BOCC, DEO OPEN TALKS ON NEW HURRICANE EVACUATION MODEL

Anew hurricane evacuation model is on the way, with massive implications for continued development in Monroe County.

The April 19 meeting of the Monroe County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) marked the commission’s first public exchange with the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) as the agency works to create new data-driven hurricane evacuation models for the Florida Keys. The evacuation models, and the statutes they inform, are monumentally important to future development in the Keys, as building allocations dwindle across multiple municipalities within the Keys’ closely-monitored Areas of State Concern.

The statutes have significant legal implications as Keys governments brace for possible takings cases and other litigation when building allocations expire. One such high-profile case resulted in the temporary revocation of 1,300 affordable housing allocations – some of which were already built and occupied – in August 2022 based on statutory language involving the models.

And as Keys utilities and infrastructure struggle to support increasing crowds, with developers eyeing nearly every buildable space throughout the islands, residents have begun to question whether development has already reached a breaking point.

Based on 2010 census data, the prior evacuation model created in 2012 paved the way for a regimented distribution of 3,550 residential building permits throughout the county over a 10-year period from 2013 to