approximately $1,300, by raising a property by one foot. Those savings rises to 65 percent if the property is raised three feet. In the AE zone, annual premium savings are estimated at 41 percent, or $502, for the first one foot elevation, $678 for the second and $742, or 60 percent, for a three-foot rise.

 

Estimated costs to raise a building start at $25,000, depending on the size of the property.

 

Between approximately two-thirds and three-quarters of the city is already in a special flood hazard area. And a federal flood zone remapping that will take place in Key West in 2017 is expected to move some homes in the prized X zone into the A zone, potentially putting economic pressure on those homeowners when their flood insurance rates go up.

 

The Key West adopted climate action plan anticipates an increase in the number of intense storms in the region and predicts that sea levels will rise between 3 inches and 7 inches by 2030.

 

 

 

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