Voters in Miami Beach, Surfside will decide on nine ballot questions in November
In November, Miami-Dade County voters won’t only be casting their ballots for presidential or mayoral elections. For residents of the county’s coastal communities of Miami Beach and Surfside, the Nov. 3 ballot will also include questions about the sale of public land to real estate developers and moving overhead utility lines underground.
Voters on the Beach will decide on six city-specific ballot referendums. Those in Surfside will vote on three of their own. A referendum passes if a majority of voters approve it.
Miami Beach ballot questions
The first three referendums pertain to the proposed Marina Park project at the site of the Miami Beach Marina in South Beach.
As part of the ballot-question bundle, voters will decide whether the city should sell the air rights over 300-390 Alton Road and 0.3 acres of public waterfront land attached to the current marina to a developer who plans to build a luxury condominium there. They will also vote on whether the city should lease 3.51 acres of public property at 300-390 Alton Road and 38 acres of submerged lands in Biscayne Bay to the developers for 99 years.
If the project is approved, the current marina building at 300 Alton Road would be demolished and its commercial tenants displaced. The proposal is led by David Martin of the Terra Group.
The City Commission approved the project in July, but voters will decide its fate.
The city will receive $55 million if the sale goes through. If approved, the sale requires the developer to spend $22.5 million in new marina facility improvements and build a one-acre public park.
Voters will also decide whether to approve the city’s planned uses for the $55 million, if the other referendums pass and the sale proceeds. One of the referendums, if passed, would require that the Commission use the $55 million — to be paid by the developer in installments — “solely for the following public purposes: resiliency and sustainability initiatives,” “affordable/workforce/teacher housing,” “programs to benefit the elderly” or “increasing city’s budgetary reserves, impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The City Commission voted in July to use the first $15 million it receives from the sale, due by September 2022, to increase its budget reserves. Once all deposits become nonrefundable, commissioners agreed, they will fund the remaining categories with at least $5 million each. The remaining $40 million is due after the developer meets all conditions required for construction to begin.
Each expenditure will require approval by the City Commission, but the referendums are intended to be legally binding, a city spokeswoman said.
If approved by voters, Referendum 4 would direct the City Commission to create an exception in the city’s zoning laws allowing the owners of historic buildings to restore long-demolished interior floors, or stories, in their buildings without voter approval. Currently, if a building reaches its maximum allowable floor area in a particular zoning district, the owner cannot add additional floors without receiving voter approval through a referendum.
If Referendum 4 is passed, and the City Commission votes to move forward, property owners will be able to bypass the referendum process and plead their case directly to the city’s Historic Preservation Board, which will be authorized by the commission to approve the reconstruction of original, interior floor plates removed prior to June 4, 1997, when the City Charter was first amended to require voter approval in floor-area increases.
In practical terms, the referendum would allow the owner of a historic movie theater or similarly cavernous building that has undergone floor demolitions prior to 1997 to restore the original number of floors without going before voters.
A similar referendum failed to pass in 2019. About 51% of voters disapproved of the more open-ended ballot question, which would have directed the commission to pass a law broadly authorizing the addition of new floor area in historic buildings without voter approval.
Referendum 5 involves the proposed expansion of the Wolfsonian-FIU museum to include two adjoining South Beach retail lots owned by the university’s foundation. In order for the museum to expand to the nearby lots, which would push the property over its allowable floor-area-ratio, voters must approve increasing the museum’s floor area from 1.5 to 3.25. The commercial lots in question are currently occupied by one-story storefronts just to the north of the museum.
Referendum 6 asks voters whether the City Commission should pass an ordinance excluding areas like bicycle parking, stairwells above roof decks and electrical transformer vault rooms from the city’s floor-area calculations that govern how densely a developer can build in particular zoning districts.
A final draft of the city’s forthcoming voter’s guide can be found online. The official guide will be mailed out and published online.
Surfside ballot questions
Voters in the Town of Surfside will decide on three ballot referendums on Nov. 3. On Oct. 6, Surfside will host a community meeting to discuss the referendums.
Referendum 1 asks voters if Surfside should remove its utility poles and move overhead utility lines underground at a cost of at least $16 million.
“This is a non-binding question; however, if the majority votes yes, the result will be taken as strong evidence that Surfsiders want the Town to pursue undergrounding,” according to the town website.
Referendum 2 would amend the Town Charter to restrict the sale or lease of town-owned property.
Currently, the charter “provides for the unrestricted sale or lease of Town-owned real property,” according to the town website. If the referendum is approved, any sale or lease of public land would require approval from four members of the Town Commission and 60% of voters at a future referendum.
Referendum 3 would amend the Town Charter to require commission and voter approval before the administration may incur any debt exceeding 15% of the town’s average property tax revenue if the debt cannot be paid off within seven years.
This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 1:41 PM.
.JPG)