Downstairs Enclosures, Again

When we bought our home on Ramrod Key, my wife and I had no qualms about the purchase owing to the absence of issues. We had no downstairs enclosures, no questionable lot lines, no unexplained buildings on the lot. Indeed our house is so small, 770 square feet it fits in the lot with tons of room to spare. The focus in the Lower Keys has always been to create the largest possible home on a landmass that doesn't have much build-able land in the first place. Thus one finds tall, fat homes squeezed into lots that end up not offering comfortable offsets. I like my offsets.Perhaps it was that we moved ashore from a sailboat, but our home seemed, and still seems spacious enough for two even if my wife would like a second toilet and a larger closet... But we have no downstairs enclosures at our home and I like it that way. The theory is that open space underneath the house prevents damage from floods to the stilt homes in the Keys. This is a typical manufactured home raised on stilts and designed to allow residents to avoid the effects of flooding. Over the years the height has increased. When my home was built in 1987 it was designed to meet a code requirement putting it about 8 feet (2.5 meters) above the floodplain. My neighbors with newer homes have to build their homes a good deal taller to meet new regulations but enclosures downstairs are strictly regulated for all. Serfs Not Citizens is the brainchild of a wealthy Lower Keys resident who wants to spend his "blessings" forcing the Feds to change their rules. The idea is to somehow force the Federal Emergency Management Agency to bow to the will of Serfs Not Citizens and allow people to build legal residential enclosures under their stilt homes. This magnanimous gesture would allow poor people to live in the Keys, the theory goes. However recent population loss of officially nine percent has persuaded Serfs Not Citizens to quote this statistic in recent newspaper ads, as being caused by the enclosure rule which seems odd as the organizations also accuses the Feds of not enforcing the rule and thus turning a blind eye to the creation of illegal enclosures. Enclosed spaces under homes are supposed to be not for living thus toilets and kitchens are not allowed but storage and garages are. This is not good enough apparently and the drive to allow ground level living is attempting to strong arm county commissioner George Nugent, long the voice of common sense on the Board of County Commissioners (and he's a Republican at that!). He says FEMA has already been approached and show no interest at all in making changes. Nothing deterred the drive to make changes on behalf of the impoverished citizens of the Keys continues apace and the Commissioners are slated to discuss this quixotic effort once again tomorrow.The legal storage enclosure also has a flow through grate to relieve pressure should flooding fill the downstairs space.

I have seen this same attitude, deliberate blindness to the likelihood of natural disasters, elsewhere. When I lived in California and forest fires had burned down homes or mudslides had wiped away sub-divisions, the former home owners would ALWAYS be quoted as saying, bedraggled but defiant, that they would rebuild. Why? I would ask myself. And here we are in the same position with a slight variant. The Feds provide subsidized Flood Insurance to allow us to have mortgages in this slightly absurd recreational market in the Keys. This isn't a place where farms will be maintained or factories will be rebuilt. Some of us eke out a living serving visitors in hotels and bars and the rest of us make a decent living working for government agencies. The rest live on private incomes ("Blessings" for those that think Lazarus was the rich man). By defying the Feds, flood insurance will be canceled and mortgages will be unsustainable, thus only blessed persons will be able to buy and live here. End of story.

In an effort to democratize the demands against the Federal Emergency Management Agency the story goes that the enclosure law prevents the poor from finding affordable homes in the Keys. Enclosures help buyers pay their mortgages and allow people to rent modest apartments in the most expensive housing market in the State (most expensive comparing wages to costs. Palm Beach prices will make even a Keys resident's eyes water). That may be true but curiously there is no drive to limit Trailer Park conversions and downstairs enclosures carry a certain level of risk to the structural integrity of the homes involved. In it's copious newspaper advertising Serfs Not Citizens claims the recent 9 percent drop in population in the Keys is due to the enclosure restrictions, which does not take into account the fact that other ads also berate FEMA for not enforcing the law consistently. I suggest the lack of living wage jobs has forced people out, not the absence of potential garage conversion apartments. On top of that, increasing the population of the Keys will increase hurricane evacuation times and like them or not those times are used to limit growth on lots not yet built. So lets have more garage conversions and fewer new homes. Very Marxist I'm sure.


But wait, there's more. Those of us that have lived through the inevitable hurricane story know perfectly well there will be disasters and when they come people will line up with their hands held out expecting the Feds to make it right, and bitching horribly when it takes too long. Already our socialized housing insurance in Florida, called Citizens, is grossly underfunded to face major hurricane damage but here in the Keys, land of the Comfortable Fantasy, there is a component that is ready to take on the Feds and demand they act in a totally unbusinesslike way and give us something for nothing. I stand on the sidelines and marvel.