Environmental groups file suit to try and block Miami Wilds project at Zoo Miami
The Miami Wilds water park planned for county-owned land at Miami-Dade’s Zoo Miami will need to overcome a new lawsuit by environmental groups claiming a flawed approval process for the project.
County voters endorsed the 27-acre venture in a 2006 referendum, but the suit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court argues the ballot language should doom the project by claiming it would be “built on land that is not environmentally sensitive.”
The suit by the Tropical Audubon Society and Bat Conservation International claims the zoo parking areas to be transformed into Miami Wilds double as habitat for endangered bats, beetles and other species living in the protected pine rocklands ecosystem in the forest adjoining the development site.
“The parking area currently serves a dual purpose of providing parking for Zoo Miami visitors during the day while serving as the primary foraging ground for the endangered Florida bonneted bat at night,” read the suit against the county filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court.
The county Parks Department, which runs Zoo Miami, had no immediate comment on the suit Tuesday. In a statement Thursday, the department said in part: “The County is monitoring the Federal Endangered Species Act process closely and will ensure that the developer meets its obligations and is totally compliant with Fish and Wildlife Service and National Parks Service’s direction. No development will proceed unless and until all these environmental requirements are met.”
Miami Wilds is planned as a water park on open area currently used as free parking by Zoo Miami. The land would transform into a water park, a shopping and dining area and a hotel, along with a new paid-parking facility that would fund about half of the $3 million in rent forecast from the project.
The development entity is run by architect Bernard Zyscovich, lawyer Michael Diaz Jr., and consultant Paul Lambert, according to county filings.
In a July 18 memo to county commissioners before the board approved a 40-year Miami Wilds lease, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said county administrators had negotiated a smaller footprint that eliminated concerns about intrusion into pine rocklands, a forest area which is part of the Zoo Miami campus and under county protection.
The smaller site size was negotiated under then-Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who wrote in a 2020 memo that: “Miami Wilds redesigned and significantly scaled back the [footprint] to be constructed only within existing parking areas, mitigating the concern associated with impacts on habitats.”
This story was updated on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022, to include a statement from the Miami-Dade County Parks Department.
This story was originally published October 4, 2022 at 6:26 PM.