Developers Crushing Miami Underfoot

The City of Miami is in the midst of a 10-years-plus development boom that’s bringing billions of dollars in foreign and domestic investment into the Magic City.

But while real estate developers and investors are raking in cash, activists and neighborhood advocates insist the rush of development is having an adverse impact on traffic, sanitation, parks and affordable housing, the latter a critical need.

“They don’t care,” said Andres Althabe, president of the Biscayne Neighborhoods Association. “Nothing is small in Miami. Everything is a big building,” he said. “[City officials] play too fast and loose with approving more density and more height.”

Grace Solares, president emeritus of Miami Neighborhoods United, said no other batch of city commissioners have catered more to the will of developers during her nearly 30 years as an activist. Oftentimes, city commissioners don’t even stay on the dais when the public speaks on development issues, she charged.

“It’s a dog and pony show,” said Solares. “How impactful are your comments when the majority of people who would be voting [on a zoning issue] are not there listening to your argument?”

Attorney David Winker said he’s been increasingly busy representing single-family homeowners all over the city trying to fend off construction of oversized homes, mid-rise apartment buildings, schools and hotels. The city, he opined, is outright hostile to single-family neighborhoods, especially compared to some other jurisdictions in Miami-Dade.

“They would get their asses thrown out of office in Miami Shores if they pushed that kind of crap over there,” said Winker. “But in the City of Miami there is more tolerance for this kind of BS.”

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez did not return an email requesting comment by deadline.

County Commissioner Keon Hardemon, former chairman of the Miami City Commission, said new development can bring retail and restaurants in places devoid of such amenities.

“Miami is a young city with tremendous opportunities for responsible growth,” stated Hardemon, a Liberty City resident who, during his time as a city commissioner, cast a pivotal vote approving the controversial mega-project known as the Magic City Innovation District in Little Haiti. “As a resident, I want my neighborhood to include safe dwellings and commercial structures that bring pride to its inhabitants and visitors,” he continued in an email to the Biscayne Times.

District 4 City Commissioner Manolo Reyes, who is also chairman of the Miami Downtown Development Authority, insisted that the only people who influence his vote are residents, even though he has voted in favor of zoning changes for various contentious projects, including the Magic City Innovation District, a 36-story tower in the Design District; a jai alai fronton and poker room in Edgewater; and a 24-story tower in Brickell where the former six-story Babylon tower once stood.

“I am not impressed or pressured by any developer or any lobbyists,” Reyes declared. “My concerns and commitment are with my constituents, to protect the integrity of the neighborhoods.”

Vanishing Affordable Housing & A Mass Resident Exodus

Ken Russell, city commissioner for District 2 – an area that includes Coconut Grove, Brickell, downtown, Park West, Omni, Edgewater and Morningside – said the city is trying to utilize the tax wealth collected from new development to improve services and meet the demands of a growing population.

“It is really about us keeping up with that growth to make sure there’s enough transit, garbage pickup and flood control,” said Russell, who also voted for the 36-story tower in the Design District, as well as a referendum to construct a massive soccer stadium and shopping complex on Melreese Country Club grounds. “It is never enough, but I can say we are making the right investment to make a difference.”

Russell said the city is using the tax base from new developments to help fund $400 million in Miami Forever Bonds that will fund capital improvements throughout the city, including $85 million earmarked for affordable housing.

But according to the 82-page Affordable Housing Masterplan drafted by Florida International University’s Jorge M. Pérez Metropolitan Center, the City of Miami continues to lose 1,286 affordable housing units a year thanks to the current development boom. FIU recommended that the city leverage the $85 million to raise $1 billion in grants, loans and donations toward the development of 32,000 affordable rental units in the form of low-rise multifamily buildings.

Instead, the city commission opted to go with Commissioner Joe Carollo’s idea: Construct 2,500 affordable “homeownership” condos for existing residents in each of the city’s five districts. Unfortunately, a special committee tasked with formulating how to execute that plan never met. City spokesman John Heffernan said it will hold its first meeting this summer.

Carollo, whose district includes Little Havana, did not return texts from the Biscayne Times by deadline.

While Miami remains without an affordable housing masterplan, cheap housing continues to disappear, a devastating situation in a municipality where the median household income is $39,000 a year. Edward “Ned” Murray, associate director of the Jorge M. Pérez Metropolitan Center, said the rising cost of living is making it impossible for Miamians to stay in Miami.

“That,” he said, “is why so many workers have migrated out of Miami.”

A Development Boom & Special Area Plans

The current development cycle in Miami started around the mid-2000s, when the pro-development policies of Mayor Manny Diaz were taking root. That development halted in 2008 with the onset of the Great Recession, shortly before the city adopted its current Miami 21 zoning code in 2009, which allows mixed-use residential and commercial development in most sectors of the city.

By 2011, Miami’s real estate economy was jumpstarted by Latin American investors willing and able to pay cash for condo units, apartments buildings, single-family houses and other properties. Referred to locally as the “Latin American Model,” the influx of investments revived suspended developments. European cash buyers soon joined the buying frenzy, followed by wealthy individuals and companies from within the United States.

That pace has increased due to changes in the tax code made under the Trump administration, which encourage people with economic means to relocate from high-tax states like New York and California to lower-tax realms such as Florida.

To accommodate demand, owners of large tracts of land can ask for even higher-density zoning. Called special area plans, or SAPs, the provision under Miami 21 enables property holders to request extensive zoning changes if they control more than nine acres of land, although the city commission has approved SAPs with territories as small as 6.5 acres.

Marleine Bastien, executive director of Family Action Network Movement, said SAPs like the Magic City Innovation District will only speed up gentrification in neighborhoods like Little Haiti, an area where the median household income, according to StatisticalAtlas.com, is below $25,000 a year.

“Many [city commissioners and city planners] fail to consider the impact of these mega developments on businesses and residents who are pushed out of communities that they built through hard work and sacrifices,” Bastien stated in an email to the Biscayne Times.

She isn’t alone in her criticism. Several activists and urban planners say that SAPs without strict guidelines are destructive to existing neighborhoods. In January 2020, the city’s planning board unanimously backed the repeal of SAPs from the Miami 21 code.

The Miami City Commission never took it up. Instead, it followed Reyes’ advice to appoint a board to review the entire Miami 21 zoning code. The members of the Miami 21 Task Force include land-use attorneys, architects, real estate developers, urban planners and a single head of a neighborhood concern: Alisa Cepeda, president of the Palm Grove Neighborhood Association.

As for repealing SAPs, Reyes said he wants to wait until the task force completes its report to the city. Real estate developer and former zoning attorney Andrew Frey, a member of the task force, said the committee’s report is due in September.

“We have over 200 recommendations in the draft list as of now,” he said.

Russell is hopeful that SAPs can be reformed, rather than done away with. One idea he’d like to explore would require that affordable apartments be constructed on site along with market-rate units.

“An inclusionary concept for SAPs that would include affordable housing? I like that!” he exclaimed.

A Demand for Developers

Althabe said he’d be happy if the city extracted some actual public benefits from developers in exchange for zoning changes.

He pointed out that the city could have received up to $3.5 million in public benefits from developer Craig Robins in exchange for granting zoning changes that enabled him to construct a 36-story tower at 38th Street and Biscayne Boulevard, where only 20-story towers are permitted. At the very least, said Althabe, the city could have insisted on traffic improvements at the already backed-up area. Instead, the city commission unanimously granted the height increase on May 27.

“The city really doesn’t contemplate the needs of its residents,” he said.

Developers do offer public benefits in exchange for zoning changes in Miami, and Bob Powers, a board member of the Palm Grove Neighborhood Association, said elected officials should be more focused on extracting substantial sums from developers for neighborhoods, rather than campaign contributions.

“Real concessions to the neighborhood, like paying for a new Metromover stop or a trolley,” Powers listed. “Paying for schools in the area.”

Annie Lord, executive director of Miami Homes For All, believes the city should strive to communicate better with its surrounding residents when it comes to real estate development. Lord’s organization is currently participating in a charette process, initiated by Suarez, to figure out how to redevelop an 18-acre city-owned General Services Administration facility in Allapattah.

The purpose, Lord said, is to ask the community what it wants before – before being the point – city officials develop their own plans. She is hopeful the public charette process for the future of the 18-acre property, which was organized by a coalition of local groups called Public Land For Public Good, will serve as a model for any future redevelopment of publicly owned assets and, perhaps, future private development projects.

“We are firmly of the belief that people who live in the community are very informed of what that community needs,” Lord said.

Indeed, communication between developers, residents and city planners helped make the proposed 62-story, 2.5-million-square foot One Southside project more palatable, said Ernesto Cuesta, president of the Brickell Homeowners Association.

“We engaged with that developer and, out of that engagement, we were able to get the development of a [new] Southside Park,” he said.

Cuesta said he’s also pleased with the level of communication his organization has received from Suarez (who vetoed the rezoning that would have allowed a controversial 24-story tower at the former Babylon site, where only eight-story buildings are permitted) and the city’s newly hired planning and zoning director, Cesar Garcia-Pons. Cuesta further claimed that Garcia-Pons has met with the HOA to discuss potential development issues almost every month since his hiring last December.

“We are on the right path,” Cuesta said. “I am not saying we should be lowering the bar, but the city has been listening.”