Layton, the smallest city in the Keys, appears to have prevailed in a battle to keep a Border Patrol station out of the community.

BY JENNIFER BABSON

KEY WEST - Two years after launching a campaign to keep the U.S. Border Patrol from moving into the tiniest city in the Keys, the residents of Layton appear to have won.

All 188 of them.

''It just brought everybody together to fight something that they did not want in their community,'' said Yvonne Harper, the city's former vice mayor.

What Layton didn't want was a 5,000-square-foot Border Patrol station -- with holding cells and offices -- that the agency hoped to locate within a vacant warehouse there.

Plans were drawn, environmental reviews were conducted, meetings were held, but the residents of Layton just wouldn't budge. Instead, they filed suit in federal court, claiming the project would harm manatees that they say frolic in canals where agents would have to maneuver their boats.

''I'm disappointed that the community never really gave us a chance,'' said Cameron Hintzen, the agency's patrol agent in charge in the Keys. ``It's a dead deal, and we know it's a dead deal, and we have been looking for a new place.''

The Border Patrol's plan died not in court, but after the property's owner, Realtor Brian Schmitt, decided he wanted to build nine high-end vacation rental units instead of waiting for the resolution of what promised to be a protracted fight.

''Layton was ready, willing and able to fight this to the Supreme Court. They might have lost at the Supreme Court, but they would have fought,'' boasted Rob Cook, Layton's attorney.

Schmitt apparently got the message.

''Layton wasn't going to back down, Border Patrol wasn't going to back down, and I was caught in the middle,'' he said.

Layton's elected officials have rushed to support Schmitt's project, even penning a letter to the Department of Community Affairs pleading for backing from growth stewards.

Among other things, the city is hoping to use tax revenue generated from the tin-roofed, tropical cottages to finance construction of a new wastewater system for the city.

The department oversees strict growth curbs in the Keys and would have to sign off before the project could move forward.

`UGLY EYESORE'

''The building has been an ugly eyesore in our downtown for 25 to 30 years. It's going to add a lot to our community, it's going to be a wonderful little project for us,'' said Norman Anderson, a member of Layton's five-member City Council. ``Really and truly, it works for us.''

The newfound enthusiasm stands in sharp contrast to feelings generated by ''the other'' proposal.

In this tight-knit, half-mile-long municipality -- which has one hotel, one restaurant and no supermarket -- residents feared the station would accomplish something they've thwarted quietly for decades:

It would put Layton on the map.

''We were horrified,'' Harper said.

Residents were mostly worried about holding cells. Border Patrol officials said they would be used to keep migrants for short periods of time, and never overnight, before their transport to the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade County.

To Laytonites, that sounded fishy.

''To us, holding cells translated into a jail, and the community felt that particular type of a facility, with all of the potential problems, did not belong in any single-family, purely residential community,'' Harper said.

RESIDENTS WRONG

Hintzen said Layton residents got it wrong.

''They never actually believed the truth, which was that it was never going to be a detention center,'' he said.

When Cuban migrants land in the Keys, they are taken to the Border Patrol's Pembroke Pines station, where an immigration file is opened on them, they are fingerprinted if they haven't already been, and photos and biographical data are taken. It's only after this step that Cuban migrants are then taken to Krome, from where their relatives are notified and they are released. The new site would have allowed the agency to bus migrants directly to Krome.

Now the agency -- which has gone from five agents to about 20 in the Keys -- is taking a hard look at other sites at undisclosed locations in the middle of the island chain, Hintzen said. The Monroe County Sheriff's Office is lending the agency a small office in Marathon.

In Layton, though, some residents aren't quite ready to accept victory.

After all, no one has officially declared a cease-fire on either side.

''We're just keeping our fingers crossed,'' said Jean Murphy, the city's clerk. 'There's an old expression, `Nothing is accomplished until the fat lady sings.' I think we are waiting for the song, you know?''