Four factors complicating final Urban Development Boundary vote in South Miami-Dade

Unable to secure the votes to expand the Urban Development Boundary, developers of a proposed 793-acre industrial complex in South Miami-Dade are returning to county commissioners this week with a smaller project.

The proposed South Dade Logistics and Technology District had forecast 11,762 full-time jobs directly created by the collection of warehouses, offices and other businesses to be built on farmland off of Florida’s Turnpike. Now covering 380 acres, the project’s job estimates are down nearly 40%, with about 7,300 full-time permanent positions on site in the developers’ revised economic forecasts.

READ MORE: Vote delayed on expanding Urban Development Boundary for industrial building complex

The Urban Development Boundary (UDB) separates farmland and wetlands near the Everglades from most residential and commercial construction in Miami-Dade. Building the project requires Miami-Dade commissioners to expand the UDB for the first time since 2013.

It’s a move developers say is overdue to provide an employment center for South Miami-Dade’s commuting residents. Environmental groups insist it will create more urban sprawl at the expense of Biscayne Bay and the Everglades.

The site is south of Florida’s Turnpike and north of Moody Drive (Southwest 268th Street), north of the Homestead Air Reserve Base and about three miles west of Biscayne Bay.

Developers Aligned Real Estate Holdings and Coral Rock Development pitch the new plan as addressing criticism of the original project.

That criticism included the project being too large.

Despite the smaller footprint on land south of the turnpike, project lawyer Jeffrey Bercow wrote county planners Sept. 9, the project will still “bring much-needed jobs to South Dade, reducing excessive commutes for residents.”

Environmental groups say the original flaws remain, including risks to an ongoing Everglades restoration project and needing a rewrite of Miami-Dade’s ban of commercial development on flood-prone farmland to build the warehouses, hotel and call centers that would go there.

“The same conflicts still exist,” said Laura Reynolds, a leader of the Hold the Line Coalition, which lobbies to keep the UDB in place.

While the arguments for both sides remain largely the same, Thursday’s scheduled final vote on the UDB application faces new wrinkles. Among them:

Florida Power and Light’s land

A top objection to the proposal from the administration of Mayor Daniella Levine Cava involves the sizable portion of property included in the application to move the UDB but not cooperating with developers on the actual project.

Before the prior votes, a top landowner in the project footprint, billionaire banking mogul Leonard Abess, owned roughly 20% of the land and was fighting the UDB expansion. The revised proposal drops most of the Abess holdings from the project but not land owned by Florida Power and Light.

The utility’s vacant 84 acres would house about 25% of the scaled-down project’s planned six million square feet of construction, but FPL hasn’t applied for the zoning changes developers are seeking.

READ MORE: To expand the UDB, developer needs Miami-Dade to change county policy on flood risks

Martinez suspension scrambles vote count

Developers previously needed nine commissioners to vote their way in order to move the UDB but only secured support from seven board members when the project first was up for a commission vote on May 19. That’s put extra focus on five commissioners who voted against the project in May: René Garcia, Eileen Higgins, Danielle Cohen Higgins, Jean Monestime and Raquel Regalado, plus Sally Heyman, who didn’t attend that meeting.

But Tuesday’s suspension of District 11 Commissioner Joe Martinez means a new count. To move the UDB, Miami-Dade’s charter requires a two-thirds vote of commissioners “then in office” — a calculation that county lawyers say now means eight votes are needed, not nine.

That still means five commissioners can block a UDB move, and that’s how many commissioners opposed the project in May. One caveat: if Gov. Ron DeSantis appoints a replacement commissioner before the 9:30 a.m. meeting, that person would be eligible to cast a vote on the project.

Time is running short on the current vote count, with three term-limited commissioners backing developers — Jose “Pepe” Diaz, Rebeca Sosa, and Javier Souto — leaving office after the November elections.

UDB project near planned Kendall Parkway also up for a vote

Because the commission held a public hearing in May on a different South Dade project, the public probably won’t be allowed to address board members again on that UDB application. But Thursday’s commission agenda includes another project proposed for land outside the current UDB, providing a chance for public comment on similar issues.

Developers Blue Heron and Terra137 (an entity that’s not related to Miami development firm Terra) want to build a 41-acre commercial complex focused on parking, refueling and washing facilities for tractor trailers and large trucks.

The facility would go up on vacant land west of Southwest 137th Avenue, and south of where the 836 Expressway ends. That would put the project in an area between the current UDB and the proposed southern extension of the 836, a project known as the Kendall Parkway.

Developers are pitching it as a way to get large trucks out of parking lots, roadsides and other spots where truck drivers take breaks or store their vehicles. The Levine Cava administration opposes the project, saying truck depots can already be built outside of the UDB, and there is land available for similar facilities closer to the urban core.

The project is up for a preliminary commission vote Thursday that would authorize a state review of the application.

County staff’s last-minute recommendation on UDB move

Aligned Holdings submitted the new project plans on Aug. 31, leaving about three weeks for county agencies to review the revised plans and update their recommendations to commissioners. As of early Wednesday afternoon, a final report hadn’t been posted online ahead of Thursday’s vote.

Levine Cava said this week a final recommendation was coming, but she didn’t expect it to change much from her administration’s original conclusion that the UDB shouldn’t move. “We’re still concerned about the environmental impact,” she said Tuesday.

This story was originally published September 21, 2022 at 5:52 PM.