Land use--Law and legislation--Florida--Florida Keys

The state of Florida recognized that the negative effects
of development in the Florida Keys were extending beyond
the local area and affecting the broader interests of the
state itself. In an attempt to regulate growth and its
effects, the state, in 1975, designated the archipelago off
its southern coast an Area of Critical State Concern.
Besides the environmental changes, this designation and its
accompanying land use regulations have t he potential to
create economic impacts. This thesis analyzes the Keys'
economy and determines if the critical area designation
impacted the local economy.

This thesis includes an overview of modern land use
regulation from the Euclid decision in 1926 to the American
Law Institute's Model Land Development Code. The main emphasis
of this thesis is the Code's "districts of critical state
concern". Florida, in enacting the Environmental Land and
Water Management Act in 1972, used the ALI Code as a model for
its "areas of critical state concern".
The Florida Keys are studied in this thesis in regards
to this type of designation in order to research the intergovernmental
aspects and problems of this legislation. A
survey of the people of the Keys and interviews with their
elected officials during the first few months following their
designation as one of critical state concern uncovered some
of the inherent difficulties involved when the state imposes
its guidelines on a local municipality within the ALI context.