MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – It’s now right down to wire for these trying to uphold Miami-Dade’s City Growth Boundary and defend land environmentalists say is required for Everglades restoration and saving Biscayne Bay.
“That’s the issue with this challenge. It’s within the improper place on the improper time, and it’s by no means going to be the proper challenge for this space,” mentioned Laura Reynolds with Maintain the Line Coalition.
After three deferrals over the previous 14 months, final week Miami-Dade’s Board of County Commissioners accredited a plan by builders to broaden the UDB to transform farmland in south Miami Dade into a brand new warehouse and business advanced close to Homestead, however the mayor can nonetheless veto the plan.
She has till Friday.
“Not this challenge and never now,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava mentioned from the dais throughout final Tuesday’s fee assembly. “Our planning division stand firmly against this utility.”
Levine Cava has been strongly towards the applying from the get go. She had sufficient assist from the fee to dam it, up till final week when Commissioner Raquel Regalado flipped her no vote to a sure.
“We now have come a great distance in saying it’s both the economic system or the setting,” Regalado mentioned.
On this new utility, builders scaled again their challenge from 800 acres to 383.
On This Week in South Florida, Regalado informed Native 10 Information’ Michael Putney and Glenna Milberg that her sure vote was about securing land for preservation, reaching a take care of builders to donate two acres of environmentally delicate land for each acre builders obtained for brand spanking new building.
“As a substitute of ready for the federal authorities to determine and discover cash to possibly buy this land, what I dropped at my fellow Commissioners, the thought of growing 311 acres of this, however preserving twice that 622 acres,” she mentioned.
However opponents says that units harmful precedent, that different builders can now preemptively purchase up land the county’s already been eying for preservation.
“The price of that land is inevitably going to go up whether it is now used as a bargaining chip for builders to maneuver our city improvement boundary,” mentioned Miami-Dade District 8 Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins.
The truth is, Cohen Higgins did the mathematics and introduced receipts.
“With the vote as we speak we might be growing the land worth of this 380 acres from roughly $20.5 million with one vote to $86.7 million, simply by transferring the City Growth Boundary,” she mentioned.
Meaning builders stand to make upwards of $66 million if this deal goes by way of.
At stake is the way forward for farming in south Miami-Dade, and plans to revive our fragile ecosystem down there.
“For this reason we acquired letters from the federal authorities on this occasion saying don’t transfer this line,” mentioned Cohen Higgins. “We’re this land for Everglades and Biscayne Bay restoration. All of that was fully disregarded.”
Not simply that, however the land additionally sits on a coastal excessive hazard space.
“Look no additional than the upcoming storm that’s coming in the direction of the state of Florida, we shouldn’t make it simpler to develop in coastal excessive hazard areas which this challenge represents,” mentioned Reynolds. “It makes it simpler to develop in low mendacity areas, and that’s precisely the other way we have to head.”
Builders say they plan to mitigate that by elevating the land upwards of 4 toes, however haven’t addressed how they might defend abutting properties from potential flooding.
Nonetheless, builders insist this can be a huge win for south Miami-Dade, boasting that it will convey some 7000 jobs to the realm that they might additionally clear up.
“The property itself is contaminated,” mentioned Aligned Actual Property Holdings Developer Jose Hevia. “We’re going to remediate that at our expense. So setting, jobs, alternatives for these disenfranchised people who stay in south Dade.”
Mentioned Levine Cava: “There isn’t any jobs assure and it’s a false declare to say {that a} warehouse improvement is healthier for the setting than agriculture.”
The proverbial ball is actually now within the mayor’s arms.
“The Fee can nonetheless change their thoughts, particularly if the mayor vetoes this dangerous deal,” mentioned Reynolds.
If Levine-Cava workouts her veto energy and decides to dam the UDB from being moved, she’d have to beat the tremendous majority of county commissioners who handed it.
The mayor would want to flip simply a type of eight commissioners who voted sure. If the veto strikes ahead, that re-vote would occur on the subsequent fee assembly on Tuesday, Nov. 15.
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