Commissioners for both Miami-Dade County and the city of Miami are going to sit down Wednesday to talk about the county’s push to increase density along the transit corridors, a priority that the city does not share. Miami has threatened to sue the county to keep control of zoning in city limits.
The city of Miami has already filed a lawsuit, though they haven’t served the county. Wednesday’s meeting is supposed to be a dispute resolution session to avoid court. Good luck with that.
“We have a lot of issues with the city of Miami at this point,” county commission Chairman Oliver Gilbert said at Tuesday’s meeting.
Yes, the city and county have butt heads a few times in the past few years. Miami-Dade sued to get the city to reopen streets it had barricaded in Silver Bluff, a battle that took two years. In 2022, the Citizens Independent Transportation Trust voted to withhold $1.75 million a month in payments to Miami from the half penny tax because the city had not accounted for spending of about $20 million.
On Tuesday, county commissioners approved an ordinance on first reading that repeals the city’s ability to opt out of the county’s sign regulations because, basically, the city can’t be trusted. There wasn’t even any discussion about it. Maybe that’s because the sponsor, Commissioner Eileen Higgins, was absent. Maybe the discussion will come at committee.
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Things aren’t likely to be as quiet Wednesday. Several commissioners are said to have issues with the county basically making the decision to increase density in their back yard. Miami-Dade commissioners, meanwhile, have been talking for years about rapid transit zoning, which provides higher density bonuses for developers to build mixed use projects and bring residents to the transit corridors.
Examples of such projects include Adler Development’s Cascade Link at Douglas, a 37-story tower with 421 apartments and Milam’s Market on the ground floor near the Douglas Road Metrorail Station, photographed below.
“We sponsored and passed and voted for thoughtful legislation that actually compromised with cities,” said Gilbert, who is by some accounts the architect of the RTZ overlay. “Hopefully, we can resolve something.”
Commissioner Raquel Regalado, another big RTZ booster, said the meeting was really important for the three commissioners who have parcels that were brought into the RTZ boundaries within the city of Miami. In addition to herself, that is Commissioners Higgins and Keon Hardemon. She said that the county had meetings with all the different cities involved and reached an agreement with some of them.
“One of our frustrations was that the city of Miami wasn’t participating in the way other cities were, so that was problematic at the time,” Regalado told her colleagues. “But I think we can come to a meeting of the minds. And I think a lot of the issues they have raised are issues we can discuss tomorrow and resolve.
Another thing to discuss is Miami 21, the city’s zoning plan, and adjusting it for RTZ projects.
Read related: Miami-Dade: Oliver Gilbert spanks Rob Gonzalez on ‘my airport’ comment
“We all want the same thing,” Regalado continued. “They want us to continue investing in transit and mobility and I think we have ben very thoughtful in the way that we approached the RTZ.
“But the whole point of the RTZ was to add density and to ask them to add density.”
A source at the city told Ladra that there were going to be presentations made by legal, public works and planning, but that the gist is that the city does not want to lose control of its own zoning code. Expect the words “home rule” to be used and the county’s hypocritical stance to be mentioned, because county commissioners sure hate it when the state takes their home rule away.
Is a compromise possible? Maybe. If Commissioner Joe Carollo doesn’t go.
The meeting begins at 10:00 a.m. at the Miami-Dade Transportation Planning Organization meeting room, 150 West Flagler Street, Suite 1900. Ladra is not sure we can watch it online — unless someone decides to live stream it.
Miami-Dade and city of Miami to meet re zoning density along transit routes added by Ladra on
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