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Key West City Commissioner District 5, Teri Johnston
Teri Johnston | Continued
sure we have some facts and under- stand what our options are for re- course. Tere are different camps out here right now. Tere are cer- tainly a good number of people in this community. You don’t have to be in Key West for 10 minutes to understand the fact that height is a very, very important issue for the entire community. Take a look at the Watermark situation where there is a 35-foot height limit there and that entire project was killed because they wanted to go 40 feet. Here we have a 25-foot maximum height requirement, and we have a 60-foot-plus building out there, so this is one of the most egregious violations of the LDRs that we have had in the City of Key West. Right now we are getting some documentation. We have a camp out there that wants the buildings to come down, because when you come over the Palm Avenue bridge, here is something that is going to blight the skyline of Key West for the next 50 years. Is that the right way to go? I don’t know the answer yet. Tere is also a camp that wants to make sure that Phase 2 meets our height requirements which is less than 25 feet.
GD Does Phase 2 buildings violate that height research? TJ Yes, they do. Actually six of the seven new buildings being built right now on HOB violate height restrictions. We have heard public officials say Monroe County
taxpayers are going to be saddled with this penalty [LDRs viola- tions] but I’m not sure that is the case. A situation the city attorney is reviewing right now is who is responsible and what the recourses are. I’m not sure Key West taxpay- ers have to make up for an error created by an architect, engineer- ing firm and contractor.
GDTe Key West Citizen had an editorial letter that was rather scathing with regards to Mayor Craig Cates and handling a direc- tion for the city and the school. So much of the article had to do with talking about transparency and with the Sunshine rules it seems like everything is out in the open. What’s your opinion on it? TJTis has become a rather large and long process for us to deter- mine where City Hall is going to go. We should take the time and effort to review all options. Tat’s what we are doing right now with Habana Plaza. Tis can run obvi- ously $18 million and above, so it’s one of our major expenditures and it’s a building that hopefully we are going to have in the system func- tioning effectively for the next 50 years. I think we have to take a look at all options. Obviously you know Mayor Cates would like the building to be somewhere other than Angela Street. We stopped the process, and we took a look at Glen Archer [School]. Angela Street is certainly still a very viable option. Duncan Auto came into play, and they wanted us to buy their property. We got an offer to buy Harris School’s property. Havana Plaza is now on the option table, so options just continue to grow, and we will continue to dis- cuss and evaluate. At some point we have to get all the facts and costs on the table and make a decision and move forward.
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