Coral Gables mayor, city attorney help new owners demolish historic home

City officials in Coral Gables may be violating their own zoning code to accelerate the green light for demolition of an old home on Asturia Avenue that the city itself tried to designate historic earlier this year. Even Mayor Raul Valdes-Fauli has lobbied on behalf of the politically-connected family that bought the property two years ago.

Valdes-Fauli sent the historic preservation board a long and winded memo in January with all the reasons why the house at 1208 Asturia Avenue should not be designated historic. The city had applied for the designation months earlier on the 1936-built Art Deco ranch style house designed by renowned architect Russell Pancoast, the grandson of Miami Beach pioneer John Collins, who also designed the landmark Bass Museum there. The home’s avant-garde design had no precedent at the time and was the first such ranch style home in the mostly Mediterranean style Gables. Furthermore, the architect’s artist-architect wife, Kay Pancoast, was a Miami pioneer and major muralist who created the well-known Coral Gables mural (right) at the library branch on Salzedo.

Coral Gables Historic Preservation staff prepared a long and thorough report that said the house was “an excellent example” of a custom-designed ranch that “significantly contributes to the historic fabric of the city,” particularly because it had not had many alterations since it was first built. The city’s own staff recommended the home be designated historic.

Staff says the home met all the criteria and preservationists believe the historic board’s narrow vote to deny the designation was a direct result of the pressure from Mayor Valdes-Fauli — the deciding vote was cast by his appointee — who was apparently acting on behalf of a friend and campaign donor. Miami-Dade property records show the house was bought by Lourdes Valls — wife of restauranteur Felipe Valls, patriarch of the Versailles and La Carretta empire of eateries — for $875,000 in 2018. A real estate listing from that time shows the house was listed as potentially historic.

Also, fyi, the 4/3 home sits on a double lot which means that the mayor’s pals could also apply for a lot split and build two homes on the same property. Ka-ching! Ladra wonders if Valdes-Fauli will want to weigh in on that, too, before he and his colleagues have to take a vote on it.

An appeal of the board’s decision was made in May to the city commission, where the mayor — who apparently knew he wasn’t supposed to interfere — recused himself (oops, too late!) and the decision ended in a 2-2 vote. This was after the mayor sent the commissioners the same memo he had sent to the historic preservation board, a three page missive that basically attacks the historic preservation process, with a cover letter.

“Not every old property should be designated as ‘historic’ under our criteria,” Valdes-Fauli wrote in the cover letter to the commission in an email. “Much damage can be done.”

In the memo, the mayor — who refused to speak with Ladra about this or anything else — raises issues with the historic preservation process and claims it is being abused.

“We have a few residents who are obsessed with the process of historic designation, but we also have over 50,000 people that care, but not obsessively, about this process and view how it impedes commerce, real estate sales and transfers in our City of Coral Gables as important as these are for our progress,” the mayor said in the memo.

“The consequences of designation are severe, inability not only to demolish but also to add or make changes to the property without incurring delays and substantial expenses,” he wrote. “We have a current case where a prominent resident bought a ranch style house without having the slightest suspicion that the house had any historic significance, a ranch style house like thousands in our city.

Apparently, not everyone thinks the home on Asturia is just a typical ranch style house. The city received 59 letters or emails to support the designation. That included missives from Dade Heritage Trust and the Historic Preservation Association of Coral Gables. The famous City Beautiful zoning code allows designation of properties as historic without owner consent if they meet established federal criteria.

The tie vote last month at the commission means the historic board’s decision not to designate is upheld. But Maria Victoria “Vicki” Cerda, who lives next door to the house, is supposed to have 30 days to appeal that decision in court, which means she has until Thursday.

But the city is only giving her until Tuesday.

After getting notice from Cerda’s attorney, David Winker, on Thursday that they would be appealing the decision before the June 25 deadline, City Attorney Miriam Ramos gave them only until Tuesday before the city grants the new owners of the home a permit to demolish it.

“The Zoning Code does not provide any authority for the granting of a stay in these circumstances. Accordingly, we are unable to do so, absent a court order,” Ramos wrote back to Winker, basically challenging him to stop them. “However, the City, in good faith, will not issue the demolition permit before Tuesday (6/23) morning, in order to allow you sufficient time to seek an injunction or an order from the court staying the issuance of the permit.”

How generous of her!

“This is just wrong. My rights are being violated,” said Cerda, a 33-year resident, who didn’t even know until last week that the 30-day clock had already begun on her appeal deadline. She says the extra three days at this point is crucial, especially since the courts are handling limited cases due to the COVID19 regulations.

Ladra thinks even the extra three days are not going to provide enough time given the copious public records that Winker has requested, a whopping 54 items, including lobbyist registrations and possible communications between Valdes-Fauli and the Valls family and between Ramos and the Valls’ attorney, Mario Garcia-Serra.

Winker filed an emergency injunction Friday asking the court to halt the issuance of a demolition permit until Cerda gets to appeal. But it has to be heard on Monday. By Tuesday, it could be too late.

“It would be almost impossible to get a hearing on the Emergency Petition for Injunction that I filed on Friday heard by the close of business Monday in normal times. In the middle of a pandemic with the courts physically closed it will very likely be impossible,” Winker wrote in an email to the city attorney. “You are acting like your hands are tied and that my client has a real opportunity to exercise the appeal rights guaranteed to her under the city code, but in reality the city is depriving my client of her due process rights to exercise the appeal guaranteed by the city code.

“It appears the city is dead set on getting this house demolished for some reason,” said Winker, who owns property in the Gables and has “never seen anything like this.”

Winker is confident that, if given the time allowed, he can win the appeal. “This case has no chance of failing on appeal,” Winker told Ladra. “It’s obvious that the criteria for historic designation was met and that the board members who voted against it felt an obligation to the mayor.”

Winker – who has worked on a number of high-profile zoning and historic preservation cases, including a lawsuit on behalf of Coconut Grove residents to save the Grove Playhouse — says he can demonstrate that Gables officials failed to follow its own zoning code rules as a result of political pressure from the mayor for “an important political contributor” and that the city is issuing a demolition permit prior to the expiration of the 30-day appeal period granted by the code “as a result of the same political pressure.

He said the mayor’s actions are inappropriate, at best, and unethical, at worst.

“If you thought cronyism and ‘pay for play’ didn’t happen in the City Beautiful, this case is a crash course in the fact that ‘special deals for special people’ is the order of the day throughout Miami-Dade County,” Winker said, adding that the city attorney is also acting inappropriately.

“The city is refusing to back down and has challenged us to obtain a court order to stop them,” he told Ladra.

And that’s more important than Cerda’s rights and this one home (though maybe not to Cerda): The fact that not only the mayor but the city attorney seem to be working on behalf of this one politically-connected property owner instead of on behalf of the residents and its own zoning code.

More important to many preservationists is the tone set by Valdes-Fauli regarding historic preservation. “We are going overboard to satisfy a few very committed residents to the detriment of our real estate industry and the city and at the end, our own historic preservation integrity will be impaired. Overkill kills,” the mayor ended in his overkill memo.

Maybe more important than Valdes-Fauli’s inappropriate interference — because the rude and arrogant mayor is known to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants — is the fact that Vice Mayor Vince Lago, who is running for mayor next year, voted against the designation on the appeal to the commission last month. Is he angling for Valls’ contributions, now that Lago has the same campaign consultant as the mayor’s, or is it for the mayor’s endorsement?

And maybe more important than Lago’s political aspirations is the question that Ladra keeps asking herself throughout the reporting of this story: How many other times has the mayor inappropriately lobbied a city board or his commission colleagues on behalf of his friends?

Maybe Winker should expand his massive public records request.

Coral Gables, preservationists, Raul Valdes-Fauli

Coral Gables mayor, city attorney help new owners demolish historic home added by Ladra on June 22, 2020
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