Miami-Dade loosens safety rules around airport to match Beckham soccer stadium plans

David Beckham and partners saw a development complication vanish Thursday when Miami-Dade County Commissioners voted to loosen rules on which businesses can operate in the area outside Miami International Airport that’s planned for an entertainment complex and soccer stadium.

County zoning rules around MIA presented a problem for the Miami Freedom Park project because Miami-Dade rules establish an “outer safety zone” about 5,000 feet from the runways that prohibit buildings that would attract large gatherings of people below flight paths where planes take off and land.

READ MORE: Miami International Airport raises ‘safety concerns’ over Beckham soccer stadium plan

While the planned 25,000-seat Major League Soccer stadium sits outside the zone, entertainment space slated for Miami’s 131-acre Melreese Golf Course do not.

The result: restaurants and nightclubs would be barred under the current MIA rules. With the new legislation, Miami-Dade dropped the broad restriction on any building where 50 or more people would gather — language that included restaurants and clubs.

The rewrite, sponsored by Commissioner Keon Hardemon, a former city of Miami commissioner, retains specific building uses that remain banned in the outer safety zone, such as schools and residential buildings. It also adds two new categories to the list, auditoriums and theaters, while removing the language that covered restaurants and nightclubs.

Before the Beckham group began pursuing the Melreese site for a stadium, Miami-Dade’s safety zone rules only barred buildings where 1,000 people would gather. That was slashed to 50 people in 2019, according to a memo by Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.

“It should be noted that under the proposed ordinance nightclubs, restaurants, and amusement parks are allowed in the OSZ,” Levine Cava wrote, using the abbreviation for the outer safety zone.

In recent years, MIA had been a hurdle for the Freedom Park project, citing design plans that conflicted with aviation rules beyond the outer safety zone, such as building heights conflicting with FAA restrictions and potential pilot hazards from stadium lights. In 2020, months before Levine Cava took office, the Aviation Department produced a report saying it opposed putting the stadium at the Melreese site.

Beckham lawyers have said they will comply with all aviation rules, and Ralph Cutié, the county’s aviation director, said his staff continues to monitor development plans for safety issues.

READ MORE: David Beckham needed one more vote for soccer stadium. Miami’s airport had concerns

The revised safety zone rules passed with little discussion. Juan Carlos Bermudez, who represents the Doral area near MIA, asked the only question.

“I know that everybody is excited about Lionel Messi,” Bermudez said of the recent mega-star signing for Beckham’s Inter Miami squad. “Does this in any way, shape or form impact your ability [to] protect the landing areas near the stadium?”

Cutié said the county rule isn’t required by the Federal Aviation Administration’s safety protocols and that the ordinance “clarifies certain inconsistencies” in the county’s rules.

“This ordinance does not impact the operations of the airport,” Cutié said.