Did anybody really think that the South Dade Logistics & Technology District was going to be the last attempt to cross the Urban Development Boundary, an invisible line meant to keep urban sprawl from penetrating the Everglades? ¡Claro que no!
Instead, the Miami-Dade County Commission’s fervent dedication to and intentional push to up zone farmland late last year — they went of their way to approve it on the fifth try — opened the proverbial floodgates to these protected lands crucial to our water supply. The value of the properties that were upzoned skyrocketed. And speculators and developers can see the cash cow, um, cash manatee. That’s why three separate applications have been filed with the county in a year’s time, as first reported in The Real Deal by Lidia Dinkova and researcher Adam Farence.
Together, these developers would add 3,080 housing units on the other side of the UDB.
The largest proposal is for something dubbed the Portofino Special District, which would add 1,677 single-family homes, townhouses and apartments to the area bounded by SW 104 Street and the Black Creek Canal to the north and south, and SW 162 Avenue and 167 Avenues to the east and west. The mixed-use project would also include close to 200,000 square feet of office, retail and restaurant space.
A traffic study done by the developer says the project would generate 12,277 new daily vehicle trips.
“Portofino helps address the housing attainability crisis in Miami-Dade County that Mayor [Danielle Levine] Cava declared last summer by providing single-family homes, townhomes, and garden apartments in a beautifully designed pedestrian friendly mixed-use community that also includes water features, parks, office space, restaurants, and neighborhood serving retail,” attorney Elinette Ruiz-Diaz de la Portilla, who represents the developer in the application, was quoted as saying in the South Florida Business Journal. She is also the wife of former Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla. who, as a county commissioner, came up with the super majority rule for moving the UDB.
A second proposal is for a six-story Infinity Gardens Apartments mixed-use complex at 14505 SW 260 Street near Naranja. The plan is for 773 apartments and up to 10,000 square feet of retail on almost 14 acres. Only 8.5 acres at the western part of the site is outside the UDB — but that is zoned agricultural. The developer is Brandon Shpirt of BSB Global Enterprises. An affiliate bought the property in October, paying $9.4 million, property records show.
Read related: On fourth try, Miami-Dade Commission approves huge project beyond the UDB
The third proposed project would create the Westend at Princeton, a complex of 14 different buildings, all four to six stories high, at the southeast corner of SW 252 Street and SW 145 Avenue. Some, if not all, of the 630 units on 20 acres would be designated workforce housing. If we can believe that.
You can count on commissioners citing a need for housing and a totally unbelievable study that says the county runs out of space to build more housing within the UDB in 2026. Ridiculous.
The UDB is an invisible line created to curb suburban sprawl west toward Everglades National Park. Many of the properties outside the UDB are zoned as agricultural or farmland. But some of the territory is wetlands that could at some point be used for the restoration of the Everglades.
Some of the commissioners who voted against the logistics industrial park said they were afraid to set a precedent. They were prophetic. Developers, property owners and speculator investors saw how commissioners went out of their way to approve the industrial park item on the fifth vote, and have submitted three more applications to develop housing across the UDB.
There is plenty of land within the UDB still available, especially now that the county wants to encourage housing development along the stations of the MetroRail transit line.
Three developers want to cross over the UDB to build more than 3K homes added by Ladra on
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