A neighborhood showdown is shaping up for the city commission meeting on Tuesday, April 1 in Key West, where the corporate owners of the Casa Marina Hotel will ask city officials for a zoning change that would allow the company to rebuild 25 units of employee housing that previously existed next to the hotel — and construct 23 new hotel villas in seven new buildings.
The former employee housing units that face Waddell Street, but have Seminole Street addresses, have sat empty, abandoned and now derelict since they were damaged by the floodwaters of Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
The Casa Marina’s current owners, Park Hotels & Resorts acquired the Casa Marina property in 2017.
The zoning change request and proposed new development don’t sit well with the neighbors whose multimillion-dollar homes are directly across the street, or 100 yards down the block, from the potential new hotel rooms and proposed industrial-sized laundry facility.
Several neighbors, led by Jeff Siegel, have formed a group called Protect Our Residential Neighborhoods (never mind the group’s acronym) to oppose the increased commercial activities and additional hotel rooms.
The neighborhood group is rallying its troops to attend the April 1 city commission vote on the zoning change, which was slated to take place last year, but was postponed to allow for the new city commission to be seated following the 2024 election.
The city’s Planning Board voted in March 2024 to approve the zoning change despite the city’s planning staff’s recommendation that the application be denied for numerous reasons, but mainly because rebuilding the former employee housing units is already permitted under the current zoning. Planning Board members Sam Holland and Ed Russo voted against the zoning change approval, which passed anyway, with three members saying they only approved the application because no neighbors had shown up to speak out against it.
Those neighbors have since shown up in force to oppose the zoning change and new hotel rooms.
“The last thing we need to make is another commercial zone when what we need is housing,” neighborhood resident Peter Cohen told the commission last year. “Just because the real estate investment trust that owns the Casa Marina has the money to make political donations doesn’t mean they should be able to buy their way into a zoning change.”
Gregory Oropeza, the Key West real estate attorney representing the Casa Marina, defended the zoning change to the planning board in March 2024, saying the state has mandated that cities explore partnerships between private and public entities to develop more affordable housing. He said this proposal would represent such a partnership.
But Karen Siegel, during a neighborhood meeting last year, told the Keys Weekly that the neighbors feel as if the Casa Marina is trying to hold the neighbors hostage with the eyesore of abandoned former employee housing buildings that line Waddell Street.
“It’s as if they’re saying they’ll only clean up that mess if they can get the zoning change and another 23 hotel rooms,” she said.
Representatives of Park Hotels and Resorts, as well as lOropeza have met several times with some of the neighbors and the developers have made some concessions.
“The owner will purchase existing transient licenses … and transfer those licenses to the development parcels,” a representative from Park Hotels & Resorts told the Keys Weekly on March 26. “No new transient licenses will be created as a result of the project.”
Additionally, the company has agreed to move an exit driveway from Waddell to Seminole Street to reduce traffic on Waddell.
“Stand-alone development of affordable workforce housing in Key West is all but nonexistent for a number of reasons, one of which is the financial viability – without public subsidy – of such projects,” Park Hotels & Resorts told the Keys Weekly. “In the case of the project, the hotel villas provide financial support and viability for the workforce housing component. As such, the project offers a unique opportunity where the private commercial investment will allow the owner to facilitate an important first step in addressing Key West’s affordable housing crisis.
“The project includes a significant increase in the amount of workforce housing currently provided onsite, which is intended to reduce commuter traffic and help ease Key West’s housing crisis by freeing up units occupied by hotel employees elsewhere in the city.
“Ownership has enjoyed engaging with the community throughout the planning process and has made significant changes to the project in response to valuable feedback from neighbors and members of the community.”
The city commission agenda, when published, will be available at cityofkeywest-fl.gov.
