Monroe County will ask the Federal Emergency Management Agency to play fair and entertain alternatives to forcing homeowners to dismantle downstairs enclosures.

Commissioner Mario Di Gennaro will ask fellow board members to endorse a letter he plans to send FEMA seeking middle ground in the battle over mother-in-law apartments built in garages and under stilted homes.

FEMA banned the building and habitation of apartments and rooms under homes, which are under the flood levels. Federal officials fear high death and injury rates in the Florida Keys should storm surge suddenly strike the apartments, engulfing and drowning residents or washing away furniture and other items that could hit someone.

Though the county was told to stop building such apartments, thousands of homeowners ignored the ban, sometimes with the county's blessing. They're illegal and must be torn down, which reduces the value of homes and robs homeowners of a! second income at a time when it's tough to pay mortgages.

"We have a tremendous problem throughout the county in these tough economic times," he said. "They have to rip them out; [homeowners] lose subsidies they get for renting them for affordable housing. Thousands of them, homeowners, are suffering. It's a very sensitive issue with me."

If he can get the board's backing, Di Gennaro plans to sit down with FEMA officials to see if homeowners can keep their downstairs enclosures, perhaps by paying a higher insurance fee or other means he declined to disclose.

"There are so many ideas, I don't want to put them on the table right now," he said Friday.

Another problem: Before they can build a fence or perform any other home improvement requiring a permit, homeowners must have county inspectors evaluate the entire property, Di Gennaro said. If there's a downstairs enclosure, the homeowner can't make those improvements, he sa! id.

Fellow Commissioner Heather Carruthers said if Di Ge! nnaro can get FEMA to back off requiring the destruction of downstairs enclosures, that would be good for the county, but she doubts FEMA will budge.

"He's just asking FEMA to revisit the issue, with the understanding that there are people who have these downstairs," she said. "In 1995, we came up with this agreement that we would not allow any new downstairs enclosures. I find it hard to believe that FEMA will allow anyone to build below flood plain especially after seeing images of [Hurricane] Ike in Galveston."

Those images include a huge storm surge debris pile in the marshes behind Galveston that contain the detritus of homes and, officials believe, bodies of dozens of missing homeowners.

"I hope we can come to some kind of agreement so homeowners will be able to maintain them," she said.

The Department of Community Affairs granted the county 100 Rate of Growth Ordinances (ROGOs) for affordable housing to offset for! mer downstairs enclosures that were once affordable living spaces.

"Only one or two [affordable housing units] have been built," she said. "If we really have a commitment, why aren't we using these ROGOs for affordable housing?"

The commissioners will discuss Di Gennaro's ideas at their meeting in Marathon Wednesday.

jguerra@keysnews.com