The group met October 20 to discuss the revised design plans approved by the School District Oct 7, the use and license agreements that spell out when the field will be available to the school and who will be responsible for costs, maintenance and replacement of capital portions of the field.  

Presentations were made to educate the task force and public about the pros and cons of artificial turf and real grass. One presentation was made by a representative of AstroTurf, a company that will be bidding to provide their company’s artificial turf at the park.  Via Zoom, a research analyst from the University of Florida detailed the benefits of real grass.

With four members of the Task Force present, that group, appointed by Manager Ron Saunders, made it clear that a majority felt strongly that a survey of Islamorada residents and taxpayers should be done before the final decisions are made regarding the design plans, surface of the field, and the shared use of the high school baseball field at Founders Park.

The task force members and those members of the public in attendance should be congratulated on the time spent and the extensive research they did. If an informal vote of those in attendance had occurred after the presentations, it seemed clear that real grass would have won easily.

A video of the meeting can be viewed from the Village website.

The plans approved by the school district include artificial turf, an 800 sq ft concession stand with four restrooms and public address facility, new bleachers, and dugouts.  No native trees are to be impacted.  A new 2200 sq ft building was eliminated.

The restrooms and locker rooms down the first base line near the park entrance will be rehabilitated by the school district prior to the upcoming 2026 baseball season.

Senate Bill 180 passed the 2025 legislative session and included an increase in the required hurricane evacuation clearance time for Monroe County from 24 hours to 24.5 hours and allows up to 900 additional ROGO/BPAS allocations Keys-wide.  

The allocations are to be distributed based on the proportion of vacant buildable lots in each jurisdiction.  The 900 must be spread over at least 10 years.

All new permits must be issued for vacant, buildable parcels, only one per individual lot, and allocations for owner-occupied residences, affordable housing, and workforce housing must be prioritized.

While it has not been confirmed, it is believed the table below reflects the distribution.

A Comp Plan amendment will be needed to distribute the Village allocations according to the restrictions approved by the state.

BUT there’s a catch: The same legislation, SB 180, created a complication. It does not allow local governments to adopt amendments to their land development code or comp plan that are more restrictive than current code. And the same SB 180 requires more restrictive ROGO/BPAS distribution requirements.

The portion of SB 180 that doesn’t allow more restrictive changes to regulations until July 2027 is already being challenged by numerous local governments throughout the state. The 2025 Legislative Session will address this issue.  

Critical to Islamorada: The fact SB 180 prohibits any changes to local land use law that would be considered “more restrictive,” the $125,000 contract with Able City East comes into question. Considering the traffic congestion, environmental damage, limited infrastructure, it would seem likely that amendments to the Village Comp Plan being developed currently by Able City may be in jeopardy as “more restrictive.”  

Note: Islamorada still has 292 affordable BPAS allocations the state gave the Village following Hurricane Irma.  They are also restricted - multi-family with onsite management. Referred to as “early out” allocations, occupants of these units must evacuate before other local residents.  Why aren’t they being used?