Showdown Over Miami Shores Comprehensive Plan

Miami Shores Village residents showed up in droves last month to protest a proposal that would enable increased height limits and density in their community of largely single-family homes.

What began as an ill-received plan to build a gas station adjacent to the Biscayne Canal late last year has now led to what could well be a historic turnout of residents opposing wholesale changes within the village’s comprehensive plan.

Those changes would allow for 1,246 additional units to be built in just three key areas centrally located within the neighborhood, potentially attracting roughly 3,725 new residents over the next 20 years.

The drafted plan creates three new mixed-use designations throughout the community – one covering several parcels along NE Second Avenue, considered Miami Shores’ downtown, another covering two large parcels on either side of NW Fifth Avenue to the west of Barry University, and a third on a 1-acre plot of land at 10500 Biscayne Blvd. that was the intended site of the once-proposed gas station.

In the meantime, proposed developments throughout the village have been put on hold since February, when the council first voted to instate a moratorium on all zoning changes until the comprehensive plan is reviewed and updated.

The new plan, created by village staff in partnership with hired consulting agency Calvin, Giordano & Associates (CGA), would limit buildings in the downtown area to four stories, while the Barry University and NE 105th Street properties would be limited to five. It would not, however, allow a gas station to be built along the canal.

After listening to more than 100 public comments at an October meeting – just nine of which showed support for the proposed changes – the village council deliberated over conflict-of-interest allegations, public transparency and inconsistencies with its current plan. Unable to reach a compromise, the members finally decided around 1 a.m. to defer the item to a Dec. 6 meeting.

The matter was intentionally deferred to December – and not to one of the village’s two November meetings – so that staff and consultants have time to deliberate with the public that, up until recently, had felt largely in the dark about ongoing changes.

Lack of Transparency

A significant number of the public speakers at the Oct. 18 meeting expressed concern over how village staff had failed to properly notify residents of relevant discussions. By a show of hands, it became clear that a vast majority had heard of the amendments from neighboring residents – and not from the council itself.

Sarah McSherry, a land-use attorney living in the village, went door-knocking in October near some of the affected areas and began to notice that little to no residents knew anything about what was being drafted for their community.

McSherry was among a small group of residents steering a petition against the amendments that had more than 900 signatures leading up to the Oct. 18 meeting, and approximately 1,150 signatures by the time it had adjourned.

“We felt that residents weren’t being communicated with,” McSherry told the Biscayne Times, “and the ones that were being communicated with – their concerns were being dismissed – and we felt that the process wasn’t happening the way the law intends for it to happen.”

At the meeting, village attorney Sarah Johnston asserted that all public hearing requirements had indeed been fulfilled. Still, worries remained about the effectiveness of outreach efforts, despite being in compliance with state law.

Councilwoman Crystal Wagar made the motion to defer until Dec. 6 under the condition that residents be adequately engaged in the meantime.

“What I keep hearing is, ‘We didn’t know the process. We don’t know what’s going on,’” said Wagar. “Then we need to take a minute to fill them in.”

A key voice in future community meetings will be whoever represents the Barry University-Lennar partnership. Lennar is a home construction company whose elusive business at the parcel adjacent to the university has been a leading concern for residents and councilmembers alike.

During a June presentation by hired consultants, the property was referred to as the “Barry U Property (Lennar Project),” with no reference to what that project might consist of. As a result, fear spread that a new, large-scale development would be in the pipeline immediately following the approval of the new comprehensive plan as written.

Mike Allen, Barry University president, was at the October meeting to support the proposed changes, which he believes will restore his team’s rights as property owners of the parcels. In 2018, a previous village council rubber-stamped a new plan that changed the plot’s designation from mixed-use with no restrictions to institutional use, disallowing any residential component.

Allen said the university would look forward to pursuing a site plan through the proper avenues once the moratorium is lifted, to fulfill his goal of serving students and staff alike that cannot currently afford to live in Miami Shores.

Affordable Housing

Affordable housing in the form of rental units was one of the leading arguments in favor of the proposed changes, alongside added tax revenue and increased foot traffic for existing businesses.

Laura Reynolds, a resident of south Miami who plans to move to Miami Shores in the near future, is among those who support the changes. An activist against recent proposals to expand the urban development boundary in Miami-Dade County, she cautioned against keeping any one municipality as single-family in perpetuity, under the argument that such homes are often unaffordable.

“Every day I’m working to make sure that the green space that surrounds Dade County is protected,” she said. “In order to do that under current laws, we have to have some density, and so density is not a bad word.”

As it is, the proposals made by CGA planners Silvia Vargas and Alex David have been altered several times within the past months. An initial draft proffered 2,788 additional units, more than double the current amount, which could have invited roughly 8,336 new residents.

But many in opposition still appealed to added traffic, pollution, noise and sunlight-blocking concrete.

“Progress is one thing – nobody is against progress – but this is overdevelopment,” said resident Kathy Shorr prior to the meeting. “This is something that’s a win for the developers and the people who aid them. This is not a win for a community.”

CGA and village staff first embarked on this journey early this year after South Carolina-based construction company Stern Development proposed a Murphy Express gas station on the NE 105th Street parcel, which would have required a change to the future land use and zoning maps.

Councilmembers soon discovered that their very comprehensive plan had been improperly conceived by a former council in 2018, which resulted in nonconforming single-family properties across the village.

Potential consequences of nonconformities are reductions in property values, difficulty receiving loans and an inability to rebuild in the case of destruction – such as if Hurricane Ian had struck the village when it wreaked havoc in other parts of the state in late September.

Differing Views

Marinberg, the leading voice on the council in favor of the proffered changes, constantly referenced these inconsistencies as reason to approve, recommending members save further discussions of density for the zoning code amendments, which, according to Vargas, is “where the rubber meets the road.”

Through the zoning code, the village staff will be able to instate individual limits for each parcel, as well as residential buffers in the form of parking lots.

Councilwoman Alice Burch, however, feared legal challenges if their comprehensive plan included limitations that they later failed to grant. She proffered a series of amendments to the plan that would decrease density for the multi-use designations from 30 units per acre to anywhere from 10-16 units per acre, all while maintaining three-story height limits.

“For every five people I heard tonight, I only heard one out of those five that would be in favor of going to 30 units per acre right now, when we don’t know what Barry is going to propose or what is possible,” Burch said. “I can’t go against those people. Those are the people I’m representing.”

Neither Harris nor Marinberg were willing to support Burch’s proposals.

“What I don’t want to do is what we did on Oct. 6 – that we sit here, tired, exhausted, we put together some new plan that we haven’t really had time to think through,” said Harris.

Marinberg revealed his frustration at the continued delays.

“If the goal is not to get anywhere, I’d rather just not do anything then, quite frankly, because we don’t need to have more meetings,” he said. “We’re just talking and talking and talking, and we’re getting nowhere.”

Marinberg later voted against the deferral, announcing that he would be absent from the Dec. 6 meeting. The audience reacted with applause.

If the council reaches a consensus in December, the comprehensive plan must undergo a review by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity before it comes to a second reading. The deadline to submit an approved plan to the DEO for review is July 2023.