Miami homeowner’s long fight with City Hall is over. Here’s how she won

Zarahy Pacheco can stop fighting City Hall.

After an emotional plea by the longtime resident, the Miami City Commission gave its unanimous support to an ordinance that will help homeowners whose property extends too close to their lot line achieve compliance with the law.

Pacheco, 41, tearfully addressed the Miami City Commission Thursday morning and asked for passage of the ordinance that would grant relief to her and other homeowners with “setbacks” that don’t meet the city’s five-foot requirement.

Pacheco has been fighting code problems — most of which predated her purchase of the house in 2005 — for the past three years. She has sought audiences with various city officials, including Mayor Francis Suarez and now-indicted and removed Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, hoping one would sponsor a legislation that would legalize her property.

Both Suarez and Diaz de la Portilla or their office staffs had indicated willingness to help Pacheco but those plans stalled.

Commissioner Manolo Reyes, who appeared at the Thursday meeting via Zoom, took up the task, sponsoring an ordinance that gives the zoning director discretion to grant variances for non-compliant setbacks like Pacheco’s that have existed for a significant amount of time and cause no detriment to the neighborhood.

Pacheco, whose fight with the city had generated paperwork filling several binders, cried as she thanked the commissioners for their help and noted that many other residents are also suffering like her.

“It took me years trying to resolve this issue with my house,” she said.

A handful of her supporters, all wearing matching red shirts, each with different messages showing support of the ordinance, also spoke during the meeting.

Several referenced the “American dream” of owning a home and pleaded with the commissioners to support that dream by allowing Pacheco to keep her home on Northwest 18th Street, which she said had been slapped with both “stop work” notifications and “repair or demolish” notices.

Most of her supporters also requested that the city better manage its property records to prevent future homeowners from facing issues similar to Pachecho’s.

Pacheco said one of her frustrations was that she was unable to retrieve her property records from the city’s microfilm archive.

Asael Marrero, the building department director, responded to this and said: “As the official custodian of microfilm records for the city of Miami, to the best of my knowledge and that of my staff, we do not have any records missing as has been claimed.”

Just before turning to address Pacheco, he then said that it was not the policy of the city’s zoning department to demolish her house. Marrero added that he has been available to her during her long ordeal.

This story was originally published October 13, 2023 at 8:26 AM.