The last major step in approving a 53- acre tract of undeveloped land for new housing in The Hammocks is scheduled to go before the Miami-Dade County Commission on Jan. 23.
A public hearing at 9:30 a.m. in the commission chambers of the Stephen Clark Government Center, 111 NW First St., will take place on a pending application to revise the county’s Comprehensive Development Master Plan (CDMP) to permit the change.
A representative of Lucky Start, which originally filed the application, said the property had been sold to Lennar during the application process.
The property is divided by SW 151st Court, a boulevard that connects SW 120th Street north to Hammocks Boulevard, immediately west of the Beckman-Coulter biotechnology equipment complex.
By re designating the existing acreage from an “Industrial-Office” classification to “Low-Medium Density Residential,” Lennar would be able to build new residential housing of up to 398 units and a small shopping center.
The original application dated in July 2012 stated that the “proposed district boundary changes are consistent with the proposed land use designations and compatible with the development trend of the surrounding area.”
In December 2012, the county’s Planning Advisory Board approved a CDMP application to change current industrial and office land use to allow residential building of 6 to 13 units per acre.
On Dec. 10, 2012, preliminary approval was voted by West Kendall Community Council following a 90-minute hearing when a group of single-family homeowners in an adjoining neighborhood west of the tract protested the change, claiming any multi-family building would devalue their existing properties.
The change would provide businessoffice use for a 50,000-square-foot shopping center planned in a northeast land parcel facing SW 112th Street.
If the new land use is approved, residential or business applications still would require community council rezoning public hearings with notice to abutting property owners within one-half mile of any parcel affected.
The CDMP application was revised to require the developer to build a right turn-only traffic lane from SW 151st Court onto westbound SW 120th Street, opposite the Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport where 37 units fall within the Airport District zone with noise control restrictions. At the time Lucky Start agreed to buffer structures in that area with filled cinder block walls and other noise-dampening materials.
The original CDMP granted The Hammocks occurred in 1974, just two years after DRI (Development of Regional Impact) restrictions became legally effective in 1972. It was the first DRI ever adopted in Miami-Dade County, according to planning staff members.
