Coral Gables to woo new county commission in seeking to absorb Little Gables
Coral Gables will try again to expand its boundaries to absorb its northwest neighbor, Little Gables, seeing the new Miami-Dade County Commission as an opportune moment to reignite its efforts.
Due to term limits, after Election Day the County Commission will be largely different compared to three years ago when Coral Gables last tried a similar move.
“I don’t want to wait anymore,” Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago said at the most recent city commission meeting. “Stop kicking the can down the curb. Stop looking for reasons not to do this. Let’s do this.”
Three years ago, Coral Gables tried to absorb the 205-acre unincorporated enclave that is home to about 3,200 residents, but the decision never made its way to Little Gables voters. During a July 2019 meeting, Miami-Dade’s Health Care and County Operations Committee voted down the proposal. The city’s plan crumbled largely because it included razing Gables Trailer Park — which houses mostly elderly people — and replacing it with high-density housing, with no plan for the displaced residents.
“We were caught off guard at that meeting,” Lago said last month.
But this time around, he said, the city will be prepared. Next week, the Coral Gables City Commission will vote on a resolution to appoint Lago as the representative who will meet with county officials behind closed doors to discuss the annexation process. The county must give the green light in order to get annexation on the ballot for Little Gables voters.
Lago said Coral Gables officials have not fully decided yet to pursue annexation, especially without more input from residents. But he has already initiated the process to “test the temperature” of county officials. Last month, the city commission voted to “reinitiate” the annexation process of Little Gables. The resolution also authorizes the city to spend $170,000 on an analysis to determine if it’s feasible to attach the enclave.
The county commission is the gatekeeper of Little Gables annexation. Without its approval, it cannot move forward to the ballot.
Surrounded on three sides by Coral Gables
Little Gables is surrounded by Coral Gables on three sides, with the city of Miami bordering it to the North. Annexation would increase Coral Gables’ tax base, generating an estimated $1.35 million in tax revenue for the city in 2024, and climbing up to almost $3.3 million in revenue by 2033, according to projections from the city.
“This is no longer this little sleepy enclave where people move to to buy a house for $300,000,” Lago said of Little Gables. “Houses this month sold for $2.2 million.”
But gains for Coral Gables could also mean a loss for Miami-Dade County. The city’s 2018 annexation application estimated that annexation would reduce the county’s budget by about $900,000 in property tax revenue annually. “In exchange for that relatively small amount of revenue loss compared to the overall county budget,” the city wrote, “the county will be able to forego the cost of providing police, fire and emergency medical, parks and recreation, solid waste, general government, local road maintenance and stormwater management services.”
A county memo from 2018 estimated a $523,473 decrease in tax revenue for Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, which currently has jurisdiction over Little Gables. Should annexation pass, that jurisdiction would change over to the Coral Gables Fire Department. Policing, too, would switch from the county to the city.
That switch is seen as a major selling point for Little Gables residents in favor of annexation.
“Public safety is our number one concern,” said Karen Shane, who was president of the Little Gables Neighborhood Association for about 20 years. “We are an enclave disconnected from all other parts of unincorporated Miami-Dade.”
Shane and other Little Gables residents during the most recent city commission meeting described problems including “dangerously slow” response times from the county, and difficulty getting the correct agency dispatched for emergencies.
Shane spoke about the 2013 death of Melita Jaric, a graduate student at Florida International University. Jaric was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Little Gables. Her neighbor said she held Jaric in her arms for about half an hour as they waited for first responders, NBC Miami reported.
“Had we been part of Coral Gables, she just might have made it,” Shane said.
Emergency response times
The response times can also depend on where the 911 caller is located in relation to the nearest cell tower. Residents said calls made from within Little Gables boundaries often ping Coral Gables dispatchers rather than Miami-Dade County.
“Call 911, tell them the address, they say ‘this is Coral Gables, you called the wrong place,’” resident Brian Mullins said. “I called 911. I didn’t call the wrong place.”
The nearest county fire station is about two miles from Little Gables, while the Coral Gables station is about a half-mile away.
“We live five blocks from a beautiful Class 1 fire department,” Mullins said, referring to the Coral Gables fire station. “I could walk there faster than I can get an ambulance to come to my house.”
Little Gables resident Lynne Blustein disagreed.
“Please leave Little Gables alone,” she said. “I love Dade County. I love their services.”
Blustein opposed Little Gables streets switching from numbers to names in order to match Coral Gables, if annexed.
“So you’re saying that somebody that lives on 15th Street or 13th Street is going to become ‘Affluenza Avenue’ because they’re in Coral Gables?” she said. “Is that what you’re forcing upon us?”
Little Gables resident Gladys Saenz said she is concerned about higher taxes, as well as density, which she called “outrageous” in Coral Gables.
“I do not want high density in my area,” Saenz said. “I don’t want higher taxes or higher fees for garbage pickup, and I don’t want to be fined when my house is not up to Coral Gables standards.”
The most vocal opposition in the latest annexation attempt has been from the Metro-Dade Firefighters Union.
In an Aug. 26 letter addressed to Miami-Dade Commissioners Rebeca Sosa and Raquel Regalado, the county fire union president William McAllister requested a “blanket moratorium on any annexation pursued by the City of Coral Gables.”
“Immediate action within Coral Gables is necessary to bring the city’s critically anemic staffing numbers up to local & national standards before an avoidable tragedy occurs,” McAllister wrote.
Lago called McAllister’s comments “a typical political scare tactic.”
This story was originally published September 9, 2022 at 12:41 PM.
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