Miami-Dade Commission votes to kill Calusa preserve for Kendall developer

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It seemed like an easy win for residents against a zoning change for 168 acres of naturally overgrown green space that used to be the Calusa Golf Course by those who would turn it into yet another West Kendall gated community of 550 big, square, identical homes.

There was evidence of endangered bonneted bat activity on the property. There was photographic documentation of nesting by the threatened tri-colored heron and other Florida wading birds, including the threatened little blue heron, hanging out. There were incomplete or inadequate environmental assessments because they were done off peak times — which nobody can tell Ladra wasn’t intentional.

And there were 981 protest cards filled out against the application filed by Kendall Associates I and GL Homes to change the property’s zoning from park to planned area development, so they can build more residential units than would be allowed. Even MetroZoo Ambassador and everyone’s favorite county employee, Ron Magill, took the podium to beg his bosses to, at the very least, defer until the fish and wildlife officials could weigh in.

Read related: Miami-Dade Commission could wipe out Calusa Preserve for 550 homes

“You’re not getting the right information,” Magill told commissioners.

“You can buy consultants. You can buy good attorneys. But you can’t buy wildlife once it’s gone,” he said, complaining when the commission cut him off what he thought was seconds early.

Magill better not get fired. It’s already criminal that they ignored him.

If ever there was a no-brainer decision to make against a development it was the one on the Calusa golf course application that came before the Miami-Dade Commission last week. And our commissioners failed us again.

It was obvious that the attorney for the developing landowner was doing her best song and dance to appease concerns and that a stable of paid experts earned their fat checks by saying all the right things and checking all the right boxes. But Eileen Mehta — once an assistant county attorney, so she knows how to sing and dance — may not have been entirely truthful when she said the people in the red shirts, those supporting the application, were not paid to be there.

According to David Winker, an attorney for the Save Calusa group, and multiple sources close to the legal settlement — where the ring owners whose properties abutt the golf course sold their neighbors out — they don’t get their big payola of $200K or $300K unless the zoning change happens.

Isn’t that the same as being paid to be there?

GL Homes owner Richard Norwalk fell all over himself to portray his company as a responsible one. He patted himself on the back for not using that bad Chinese drywall years ago. What a guy! And he said Political Cortadito was misleading last month when Ladra wrote about the nearly 600 trees they want to get removal permits because I didn’t mention the thousands of trees they are going to put in. Says who? There are no permit requests for those, Mr. Norwalk.

Read related: Developers plan to build 550 homes hurts imperiled birds, endangered bats

You know what else Ladra didn’t mention? The hundreds of trees, if not thousands, to be removed that aren’t counted because they are invasive or non-native trees. Who’s misleading who, Mr. Norwalk?

“The white ibis has become more of an urban bird,” Norwalk said, as if he’s telling a fairy tale to a bunch of children.

No shit, Sherlock. You know why it’s becoming a more urban bird? Because Dicks like you, Richard, keep encroaching on their habitat.

Norwalk — visibly giddy about all the money he’s about to make — says he’ll work with the Department of Environmental Resource Management and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission to protect any “robust rookeries” on the property. But this is the same money-grubbing developer who had the environmental assessment conducted outside of nesting season. Isn’t that misleading? Why should we trust them?

And who determines if they are robust? These are threatened species. They are not going to have “robust” anything. Is that a state requirement?

Norwalk kept talking about how they negotiated all these great conditions and compromises with the neighbors. But — in what is real misleading — he forgot to mention how these are the 123 neighbors who are getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and six feet or so of additional property on the backs of their homes in exchange for their support, again, according to the sources that Ladra has among the ring owners who aren’t allowed to talk about their payoffs because it’s a big, dark secret.

The people in the green shirts? They were absolutely not paid to be there. They took time off of work and their other duties to urge their leaders — and practically beg their County Commissioner Raquel Regalado — not to make the zoning change that will forever kill what could be the Calusa Preserve, a beautiful and natural space in the middle of the urban sprawl.

What an opportunity!

Some of them reminded Regalado and the rest of the elected representatives that they talk a lot about green space, about sea level rise and climate change, about water quality but that they were turning their backs on a chance to actually put their power where their mouths are.

Read related: Calusa golf course covenant to be killed for massive Kendall development

Instead of representing the residents, it seemed that Regalado — who Ladra has always supported in the past — went out of her way to help the developers. “Are they going to have a rebuttal after the public speaking?” Her question seemed like she was very concerned for the applicant.

But what seemed like an easy win for residents has turned into a Hail Mary pitch. The Save Calusa bunch are begging and collecting signatures online for Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to veto the approval, which may not mean much since she could get overridden by a super majority. The first vote went 10-2. Only Commissioners Sally Heyman and Joe Martinez voted against it.

But it’s hard to blame Commissioners Oliver Gilbert, Jean Monestime, or Eileen Higgins. There’s a tendency on the commission to take direction from the district commissioner. And if Regalado had no problem with the destruction of this natural habitat, why on Earth would they? After all, they aren’t accountable to the voters there.

Regalado did not return several calls and texts from Ladra and, actually, hasn’t been reachable for weeks. Las malas lenguas say she is mad at me. Was it something Ladra said or tweeted?

Or is it simply porque le da pena and she knows she can’t justify her vote on this zoning request.

  Calusa, development, Raquel Regalado