Veto fight: Miami-Dade mayor blocks Kelly HQ project, for now. New vote coming

Miami-Dade’s mayor has blocked — for now — a proposed commercial complex on wetlands off of State Road 836, a project that was approved by county commissioners last month and then vetoed by the mayor.

Rather than try to override Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s Feb. 1 veto , commissioners backing the development plan opted to use a procedural maneuver Wednesday to reset the process. Commissioners instead voted to reconsider at a later date their Jan. 22 approval of the proposed Kelly Tractor headquarters on wetlands outside of the county’s Urban Development Boundary, a plan opposed by environmental groups.

After Wednesday’s vote, the application is expected to come back in front of the commission sometime in March. The parliamentary redo means the Kelly proposal remains alive, but it’s unclear whether the developer can reach a compromise with Levine Cava by then or if it would have enough votes to override a second veto by the mayor.

“The Urban Development Boundary exists for a reason,” Levine Cava told commissioners Wednesday morning. “Growth must be responsible. It cannot be unbridled.”

Last month, commissioners had voted 9-2 to approve development of the 246-acre Kelly Tractor site. Levine Cava vetoed the approval 10 days later. If all 13 commissioners are present, nine votes are needed to override a veto, and one commissioner who initially voted for Kelly, Raquel Regalado, this week announced she would back Levine Cava by switching sides and upholding the veto.

The delay on the Kelly showdown spared commissioners from having to vote on whether to defy the mayor’s warning of environmental damage. It also deferred the latest test of Levine Cava’s ability to assemble a coalition to defeat big development proposals she opposes. Multiple requests by developers to move the Urban Development Boundary (best known as the “UDB”) are working their way through the county’s regulatory pipeline, setting up a clash for the term-limited Levine Cava as she prepares to leave office in 2028.

Commissioners backing the Kelly project said they’re also willing to take on the larger fight of expanding the UDB, which is designed to maintain a buffer between development and environmentally sensitive areas, including wetlands, farmland and the Everglades.

“While I’m about protecting the environment, I’m also about jobs,” said Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez, whose district includes the proposed Kelly Tractor project site on a tree farm west of Sweetwater, near where State Road 836 ends.

He also said the commission is years late in looking at an expansion of the UDB.

“Let’s look at things that prior commissions should have looked at,” he said. “Because it was never meant to be a permanent line. Never, never.”

This week, Kelly Tractor said it would rework its proposal to try and address Levine Cava’s concerns. That includes more efforts to either preserve wetlands on the property or to protect nearby wetlands in exchange for sensitive areas on the Kelly site that would be paved over for construction.

“We’re going to work on the wetlands issue,” Chris Kelly, president of the family-owned company, said in an interview after the meeting.