The Westchester Community Council gave approval Wednesday night to two applications that had continuously been deferred at past meetings.

Little Seeds Academy, 10470 SW 40th St., got the go-ahead to expand its home-based day care from 10 to 43 children.

At a meeting in September, council members raised questions about the safety of the day care and the possible traffic problems drop-offs would create.

Homeowner Patricia Ancarola assured the board there was enough parking and driveway space to circulate morning traffic.

Ancarola submitted an updated traffic study to Miami-Dade's Department of Planning and Zoning, something she had not done at the last meeting.

Reassured by the recommendation for approval by the department, members asked few questions before approving the item, 3-2.

Also at the meeting, an application to build four, 10,000-square-foot lots on vacant land on the northeast corner of Galloway and Southwest Fourth Street was approved unanimously by the council.

The item -- a request to change zoning from a single-family modified estate residential district (EU-M) to a single-family residential district (RU-1) -- came before the board twice in 2004 and five times this year.

Council members said they were impressed by the compromise the neighbors and attorney Richard Perez had reached: residential lots instead of commercial units and a covenant restricting changes to the agreement unless 75 percent of the neighbors within a 2,500 radius sign off.

``I just want to commend the process. I think you all have done a very good job,'' council member Jorge Barbontin said.

But Felix Caceres, who has been at the forefront of the fight, said the four houses were inconsistent with surrounding parcels like his, that have one house on roughly 30,000 square feet of land.

``The real compromise would be three houses,'' he said.

The property, though, is within the urban-development boundary of the county's comprehensive development master plan, which means council members are free to change the density level of the property by one level higher than the adjacent homes.

``We've come a long way and honestly believe that this is most appropriate for 87th Avenue,'' Perez said.

The next zoning hearing will be 6:30 p.m. Nov. 10 at Ruben Dario Middle School, 350 NW 97th Ave.

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@