Item P1
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From; Krzysztof & Halina Duszka
P.O. BOX 430128 BIG PINE KEY, FL 33043
TEL: 3044467 OR 305-8724039
Fourteen years ago we had
bought a building lot on Big Pine Key to secure affordable housing
for my family and for those same fourteen years we've been paying
taxes for it In the last eight years BPK had been under a building
moratorium, which had forced us to move Il.1Y family, consisting of
three kids, my wife and me to a trailer on Little Torch Key instead
of building our first home. This situation haS mined us financially,
especially since our down payment on our house has been locked
into an un-buildable building lot, which we also have to maintain
(because of many fire hazards and wind hazards to a home near
by.) The mobile home we are forced to live in is much too small
for us and this lot, which we hoped to build a house on someday,
has turned into a hole in our money pocket. At the same time the
housing prices are growing up all over the country. Also in the
same time Monroe County did not come up with a buyout program
or any kind of relief for families' with children like ours.
This
situation has been brought on us by the clans of fanatical
environmentalists who are completely unreasonable and have no
regard for the needs of families. For the last four years, the local
government ~d environmental agencies had been researching the
impact on the environment while at the same time were not doing
any studies on how preventing people from building on their
building lots will affect them. Such disregard for the welfare of
dozens offamilies is totally inexcusable in a civilized country.
A situation like this creates an imbalance
where powerful environmental agencies, which have money for
lawyers and media propaganda, are crushing individual families
like mine. The proof of the one sided treatment to this situation is
the total disregard to such researchers as the Texas University, who
have stated that the human presence on Big Pine Key has been
beneficial to the Key Deer. The recent HCP meeting proposed
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releasing ten pennits per year in the next twenty years. After the
eight years of the building moratorium, that would mean that many
families on BPK would have to wait a quarter of a centwy for
decent housing-that in itself is an insult to our fiJces. What this
situation amounts too, is that it takes away housing from us and
most of the time it creates POverty. I can only conclude that the real
reason fur this situation is that local people fur their selfish reasons
want to stop anybody from developing their building lot and in
order to achieve it, our local government decided to use phony
environmental reasons because they cannot do it in any other legal
way.
I find it totally unacceptable that the Fish & Wildlife
officials are requesting an additional half-year, on top of the many
years that had been wasted already, for research time. In the age of
computers and tax machines Such research should take weeks not
months. We are in the process of collecting all neccessary
documents fur applying fur a building pennit and we would like
our local officials to start making it easier fur us to achieve our
goal of home ownership in a a reasonable amount of time. THERE
HAS BEEN ENOUGH HARM DONE TO DOZENS OF
FAMILIES!
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