Miami-Dade commissioners, stop wasting taxpayers’ time and kill UDB proposal once and for all | Opinion
Like Freddy Krueger, a proposal to build an industrial park outside Miami-Dade County’s Urban Development Boundary (UDB) keeps coming back to haunt us, again and again.
The developers, Aligned Real Estate Holdings and Coral Rock Development, have been given the opportunity to defer their application in perpetuity, thereby wasting staff time and taxpayer dollars. It is now up to the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners to finally say No when this ill-conceived application comes back for the fourth time on Tuesday.
Miami-Dade commissioners wisely created the UDB — an invisible line drawn by the county that determines where urban development can occur — nearly 40 years ago to manage South Florida’s growth and protect our natural buffer zones. This application is especially hazardous to restoration efforts for Biscayne Bay and the need to build resiliency for our urban areas.
Miami-Dade County staff does not support the proposal. In fact, they have identified ample available land for development within the UDB through 2040. In this specific instance, the Everglades Foundation supports the staff’s recommendation to deny the application. Obviously, the developers want to breach the UDB because they can buy undeveloped farmland cheaper than the alternate locations that county staff has identified within the boundary.
Hurricane Ian has shown us, like many storms before, that undeveloped spaces provide invaluable protection against storm impacts. The county must take a firm stand against this continued assault on Miami-Dade’s remaining undeveloped places. These speculative developers want the county to breach the UDB, all for an unenforceable promise of thousands of new jobs. Initially, the developers proposed expanding the UDB by 800 acres, making exaggerated promises of 11,762 full-time jobs in the warehouses, offices and other businesses they envision on what is now undeveloped farmland.
The commission failed to reject the proposal outright and instead offered the developers their first lifeline. The applicants came back before the commissioners with a new idea: let us take just 380 acres, they said, and we’ll create 7,300 jobs — we promise.
The commission must finally put this miserable plan”out of its misery.
The site in question is just three miles from Biscayne Bay, located east of Florida’s Turnpike, north of Moody Drive (Southwest 268th Street) and north of the Homestead Air Reserve Base.
No place for development
Biscayne Bay, once one of the greatest recreational fishing destinations in the world, is already suffering from algal blooms, loss of seagrass and fish kills. The proposed development is within the planning area for Miami-Dade County’s largest Everglades restoration project, which is focused on aiding Biscayne Bay. This is no place for an industrial park.
With the brutal devastation of Hurricane Ian fresh in our minds, the county commission should be especially vigilant to protect lands like the ones at stake here. As an undeveloped landscape, this area provides capacity to absorb storm energy and allowance for landward migration of coastal mangrove vegetation.
There is no turning back from developments like this once the deed is done. Our enjoyment of the Everglades and Biscayne Bay should no longer be for sale — certainly not so developers can score cheaper land with the lure of false promises of jobs.
The Miami-Dade County commission should finally put Freddy Krueger to rest by voting No on this zombie project, thereby denying it once and for all.
Eric Eikenberg is CEO of The Everglades Foundation.
This story was originally published October 17, 2022 at 3:33 PM.