County commission overrides veto, clears project outside urban boundary near Biscayne Bay

Developers thwarted Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava on Tuesday when commissioners voted to overturn a veto and allow construction of a new warehouse complex outside the current Urban Development Boundary.

Only three of the 12 commissioners sided with Levine Cava in the override vote, which allows the first UDB expansion since 2013 and the conversion of farmland into a commercial complex in an area the federal government may want for a major Everglades restoration project.

“It opens the floodgates for sprawl and unsustainable development that threatens our economy and our health,” Levine Cava said before the override vote. It was the second veto since she took office in 2020, and the first one overridden by the County Commission.

Approval also requires loosening county restrictions on new commercial construction in areas vulnerable to storm surge, a change Levine Cava’s planning staff recommended against.

But the proposal for the South Dade Logistics and Technology District carried the day in the commission’s 8 to 3 vote overturning Levine Cava’s veto of the Nov. 1 approval of the project.

Developers pitched the complex as a way to bring more than 7,000 jobs to commute-heavy South Miami-Dade, and provide instant benefits on the environment by donating more than 600 acres of wetlands to a county preservation program.

Voting with the mayor to sustain her veto were commissioners Sally Heyman, Danielle Cohen Higgins and Eileen Higgins . René Garcia, a commissioner who voted against the project Nov. 1, was not present for the override vote. Minutes later, Garcia was in the chambers and asked that his vote be recorded as against overriding the mayor’s veto, which would make it an 8 to 4 vote to override. “Today is a sad day for the Everglades and the Bay,” Cohen Higgins, whose district includes the project site, said in a statement after the vote.

Developers needed eight votes to override the veto, and received those votes from the same commissioners who approved the project Nov. 1: Jose “Pepe” Diaz, Oliver Gilbert, Keon Hardemon, Jean Monestime, Kionne McGhee, Raquel Regalado, Rebeca Sosa, and Javier Souto.

The County Charter requires a two-thirds vote of commissioners present to override a mayor’s veto.

The veto vote was the biggest hurdle left for developers on the nearly 400-acre project south of Florida’s Turnpike near Homestead. Environmental groups are still expected to try legal challenges against the development.

Developers released a statement saying their team had responded to criticism throughout the seven months as the commission delayed final votes on the project. “The result was a smaller but much better application that balanced the need for economic opportunity in South Dade with the need to protect our natural resources,” the statement read.

This story was originally published November 15, 2022 at 10:55 AM.