$80 million pump would ease MB flooding. Residents like that but not how big and loud it is
Stephen Ginez, owner of the Hotel Gaythering in Miami Beach, was initially excited to hear his neighborhood would be getting a new pumping station to decrease flooding in the area. That is until he actually saw the plans for the 16 feet high and 31 feet wide structure set to be built near Lincoln Road.
He is not the only neighbor who objects to the new pump, which is scheduled to be discussed at a city commission meeting on Friday. Critics are expected to show up to fight a structure they see an an eyesore and loud daily annoyance, while officials will defend the estimate $80 million project as vital to tackling the city’s flooding problems. A compromise to reduce its size is one possibility.
Ginez said the city first approached his neighborhood with plans for the pumps in June 2019, but the specific details — including the location and dimensions of the pump station — didn’t become public until September.
At first, Ginez, a supporter of the city’s $500 million climate change resilience plan, was thrilled to hear his neighborhood would be getting upgrades. But then he saw the generator and pump station, which was set to be even larger than the most well-known generator and pump station in the city, the one in front of the Sunset Harbour Publix.
That pump station was originally smaller because residents complained a generator would be loud and ugly. But after the pump station lost power and failed during the “rain bomb” caused by Tropical Storm Emily, the city installed a backup generator.
“Everybody’s always complaining about the one next to Publix, and you see this one and it’s like ‘oh my god’,” he said.
The pumping station won’t be visible from the popular shopping area on Lincoln road but will stick out in the residential area on the Biscayne Bay side of Miami Beach. Ginez said 80 percent of the rooms of his hotel would have a clear view of the pump station. He hosted a public meeting with the city and his neighbors at his hotel in November, and he said every resident asked the city to move the pump station to a nearby public parking lot.
City staff told him they’d come back with an alternative, but the next Ginez heard about the project was in an April letter to the commission confirming that Lincoln Road was the preferred spot.
Ginez said the city told him the public parking lot wouldn’t work because it cut into city revenue by removing paid parking spots. The Lincoln Road location would also get rid of parking spots, but only residential ones. Ginez said the loss of 24 spots is a “big issue” for the neighborhood, as many nearby condominiums don’t even have one parking spot per unit.
The Gaythering pays $200 a month per parking spot to reserve a handful of spots for guests in a nearby private garage. Ginez doesn’t think the working-class residents in his neighborhood can afford to suddenly pay for parking spots, or elderly residents can handle a potentially long walk to their homes from a parking spot blocks away.
Roy Coley, Miami Beach’s public works director, said relocating the entire pump station would delay the project for one to two years due to underground utility conflicts such as gas supply lines and fiber optics, along with increasing costs of construction.
But, another change to the design plan that might appease some residents would be relocating the generator portion of the pump to another location to reduce the overall size of the pump by a third. This option, Coley said, would not delay the installation of the pump. Or, the commissioner said the city could simply move forward with the original plan.
The design process for the pump is almost complete, Coley said. If the plan were approved, it would be a two- year project from start to finish.
While some neighbors complained they were not informed enough about the plans for the pump, Coley said this was not the case. He said the project has been discussed in 17 community meetings and shared through community emails, on social media, and posted on flyers around the neighborhood.
“This has been going on for years and nobody was concerned about that observation location,” he said. “Until very recently now, concerns have come to light. But there’s no transparency issue here. Quite the opposite.”
The pump will have a “hybrid pollution control system” with injection wells and pollution control devices to filter pollutants from the water the pump station dumps into Biscayne Bay.
Coley said he understands the complaints that the pump might be an “eyesore” to the community and thinks finding a way to reduce the size of the structure would be the best solution
“The sooner we can get these systems built,” Coley said, “the better for the community.”
