HOW TO EXPAND KEY COLONY CITY HALL? COMMISSION DISCUSSES EXPANSIONS AND FLOOD ZONE MODIFICATIONS
After several months of inactivity, discussions on plans to expand Key Colony Beach’s existing City Hall building resumed at the August 15 KCB Commission meeting.
In December 2023, the commission voted to cancel a previously approved new city hall, citing concerns about the cost of the building and the accuracy of bids the city had received. However, as Vice Mayor Freddie Foster reminded the commission, the city is still waiting to use $2.2 million in available Department of Environmental Protection grants – funds earmarked for strengthening the existing building as an emergency operations center or for a possible addition to the building.
“Right now I have a 50-50 match, and I think we’re just going to use the money to build a second floor,” Foster said. “I’m trying to get it to 70-30 … but I have to show a scope of work that shows the difference between spending the $12 million we would spend on a new city hall and what we’re doing now.”
Building official Tony Loreno said two engineers advised city staff that adding a second story was “probably not a good idea.” Instead, they suggested an addition on the south or east side of the existing building or building a two-story, 5,000-square-foot tower at the current site of the city’s temporary mail container.
Secretary/Treasurer Tom Harding advocated for a separate building, while Commissioner Doug Colonell said he remained convinced that adding a second story was the most cost-effective alternative.
“I’m against (a second building) because it doubles the work,” Colonell said. “If someone says (another building) is going to cost $2 million, especially an engineer, it’s going to cost $5 million.”
“When we asked (the engineers) these questions about the second floor, to my great surprise, both of them immediately nodded, ‘You don’t want to do that,'” said Mayor Joey Raspe.
“If we have structural issues with the building now, we should address those in the renovation,” Colonell said. “I agree that it’s a lot easier to just design a new building than to figure that out, but I think this is a good space and it could be used for a lot less money.”
Loreno said city staff will await reports from engineering firms K2M and Campbell Engineering Consultants to obtain accurate cost estimates for expansion options before developing a scope of work.
Changes to floodplain regulation
Two changes to the KCB’s floodplain regulations, both approved unanimously at Thursday’s meeting, are designed to help residents repair or improve damaged or ground-level homes.
Echoing a change made in Marathon in 2021, the city will shorten its “substantial improvement” period from three years to one year, increasing the extent to which residents can repair or improve their homes without being legally required to demolish and rebuild. Known as a central provision of FEMA’s infamous “50 percent rule,” homeowners were previously required to demolish and rebuild their homes if the total value of repairs, remodeling or improvements over a three-year period exceeded 50 percent of the home’s market value. Under Thursday’s change, the total will now “reset” each year.
City Manager John Bartus, who championed the change in Marathon as a city councilor in 2021, confirmed that the move had “no impact” on Marathon’s class rating in the Community Rating System (CRS), which is used to obtain citywide discounts on flood insurance premiums in exchange for policies that exceed the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) minimum requirements.
A second change will restore the city’s required height above the NFIP base flood elevation for new and rehabilitated buildings from three feet above the base flood elevation to one foot above the base flood elevation, as required by the Florida Building Code.
“Two years ago, the city decided to add the additional two feet, which would obviously increase our CRS rebate,” building consultant Ed Borysiewicz told the commission. “But at the same time, it made 85% of our city’s buildings non-compliant. … This particularly affects improvements that (residents) want to make to their homes.”
Borysiewicz said he believes the change should bring more than half of Key Colony’s buildings back into compliance, but acknowledged that the change “would and could likely result in a deterioration in Key Colony’s CRS rating.”
Planning and Zoning Committee Chairman George Lancaster said his committee’s recommendation for the change was “conditioned on the commission carefully seeking (CRS) points to make up for the points lost.”
“When a community tells me they want to implement a higher regulatory standard for CRS credits, I get up on my pulpit,” floodplain and CRS consultant Lori Lehr told the commission, agreeing that potential CRS impacts could be mitigated by numerous other initiatives. “We say, ‘Look, you have to do what’s good for your community. Don’t do that for CRS credits, especially when it comes to higher regulatory standards.'”
