The Miami Herald

Posted on Sunday, April. 23, 2006

URBAN DEVELOPMENT BOUNDARY

Battle isn't over for boundary expansion

Flush with victory, those opposed to expanding the county's urban boundary are cautiously optimistic about a new fight on the horizon.

BY TERE FIGUERAS NEGRETE
tfigueras@MiamiHerald.com

The recent Miami-Dade County Commission vote to keep all but one chunk of the Urban Development Boundary in check -- dismissing several plans to increase the amount of land devoted to large-scale developments -- has left the building industry smarting and opponents hopeful about the next major fight over the county's open land.

On the horizon: Three large-scale residential developments that would add nearly 18,000 houses, in all. They're projects so sweeping in scope that they require a separate, more in-depth review than those the commission considered -- and largely rejected -- last week.

On Wednesday, only the city of Hialeah got commission approval to convert hundreds of acres located on a former landfill into an office and industrial complex.

''For the first time, the developers weren't driving the train,'' said Jamie Furgang, an environmental activist and one of the leaders of the Hold the Line campaign, a loose-knit group that has opposed moving the Urban Development Boundary, or UDB, for more than a year. "This was really the power of the people against the pocketbook.''

The three mega-projects, called "developments of regional impact,'' or DRIs, will not likely appear before the commission for final votes for at least a year.

That means a lot of factors are in play -- not least of which will be commission elections later this year. Six of the 13 commissioners are up for reelection. A seventh seat, that of retired commissioner Barbara Carey-Shuler, is also up for grabs.

''This is an issue that really has a life beyond the hearings this week,'' said Furgang, who watched the commission's votes Wednesday in what she described as near disbelief. Four other applications, all of them for residential developments on the western and southern fringes of the county, were withdrawn in the weeks before the vote.

''You're going to see people really questioning their commissioners on how they voted and why,'' she said.

TOO SOON TO TELL

Advocates for the large residential projects say it's too soon to tell whether the commission's votes give any clues as to the fate of their projects.

The three DRIs that are in the pipeline:

• Florida City Commons, which would include 6,000 homes, an 1,800-seat movie theater, 240-room hotel and a school on nearly 1,000 acres recently annexed by Florida City. The project is expected to house up to 18,000 people, more than doubling the current population of the small South Dade municipality.

• Providence, a 5,478-unit development -- including condos, townhomes and single-family houses -- as well as offices and retail near West Kendall. The plans would take up between 500 and 850 acres between Southwest 96th and 120th streets west of 162nd Avenue.

• Parkland, which would bring 6,200 units to more than 800 acres just southwest of the Country Walk area, off of Southwest 152nd Street and 162nd Avenue. The developer is Lennar Corp., The Easton Group and Neighborhood Planning Co.

GREATER SCRUTINY

Ed Swakon, a consultant for the Florida City project, said the sheer scope of the project means it receives greater scrutiny -- and increased requirements from planners and regulatory agencies -- to address issues that plagued the failed UDB applications.

''By its very nature, this is a lot more of a comprehensive process,'' Swakon said. "You have to look at issues farther afield than just the footprint of the project.''

Joe Goldstein, an attorney representing two of the DRIs, says comparisons between the recent applications and his clients are unfair.

''There [are] too many variables, and too many differences between these and the other [applications outside the UDB],'' said Goldstein, who represents Lennar's Florida City Commons and D.R. Horton's Providence projects. The approval of the Hialeah application, however, does augur well, he said.

''If there is a tea leaf to be read, it's that very well-thought-out, comprehensive projects may receive some favor,'' he said.

The Hialeah application all but swept the commission. Only one commissioner, Katy Sorenson, voted against it. And Miami-Dade Carlos Alvarez, who has fought moving the line, said he would not veto Hialeah's application.

Hialeah's successful application that brought some 1,100 acres inside the development boundary includes 505 acres owned by developer Armando Codina and 374 acres owned by the Graham family -- both Codina and the Grahams are business and political heavyweights.

Codina sat in the commission chambers Wednesday, along with the Graham Companies president and CEO, Stu Wyllie, whose father-in-law is Graham Co.'s chairman William Graham and whose uncle is former Florida governor and senator, Bob Graham. ''We brought out the A Team,'' Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina said.

CLOSEST VOTE

Of the other applications, the closest vote was for a controversial Lowe's home store on a slice of wetland off of Southwest Eighth Street in West Miami-Dade.

The biggest surprise for the Hold the Line camp came during that vote. Commissioner Dennis Moss, who had been ambivalent on the issue, cast the deciding vote -- junking the Lowe's application with an 8-5 vote.

Nine commissioners are needed to approve a change to the UDB. Lowe's, in an 11th-hour move, signed up Moss' former chief of staff -- and the sister of Commissioner Barbara Jordan -- as a lobbyist.

County records show Sandy Walker signed on Tuesday as a Lowe's lobbyist, the day the UDB hearings began. Walker is also one of the many lobbyists signed up to push the DRIs; she has the Florida City Commons project as one of her clients.

COUNTY `CHAMPIONS'

On Thursday, Furgang circulated an e-mail to Hold the Line supporters, calling Moss one of ''our five champions'' on the commission -- along with Sorenson and commissioners Sally Heyman, Carlos Gimenez and Rebeca Sosa, who made up the most consistent bloc of ''no'' votes.

Moss did not return calls for comment.

Alvarez commended the commission for "paying close attention to the citizens of this community.''

He said that while he approved of the Hialeah project, he wasn't likely to soften his stance on the UDB for residential developments.

''These would still drain our resources, and impact everything from fire and police to public works, our water supply, and our schools and roads,'' Alvarez said. ``Unless something changes drastically, I'm still going to oppose moving the line.''

Miami Herald staff writer Matthew Haggman contributed to this report.