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Through Florida’s recent Live Local Act, lawmakers passed legislation to create workforce housing and to assure that housing funds are used for housing (and not diverted for other purposes. Both of these are worthy goals. But the 2023 law does this by allowing incompatible megaprojects next to single-family neighborhoods and by preempting local decisionmakers and, what’s worse, community input.
The law presents an unfunded mandate, allowing projects much larger than area infrastructure can accommodate. Sewer and traffic analyses become a thing of the past, regardless of the projects’ impacts on the surrounding area. And no one pays more than the adjacent neighbors, who must bear the traffic congestion and commercial intrusion the now automatically-allowed megaprojects will generate. What’s worse, neighbors wouldn’t even know about it, as Live Local does away with most public hearing requirements, with projects allowed to sprout up “as of right” almost overnight.
Cities can no longer restrict unit density below the city’s highest currently allowed density, potentially resulting in Brickell density almost anywhere in Miami. And projects can now be as tall as the tallest building within a mile.
Consider the project proposed for the Sears site on 37th Avenue and Coral Way, one of Miami’s busiest intersections. The project already aims to include over 1,000 residential units and 44,000 square feet of office and retail, all on just an 8.1-acre site, at the corner of the Coral Gate neighborhood, Miami’s first neighborhood conservation district (NCD). As if this weren’t already large enough, Live Local allows the project to go from 150 units/acre to Brickell’s 1,000 units/acre formula, or approximately 8,000 units (!) plus retail plus office plus thousands of parking spaces!
NCDs aim to preserve the character of single-family areas by preventing commercial intrusion and incompatible infill structures, goals made impossible by Live Local.
So what can be done? The 2023 law was amended in 2024 and can certainly be amended again. Once a permit is issued for these projects, it’s too late. The Miami City Commission should immediately sue the state, accepting nothing more than current zoning for this and other large sites. And the tallest a building can be, if adjacent to an NCD or even if surrounded by single-family residential on just one side, is the tallest currently allowed height of the property, not one inch taller.
Live Local uses a sledgehammer to kill a fly. To protect our community’s character, it needs to be revised further, fast.
If you feel the same, please sign on at Petition · Save Coral Gate: Revise the Live Local Act – Miami, United States · Change.org
Ralph Rosado Miamian, a former city manager and recent President of the Miami-Dade City and County Management Association (representing the 28 council-manager cities in Miami-Dade), so I understand how state policies affect/overrule local policy in ways that can be unfair to local governments and citizens), and a PhD in city planning, so I understand land use policy/law well.
