Is Miami’s single-family-home dream sustainable? Our housing crisis says, maybe not | Editorial

Miami-Dade County’s housing shortage is a mathematical problem.

There’s only so much existing vacant land to build new homes to meet soaring demand. We either build out — and encroach even further on the Everglades and rural lands. Or we build up, smaller and closer together, an uncomfortable proposition for many residents and communities who don’t want their neighborhoods to change.

Miami-Dade is projected to run out of empty lots for new single-family homes within its Urban Development Boundary by 2024 or 2025. The urban sprawl that’s characteristic of South Florida — where most aspire to live in a sizable home with a front and back yard in suburban bliss — isn’t sustainable.

Our county commissioners recognize that. On Thursday, they approved a plan — so controversial at first that they watered it down, probably making it less effective — that clears the way for more apartment buildings along the county’s rapid-transit systems. That could change the face of many areas within a half-mile of the county’s SMART public transportation plan, including the 20-mile Metrorail line running from Dadeland South to near Medley, and proposed rail and rapid-transit bus extensions to South Beach, Miami Gardens and along the 836 expressway.

Commissioners also advanced an ordinance that would allow an estimated 100,000 homes to have garage apartments, backyard homes and efficiencies that could be rented out for affordable prices. Commissioner Raquel Regalado, who sponsored the legislation, told the Herald Editorial Board her intent is to give homeowners a way to earn money off their property so they can stay in Miami-Dade despite rising costs of property insurance and taxes.

Adding density to housing — more housing on less land, whether through taller buildings or subdivided lots or row houses — is often a dirty word. It shouldn’t be. The idea has taken on much greater urgency in our region with rents soaring and home purchases out of reach for so many.

To afford a house at a median price of $589,000 in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, a family needs to earn $131,714 annually, the Herald reported in August. That’s with a down payment of 20%. The area’s median income is $68,300.

The current housing crisis is the product of decades of inaction to increase the supply of homes in South Florida. We knew this was an issue over a decade ago, but the deficit of homes needed to meet population demand has only gotten worse. In 2012, there were at least 3% fewer homes than needed in Miami-Dade and Broward. In 2019, that number surpassed 6%, according to a New York Times analysis.

The Florida way of life

Florida’s zoning rules have also incentivized single-family homes instead of multi-family apartments and townhouse communities. The dream of a large plot of land, after all, is what once attracted Northerners looking for their piece of paradise. We were under the illusion that we could build endlessly in vast Florida, so we drained parts of the Everglades to make room for sprawling suburbs. Now Miami-Dade finds itself in a debate over how much to keep growing its urban footprint.

Under almost constant pressure to expand the Urban Development Boundary — an invisible county-drawn line that separates urban and rural and environmental lands — the County Commission’s vote on Thursday sent a bold message that there’s more than one way to grow, that keeping the status quo is what got us to this crisis. But change won’t come without growing pains.

When Commissioner Oliver Gilbert first proposed higher density along the transit corridor in spring of 2021, he faced an outcry from municipalities. His original plan would’ve mandated county zoning rules within those municipalities. In Pinecrest, zoning rules that currently allow 6,600 units could have seen more than 63,000, according to an analysis by the Miami-Dade League of Cities. We understand that people want to preserve the character of their neighborhoods. But we also suspect there was a “not-in-my-backyard” component to that opposition. Everybody wants more affordable housing, just as long as it’s not next door.

We commend Gilbert for working with municipalities and reining in his proposal. The version approved on Thursday gives municipalities two years to come up with their own rules to allow mid-rise buildings near public transit in areas that don’t encroach on single-family neighborhoods, the Herald reported. But there’s no penalty if nothing gets done in those two years.

So the success of Gilbert’s plan relies on buy-in from the community and the understanding that housing shortages aren’t magically solved. They will require compromise and, first, the commitment to meet this challenge.