Buena Vista Battles Design District Encroachment

Three small properties at the edge of Buena Vista Heights recently considered for upzoning represent a larger battle of what it is to live right next to Miami’s ever-growing Design District.

During a May 11 meeting, the Miami City Commission approved a zoning change for three properties – located at 39 NW 39th St., 40 NW 39th St. and 48 NW 39th St. – from single-family residential to duplex residential. The move was a success for many who opposed the applicant’s initial request to convert the properties to commercial zoning instead.

The properties in question are each 5,000 square feet and located right next to North Miami Avenue. Two are occupied by single-family homes, while the other is an empty lot. Right across the street begins the bustling slew of restaurants and shops that make up the famous Design District, developed by business mogul Craig Robins, but if you look in the other direction, all you see are homes.

Lorena Ramos, chairperson of Buena Vista Stakeholders, says that the residential pushback against a potential commercial designation right at the edge of their neighborhood sends a clear message to both developers and commissioners handling zoning requests. That message: that their neighborhood should remain residential.

Ramos continues to witness single-family homes sold off to developers and zoned to commercial with covenants that are meant to provide buffers to residents but are easily forgotten in the future. The successful effort to ward off the commercial zoning on NW 39th Street and instead allow duplex residential was in the spirit of compromise. Plus, she says, it acts as a cushion between the two strikingly contrasting ends of North Miami Avenue.

“We don’t want any more encroachment into our residential neighborhood, so this would be a good transition before the part that’s completely commercial,” Ramos told the Biscayne Times.

But others aren’t as satisfied with the change.

Alvin Smith, whose family has lived in the property adjacent to those being upzoned for more than 50 years, says he and his mother don’t want to live next to duplexes. Among his fears are increased congestion, higher taxes, lower property values or a domino effect that would cause duplexes to sprout up throughout other areas of his neighborhood. The simple fact of the matter, however, is that Buena Vista Heights is where he was raised, where his mother has lived for decades and where his father died, and he just doesn’t want to see it change.

“My mom is just used to it the way that it is,” he said. “If it’s not broken, why try to fix it?”

That logic is exactly what leads attorney David Winker to believe that the change is also illegal. Winker, who represented Smith in opposing the zoning change, points to the city’s Miami 21 code, which states that any application must state “why the zoning change is appropriate and why the existing zoning is inappropriate.”

In his view, the latter of the two burdens was not fulfilled. Winker says that Miami 21 was created to preserve neighborhoods and protect residents from “spot-zoning.” While members of the city’s Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board note that this scenario doesn’t exactly constitute spot-zoning, which occurs when a completely inconsistent zoning designation is planted arbitrarily within an otherwise consistent set of properties, Winker insists that its downfalls are the same.

Perhaps a more just way to have made the change, Winker suggests, would have been to upzone the surrounding lived-in properties as well. That way, their property values go up before they choose or don’t choose to sell, and not after.

“This upzoning – all this boring talk and all this technical stuff – this is money,” he said. “These are millions of dollars. All of that talk is making money out of thin air.”

Yet the consequence of solving upzoning with even more upzoning is that more and more people would be inclined to sell to developers, ultimately destroying the character of the neighborhood and putting those who wish to stay in even more danger of being pushed out.

The intentions of the zoning change are unclear, but Winker suspects it could just be an investment opportunity. The owner of the properties is Invest Capital Group LLC, he says, “a real estate investment management and development firm focused on multifamily assets.”

The attorney applying for the change on the company’s behalf, Andres Rivero, a partner of law firm Rivero Mestre, did not respond to the Times for comment.

Whatever the plans for those properties are, Winker believes there’s a racial component involved. He says it’s only low-income, Black communities that are ever at risk of spot-zoning, or anything like it, which dwindles their single-family residential stock.

“I’m not worried about my neighbor being upzoned to duplexes,” Winker said. “This only happens in Black neighborhoods.”

Indeed, Buena Vista has a population that’s roughly 40-50% Black. It also has a heavy Hispanic population of about 37%.

Those in favor of the upzoning, on the other hand, believe the low-income character of the neighborhood is all the more reason to allow developers to come in, as long as their plans conform to its residential character.

“How long will we be the communities that are always, ‘Not in my backyard, we don’t want any progress, we want to leave everything that’s exactly what it is’?” asked resident Carmen Ramos Watson, whose parents live right in front of one of the newly zoned properties. “Then we end up looking like the eyesore.”