Miami-Dade needs affordable housing — but not at the expense of the Everglades | Editorial

Want more jobs? More housing to address Miami-Dade’s affordability crisis? More roads to serve the county’s western suburbs, which already encroach on the Everglades?

More and more, the solution seems to be to expand the county’s Urban Development Boundary. The invisible line — known as the UDB — was drawn by county planners to separate urban areas from land that must be preserved for rural and environmental purposes.

It’s as if it’s a zero-sum game to either preserve the Everglades, Biscayne Bay and the county’s remaining rural areas — or create jobs and much-needed affordable housing.

A recent poll commissioned by the Hold the Line Coalition, a group that opposes efforts to expand the UDB, indicates voters are skeptical of efforts to pit those interests against each other.

The poll is based on February interviews with 1,200 Miami-Dade voters and was conducted by Bendixen & Amandi International, a Miami-based polling firm. It showed that 54% oppose moving the line. When presented with arguments for and against it, 60% opposed expanding the UDB, preferring to protect the environment and drinking-water supply, while 29% supported it to build more affordable single-family homes.

The pressure is on

These numbers aren’t what’s most telling. That the poll was performed in the first place shows the increased pressure facing the county to move the line and that environmentalists feel they must pull out all stops to fight it.

Some of that pressure is coming from county commissioners themselves.

Last year, Commissioner Kionne McGhee proposed bringing hundreds of acres of agricultural land within the UDB for an industrial and employment complex in his South-Dade district. The area desperately needs jobs, but county staff said there are already 400 acres of vacant land available inside the UDB for industrial use.

McGhee’s proposal didn’t go anywhere, but a similar threat still looms. Developers want to move the line to urbanize 800 acres of farmland just north of the Homestead Air Reserve Base near Biscayne Bay. Never mind the land off Florida’s Turnpike and Southwest 286th Street is being considered for use in a state and federal project to restore the bay and the Everglades and is vulnerable to flooding and sea-level rise.

In September, the County Commission voted 9-3 to ask the state to review the developers’ application, a required first step before approval.

It’s not just environmentalists who are against this proposal. Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who’s as pro-business as they come, opposes the project because of the potential interference with ’Glades restoration efforts. It was for the same reason that Rubio opposed another UDB expansion to build an extension of the State Road 836 toll road into West Kendall.

“Any proposal that threatens Everglades restoration efforts is a non-starter,” Rubio’s office told the Herald Editorial Board.

More single-family homes?

Commission Chair Jose “Pepe” Diaz proposes something even more far-reaching: to accelerate the process for moving the UDB to build new single-family homes. That would clear the way for developers who have proposed new subdivisions outside Kendall. His legislation is on hold while he negotiates a compromise with Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who said the idea would “all but guarantee the depletion of all agricultural land within 40-50 years.”

The crux of this debate is the type of growth the county should encourage. Do we continue to focus on single-family homes that require more space and lead to more sprawl, or town houses and condo and apartment buildings along the county’s planned mass-transit corridors, as the Hold the Line Coalition proposes?

The Coalition’s Laura Reynolds told the Editorial Board she believes single-family homes are becoming a “luxury,” and “We have to look at that missing middle,” aka how “multi-family” developments can serve the needs of families, not just single people and retirees, as has been the norm for condo living in Florida.

Reynolds is not wrong, but that cultural shift won’t happen overnight, and Americans still love their big homes and picket fences. In four years, Miami-Dade is projected to run out of space for new single-family homes, though there’s available land for multi-family construction beyond 2040, the Herald reported.

That means that, at some point, the County Commission will be forced to say Yes to moving the UDB. That’s why the county has already identified “urban expansion areas” where that should happen to accommodate growth.

The county should listen to its own experts, Rubio and the majority of county residents concerned about ecological damage. Exhaust the options already available within the UDB. We don’t have to accept urban sprawl, traffic gridlock and environmental degradation as the only alternatives to these challenges.

This story was originally published March 28, 2022 at 1:57 PM.