Bahama Village master plan wins BVRAC approval

Bahama Village master plan wins BVRAC approval

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

After intensely questioning the details of a proposed 25-year master plan to manage public fund use in Bahama Village – including what its own role would be in the new paradigm – the Bahama Village Redevelopment Advisory Committee voted unanimously to approve the plan on Aug. 10, passing it on to the Key West City Commission, sitting as the Key West Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), for a final vote.

BVRAC board members had twice postponed taking action on the plan, worried that allocating the approximately $800,000 raised each year in a special Bahama Village tax fund to specific projects taking at least 10 years to complete would preclude making emergency grants to smaller projects that aren’t on the horizon yet. Chairman Aaron Castillo complained at BVRAC’s last meeting that eliminating the annual grant application process, where BVRAC determined which projects would be funded, would essentially make the board superfluous. BRVAR member Jathon Williams agreed that the eight large capital projects outlined in the proposed master plan were worthy of funding but would take up most or all of the annual $800,000 budget for the next 10 to 20 years.

But consultants from the firm that took two years to draw up the proposed “Visioning Plan” assured board members their oversight will still be necessary even as the community grant program transitions from short term, smaller projects selected on an annual basis to larger, longer-term renovations that will take 10 or 11 years to complete. The eight capital projects selected for funding over the next 10 years include finishing the renovation of the Douglass Gym, moving the Monroe County health clinic back to Bahama Village (it had to move when the gym renovations began), creating an education and jobs training center, and rehabilitation of dilapidated properties in the neighborhood. Those property owners would have to match the $20,000 proposed grant funding before their individual project could begin.

“The value of this board and this process cannot be understated,” said Paul Lambert, principal of Lambert Associates, which drew up the $156,000 visioning plan with Zyscovich Architects. “You pass this tonight and your role changes from necessarily doing planning to actually implementing, to being the monitors day to day, week after week, to make sure these projects come to fruition and move forward.”

Castillo and BVRAC Board Member Rudy Rivas questioned whether the plan, which stretches 25 years into the future beyond the initial eight capital projects, would allow changes that would divert funding from the larger projects to smaller ones that may come up as a result of natural disasters or other emergencies.

“Can we change the plan at any time,” Rivas asked. “Initially it was thought that the 10-year plan would almost do away with the BVRAC board because we couldn’t do anything for those next 10 years.”

Key West Planning Director Patrick Wright assured Rivas that BVRAC could still make recommendations to the CRA on funding changes. But Lambert cautioned that by approving the visioning plan, BVRAC was making a statement that the eight projects are the agreed-upon priorities for Bahama Village.

At the heart of the master plan is a shift in purpose. In the past, BVRAC has focused on allocating the $800,000 that is raised each year through the special tax fund to smaller projects such as fixing up deteriorating residential and commercial properties, public parks and churches. But while individual properties were improved through the program, the impact on the Bahama Village community as a whole was being questioned. The most recent 1998 update to the Bahama Village Redevelopment Plan encouraged stabilization of existing residential and traditional commercial structures but also recognized “the need to provide economic development and job creation activities for the residents of Bahama Village to enable long-term residents to remain in Bahama Village.”

“I think it’s a good, solid plan,” Wright said. “I think it’s a wise short-term and long-term use of these dollars.”

Another piece of the visioning plan calls for a survey of Bahama Village residents to be taken every two years to ensure people are happy with the way the projects are progressing. That’s another thing the BVRAC board will have to manage, Lambert said.

“The notion that this board will not be valuable in the future could not be more wrong,” he said.

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