The ROGO BPAS Points Building Process

Directly from Monroe County's Website: 

"The Florida Keys are designated as an Area of Critical State Concern by the State Legislature where policies have been adopted to control growth based on the Florida Keys carrying capacity. The carrying capacity is the lowest time required to safely evacuate the Florida Keys in the event of a hurricane, which is based on a 24-hour evacuation model.

A Rate of Growth Ordinance (ROGO) was implemented in order to provide for the safety of residents in the event of a hurricane evacuation and to protect the significant natural resources of Monroe County, as required by the State of Florida.

Both ROGO (residential) and NROGO (nonresidential) are a competitive permit allocation system where those applications with the highest scores are awarded building permits.  The competitive point system guides development toward areas with infrastructure and away from velocity zones and environmentally sensitive areas such as habitat for threatened or endangered species. ROGO and NROGO provide a measured amount of growth in the County commensurate with the County's ability to maintain a reasonable and safe hurricane evacuation clearance time and maintain a balance between residential and nonresidential development."

Source and to read more here...

There are very limited numbers of permits left with numbers of applicants that far exceed the permits that will be issued! BPAS (Building Permit Allocation System) is similar to ROGO and used in the City of Key West, City of Marathon, and Village of Islamorada. In case you are wondering why two different systems, there is Unincorporated Monroe County and the cities that incorporated some time back. There is also the City of Layton on Long Key, but they do not have information online.

So let's summarize all of this... there is a building moratorium in the Florida Keys in order to be able to meet the law in the Florida Statutes that require all permanent residents in the Keys to be evacuated 24 hours in advance of a hurricane. That means that there is a maximum population density that was established to meet that goal. That goal was to be met in July of 2023. After that, there will be no more permits issued to build in the Florida Keys. (This is the case for Islamorada. Marathon has extended to 2024 and Monroe County to 2026, accomplished by cutting the number of permits issued yearly to drag this out!)

The popular question that is asked is oh sure, but they will change their minds later, so this really isn't for real? Is it? 

Well, the following is very interesting. Some very clever people and their attorneys managed to squeeze an extra 1300 AFFORDABLE housing units from the State Department of Economic Opportunity in 2018, even making comprehensive plan amendments, using the argument that because this was to build workforce housing (which is desperately needed here), the workforce people occupying these units would be evacuated 48 hours in advance, therefore abiding by the law to evacuate safely for a hurricane.

What a great argument! All those juicy building rights were divvied up throughout the Keys. The Village of Islamorada attorneys said lets just hang on to them and see what happens. The City of Marathon had a free for all, issued permits to build, and some beautiful apartment buildings were built and have people living in them now. The City of Key West, you know, the ones that want to secede regularly, have their own set or rules about affordable housing, took their share and the rest is history for them.

Then 3 residents of the Keys appealed the decision to issue these permits and challenged the legality of those amendments. On August 3, 2022, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal reversed those 600 affordable workforce housing allocations that were issued to the City of Marathon and Village of Islamorada. Key West got to keep theirs of course! This article explains it more succinctly.

Are there ways to find yet more permits? That answer requires a crystal ball and we will see how things unfold here in the Florida Keys. This article explains the ROGO situation in detail and has great information in general!

The bottom line is that at this time we have effectively run out of vacant land to build on in the Florida Keys. When people ask how can our prices possibly be sustainable, that is main reason why the market is staying so strong, though there are many other factors at play as well. And based on other markets we have seen, we are still at about half the valuation of some other limited waterfront markets. We offer an opinion here...

If you are thinking that you would like to build your own home, you now have important information to get you started. Just make sure that your vacant land slice of paradise has a permit in hand, is ROGO exempt, or about to be issued a permit! Unless you can find a Transferable Building/Development Right (TBR or TDR) that is compatible with the site you would like to purchase... When available, they have been sold on the open market for around $200-300k (as of fall 2022). And you can always tear a home down and rebuild, which is happening more and more these days!

All information on this page regarding ROGO/BPAS and the permitting process is personal opinions and should not be relied on. Please contact a the appropriate municipality and their building code for accurate information.

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