Miami Mayor Vetos Plan to annex Florida City land

Lost weekdays, Patrick Fiore leaves his downtown Miami office around 4:30 p.m. to start a tripartite mass transit journey to his car in the suburbs of Miami-Dade.

From a Metromover station, he takes an elevated ride to a Metrorail connection at Government Center. After a trip aboard the train, he catches a minibus that takes him to a shopping center and his automobile for the final leg home.

Fiore¹s 20-mile trip ends in the Hammocks neighborhood of West Kendall. On a good day in the mid 1990s, when strawberry fields, wooded parcels and scrubland constituted the scenery along the route home, the trip took only 45 minutes.

Now, it takes two hours.

During peak travel times, his route is chockablock with commuters edging their way from the western perimeter of urban development to downtown labor centers and back.

Fiore, community activists, environmentalists and county planners fear this scenario could worsen if developers gazing farther west succeed in changing land uses to build new homes, shopping centers and offices on property now designated for farm uses.

"Oh, please, don't remind me of that," Fiore said when asked about two proposals to move the urban development boundary to make way for new communities west of his neighborhood.

The applications are among nine proposed UDB amendments trying to push the line into low-density territory where one house is allowed for every five acres.

Three other proposals for large-scale Developments of Regional Impact, or DRIs, are moving on a parallel track beyond the UDB line.

"Most communities don¹t see these fights because they don¹t have a boundary," Mark R. Woerner, chief of the metropolitan planning section of the county¹s Planning and Zoning Department.

But as the county runs out of contiguous tracts suitable for large projects, builders see farmland beyond the line as their salvation.

Miami-Dade has 1,965 square miles, including a large chunk of Everglades National Park. A total of 373 square miles is urbanized; 393 square miles are agricultural, open land, canals and lakes.

"We pack more than 2 million people into the urbanized area," Woerner said. The county is projected to grow by 150,000 people by 2008. The UDB applications call for up to 3,050 new homes.

Developers planning for the average 30,000 new residents a year are beginning the process to change the comprehensive development master plan, the sacred book of county development, for the first time in two years.

"It is not a question of when the line will be moved but what kind of development will be allowed, " said former Miami Beach Mayor Neisen Kasdin and past chair of the local chapter of the Urban Land Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that promotes infill development.

Kasdin said many developers want to build planned communities outside the line with schools and shops mingled among homes so people can walk more and drive less.

The Builders Association of South Florida hired Kasdin, a land-use attorney with Gunster Yoakley in Miami, to help push its application through.

"Most of the developments being proposed outside the UDB are mixed-use communities," said attorney Stanley Price, with Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod. Shoma Homes and Pedro Talamas, Juan J. Valdes and Nadia A. Valdes hired him to lobby for their applications.

"Any developer with more than 50 acres that doesn¹t donate land for a school is crazy," added Price, referring to one of the many components in planned neighborhoods.

Proposed UDB amendments heading to the County Commission Nov. 21 would move boundaries more than a decade earlier than county planners recommend. Planners say the current land supply for housing within the boundary will last at least until 2018.

Lennar Corp. and D.R. Horton, major developers on the national stage, are seeking permits through the DRI route to build about 18,000 homes west and south of the UDB line.

Some of the UDB proposals came from Shoma Homes, Adrian Development Group, Lucky Start Developers, Brown Development Group, retailer Lowe¹s Home Centers and Hialeah. The city is backing a 1,140-acre plan that includes a Codina Group office park.

In addition, the Builders Association of South Florida and Latin Builders Association want to change the UDB system from a concrete two-year boundary to something as flexible as hot roofing tar.

The two associations are pushing a plan to increase the county inventory for future single and multifamily units within the urban development area.

County planners are recommending against the amendment because it could force the county to allow more single-family homes outside the UDB, Woerner said.

"It will allow us to build without having to go through the urban development boundary process of amending the comprehensive map," said Rick Horton, president of the Florida Builders Association of South Florida.

After initial county review, the UDB applications will be forwarded to the state Department of Community Affairs for comments and come back to the county for a final vote around March or April 2006. Public hearings will be held along the way.

Miami-Dade is one of the few Florida counties to draw a development density line, which can be adjusted for population growth.

The County Commission established the line in the mid-1970s to avoid erratic sprawl and the costly extension of public services and infrastructure.

Broward and Palm Beach counties stayed away from any development boundaries. "Broward has built pretty much to the levee, with the exception of a few areas," said John E. Hulsey, a senior planner with the South Florida Regional Planning Council. The Broward levee is at the eastern edge of the Everglades. Palm Beach County, with the exception of Wellington, has plenty of farmland serving as a buffer between the Everglades and urban areas, he said.

In Miami-Dade, the boundary generally tracks near Florida¹s Turnpike on the northwest and near Krome Avenue down to the Homestead area. The southern boundary is near the intersection of U.S. 1 and Card Sound Road in Florida City. East of the Homestead Air Reserve Base, the line protects environmentally sensitive land on Biscayne Bay.

In most areas, there is a buffer in place, but the distance between development and the Everglades has been shrinking.

With growth all but guaranteed, where are newcomers going to live?

If they can afford pricey waterfront condos, the planned pedestrian friendly communities in Doral or townhouses in Homestead, they may not have any problem. But families chasing the American Dream of a home with front and back yards and a two-car garage may find themselves priced out of the market.

Developers argue they will be able to make the dream come true if they are allowed to build farther west and south where the land is relatively cheap. They are betting on UDB approval and buying land outside the line at about half the cost of land inside the boundary.

Land along the Krome corridor beyond the UDB is selling for about $120,000 per acre east of Krome and about $90,000 per acre west of Krome, half of what it costs elsewhere, said real estate broker Teddy Cohn, president of Cohn Realty Associates in North Miami. Often, the cost of land represents up to 40 percent of the cost of building a home, Horton said.

Critics of moving the line say the housing affordability theory is flawed because it leaves out the commuting costs and wasted time sitting in traffic.

"How much would it cost in gas to a family with two cars?" asked former Miami Beach City Commissioner Nancy Liebman.

She is now president of the Urban Environment League and an organizer of a 50-group coalition called Hold the Line, which is campaigning to keep the line where it is.

Traffic congestion is one of the developers¹ worst enemies, and some are taking extra steps to hire transportation and mobility planners to design efficient street grids for their projects and connecting roads to major arteries. But there is only so much they can do.

While developers hire lobbyists to sway county commissioners and community groups, UDB supporters see no way to avoid more traffic, school crowding, environmental losses and a lower quality of life.

Fiore, who spends almost 3 1/2 hours commuting most days, wishes he could invest some of that time helping with dinner and homework for his 9- and 12- year-old children. The information technology professional and community activist is a member of the West Kendall Community Council, which advises the County Commission on zoning and planning issues.

Not surprisingly, Fiore and most other council members recommended against the two applications seeking boundary changes in his council¹s jurisdiction.

Community councils across Miami-Dade review development plans before the applications go to the County Commission.

"We didn¹t believe the infrastructure can support the new development," he said.

A 500-unit subdivision proposed by Shoma Homes at Southwest 104th Street and 167th Avenue needs approval for 82 acres outside the line.

Adrian Development Group, which is trying to move 305 acres inside the line, would use less than half of the addition for 292 half-acre homes, said land-use attorney Jeffrey Bercow with the Miami law firm Bercow & Radell. He represents Adrian¹s Eureka Palms Partnership LLC, the applicant.

The other seven applications are for parcels ranging from 2.5 acres to 193 acres for future commercial and residential development.

Some developers wonder why there is so much fuss about moving the line. " There wasn¹t much opposition in the past," said Gloria Velazquez Meitin, director of entitlement with Lennar.

In the last 30 years, the County Commission moved the UDB 50 times. But most applications dealt with small parcels and barely drew any opposition, Velazquez Meitin said.

That changed in 2002 when Codina sought to move the line to build the 432- acre Beacon Lakes industrial park. The request succeeded despite vociferous opposition from the environmental community.

This time, luck seems to be on Codina¹s side. Hialeah¹s 793-acre site got the only endorsement from Miami-Dade planners, with two conditions. Development must be limited to light industrial and office, and Hialeah must add an adjacent 347 acres in Hialeah Gardens to the application to extend the parcel to the turnpike. The entire 1,140-acre triangular parcel is east of the turnpike between 154th and 170th streets.

Hialeah officials plan to build Hialeah Heights, which would include a park of at least 30 acres, government buildings and warehouses. Construction would require fill permits and mitigation to offset wetlands impact.

Developer and political powerhouse Armando Codina owns the former Peerless Dade Landfill and plans to build an industrial and office park on a 464- acre segment of the Hialeah application.

Opponents of UDB changes favor redeveloping neglected neighborhoods and low-
density areas near mass transit, where the infrastructure already exists.

David P. Reiner II, president of Friends of the Everglades and a lawyer with Reiner & Reiner in Kendall, recently bought a condo unit in a tower under construction across the street from his office. He said he got tired of sitting in traffic for an hour to drive eight miles from home to the office.

Reiner understands the UDB line will move at some point to accommodate growth, but his group wants elected officials to wait for the results of a massive study of Southeast Miami-Dade before making any decision.

The South Miami-Dade Watershed study will make recommendations on land use planning, the ecosystem, water resources, economics and property rights. The study was launched to protect Biscayne Bay and the county from water quality and quantity problems caused by past practices and to anticipate the potential impact of future development.

"Any municipal or county action must consider the regional impacts, or else we are trapped in a game of musical chairs in which everyone will eventually be the loser," Reiner said.

An overarching issue for environmentalists is protecting the Everglades. An $8 billion federal-state restoration program stretching from Florida Bay to Palm Beach County is creeping forward.

The watershed report will be completed before the Miami-Dade County Commission votes on the UDB applications next spring, said regional planner Hulsey. His agency, as well as local, state, federal and nonprofit organizations, is involved in the study.

So is West Kendall resident Lawrence Percival, vice president of the nonprofit Kendall Federation of Homeowners. His group is waiting for the study results before taking an official stance on UDB requests.

"We haven¹t taken a position yet," he said. "We invited developers to our meetings to show us their projects and create a dialogue."

The three developments of regional impact, or DRIs, are on a different track from UDB changes, which are generally smaller.

Fort Worth, Texas-based D.R. Horton, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange, has set its sights on land outside the UDB east of Krome Avenue and north of Southwest 120 Street.

Many of the Kendall federation members oppose D.R. Horton¹s proposed 5,478- home Providence community, said federation president Miles Moss, head of the 29-year-old coalition of condo and homeowners associations focused on quality-of-life issues.

The planned minicity, including two schools and 710,000 square feet of office and retail space, would take eight years to build. The approval process coordinated by the South Florida Regional Planning Council requires review by local, state and federal agencies.

The process began early this year and would require County Commission approval for a UDB change, but not on the same schedule as the nine pending applications.

"The community was pretty opposed to it," said Moss, recalling a federation meeting three months ago on the Providence plan. ³The roads are already overcrowded. How is it going to affect our quality of life?"

Moss, a transportation engineer for more than three decades, is a member of the county¹s Citizens Independent Transportation Trust, which oversees county spending to expand the Metrorail and bus routes. He is also a member of the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee with the Miami-Dade Metropolitan Planning Organization. He said both groups will take a position against development outside the UDB.

"The agencies want to encourage development east," Moss said.

Transportation planner Cathy Sweetapple of Fort Lauderdale-based Cathy Sweetapple & Associates said her clients, D.R. Horton and Lennar, are working on solutions to transportation problems.

Lennar is proposing the 6,000-home Parkland outside the line on 823 acres south of Providence and north of Redland.

"The neighborhood grid [of both planned projects] is to give people options to get to the main arteries through different ways, relieving Kendall Drive and 104th Street from its current traffic," she said.

The state has allocated funds to widen Krome Avenue from Tamiami Trail to 136th streets, the southern edge of the Parkland proposal, by 2010, Sweetapple said.

The county plans to expand Metrorail near the Palmetto Expressway by 2014, but that would stop service miles short of existing communities, never mind new ones.

In another development of regional impact, Lennar submitted an application in July to build 6,000 homes on 986 acres east of Card Sound Road in Florida City. The Miami-based builder is planning to buy the site for Florida City Commons from Atlantic Civil Inc.

Lennar¹s Velazquez Meitin, a former Greenberg Traurig real estate lawyer, said the project would include three schools, a community center and retail space. Her group is designing a hurricane-resistant school and community center to stand up to a Category 5 hurricane and serve as the southernmost evacuation shelters for the Florida Keys.

New roads would open direct access to the turnpike and avoid adding more traffic to U.S. 1 and Card Sound Road, Velazquez Meitin said.

The seller and the buyer scored a victory a few months ago when the County Commission voted for Florida City¹s annexation. But a setback followed.

In August, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suspended a 3-year-old permit granted to Atlantic Civil to fill 535 acres of farmland on the site.

"They can¹t build houses there because the fill in is only for agricultural use," corps spokesman John Studt said. "To build homes, it would require a full evaluation and a permit modification."

After negotiations, the agency agreed to allow work to continue on half of the 535 acres while considering what to do before the permit expires in April. A decision is expected by mid-November. Environmentalists oppose the project.

"The Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands Project Management Plan is still in the design stage, and nobody knows yet whether the Florida City Commons land will be needed," Hulsey said.

Sweetapple said the county will resolve some traffic issues by 2007 with a busway extension to Florida City along U.S. 1.

But critics don¹t think that will be nearly enough.

"The infrastructure will never possibly catch up with development," said transportation engineer and West Kendall resident Moss. "The most you can do is reduce the impact."