Former Coral Gables Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli isn’t the only one who wants his old job back at City Hall. Former 
Commissioner Wayne “Chip” Withers, who served for 20 years before leaving office in 2011, qualified last month — for the seat occupied by incumbent Commissioner Pat Keon.
He could have run for the open seat. But Withers has personal, friendly relationships with three of the four candidates there, he told Ladra. Apparently, he does not have a friendly relationship with Keon. Withers supported Mary Young against Keon in 2013.
“I felt I could really go after an incumbent,” Withers said in his aw-shucks Forrest Gump style, which seems disarmingly honest.
And Keon is ripe for the taking. Not known for being exactly responsive to residents, she has become a target for some of the anti-development forces who don’t like some of the larger projects on the city’s horizon, including the Riviera Neighborhood Association, of which he is a member (and who reportedly was shopping around for a candidate), who fought hard against the Paseo project and is now up in arms about a possible overlay zoning district along South Dixie Highway. The commissioner always seems to be making excuses for developers, they say. She treats residents like they don’t know what’s best for them and she knows better.
Read related story: Jeannett Slesnick winning mayoral money race
“There is a general concern that when the choice is between the wishes of a residential community and a developer, they feel that its in favor of the developer a lot of the time,” Withers told Ladra. “Whether that’s perceived or real, it’s there. And there’s an erosion of trust.”
Keon said she was not surprised when Withers jumped into the race. “People were looking for someone to run against me, and I guess he was the taker,” she told Ladra. “We’ll still run a good campaign. He has name recognition. He was a good commissioners for along time, but he said he was tired of it. Now he’s back.”
Keon said it’s all because Withers is mad that the Paseo project was approved last year. But, she added, she only voted in favor after developers scaled down the size and height and made it more palatable for the surrounding neighborhood. “They brought it down a lot and stepped it back from the neighborhood.”
But Withers said the project is still too large and out of scale
for the people who live adjacent to it and, more importanty, that the process was flawed. The peer review was tainted, he said, because it was done by architects who worked for the project’s architect on other sites or boards. And he did not get a notice about the zoning hearing because he lives 1,150 feet away on Hardee and the city only notifies residents within 1,000 feet.
He wants to increase notification to residents within a three-mile radius. He also wants to change the amount of time between first and second reading from 30 to 60 days and require a 4/5ths vote on land use changes.
Read related story: Coral Gables explores more development along U.S. 1
Withers said the more recent move to create a zoning master plan for U.S. 1 “is scary” and that the city should work to redevelop or revitalize its 1.8 miles along the federal highway with the cities of South Miami to the southwest and 
Miami to the northeast for a more consistent zoning application. Otherwise, he says, what we may end up with is a canyon of tall buildings like there is on Bird Road just east of Ponce de Leon Boulevard.
“This is why I got back in,” he said. “All these projects coming online. If we don’t get everything in order, it’s going to be a mess,” Withers said.
“I know I’m an old guy,” said the 65-year-old grandfather. “But I was there for 20 years and I know what worked and what didn’t work.”
He said that things put on the books 20-years ago, like the Mediterranean ordinance that provides for more density as bonus for Mediterranean architecture, might be tweaked. Maybe bonuses should be considered for downtown infill development. “Maybe instead of getting an extra four floors for looking like a Mediterranean castle, you get a bonus for having more green space or more open space.
“I’m not a ‘burn it down’ guy. I know we need development. We have a downtown that pays a majority of our tax base. It would be stupid to kill the golden goose.
“But we can’t let it kill our quality of life,” he said.
Keon said that the city is doing better than it was when Withers was in office, with more money in reserves and a AAA bond rating. She sounds a lot like the city manager when she talks, and no, it is not just because both are women. It’s almost like Keon has picked up Cathy Swanson Rivenbark‘s buzzwords, cadence — even her southern twang.
Withers told Ladra he is staying out of the mayoral bout because he knows and respects both Valdes-Fauli, who he served with for many years, and Slesnick, whose husband he also served with on the dais.
But the Gables is a city where voters, not the candidates themselves, often create slates. Withers and Slesnick are already getting grouped together — along with Marlin Ebbert in the second commission race — by an endorsement from the Riviera Neighbhorhood group.
You can already see the yard signs for the three candidates all up and down South Alhambra and the surrounding streets.
‘Chip’ Withers vs Pat Keon because of the Paseo project added by Ladra on
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