Monroe County, FL Building Safety: Green Building Code (2026)

In the unincorporated Florida Keys, Monroe County limits new residential construction through the Rate of Growth Ordinance (ROGO) because the county is a state-designated Area of Critical State Concern. Under Land Development Code Section 138-24(d), the county shall issue no building permit for a dwelling unit unless it has a dwelling unit allocation award or is otherwise exempted or vested, so every new home in the unincorporated Keys must first win one of the limited quarterly ROGO allocations administered by the Planning and Environmental Resources Department.

Section 138-28(a)(10), the Energy and Water Conservation scoring category, is where the county's green-building policy actually lives: for applications on Tier III (infill) parcels, a proposal for a dwelling unit designed according to and certified to the standards of a sustainable building rating or national model green building code earns 3 additional competitive points. Those points stack with other conservation credits under the same subsection: 1 point for installing a permanent concrete cistern of at least 1,000 gallons, 2 points for a gray water reuse system meeting the Florida Building Code, and 1 point for a solar photovoltaic system of at least 3 kilowatts or an equivalent renewable-energy system.

Because ROGO allocations are awarded competitively by descending point total within each subarea and quarter, a green-building certification directly improves an applicant's odds of receiving one of the scarce annual allocations ahead of a rival application without it. The county does not require green certification to build a home; it is an optional scoring boost layered onto the growth-management permit lottery, not a mandatory construction standard.