Mercy, Mercy Me... I don't know much about these towers except what I have read: that they are incompatible with the neighborhood (but the neighbors might have been given incentives to ignore that),Vizcaya Brass are not happy campers and Lucia likes them and is being paid to help them move forward - and she has; got 3 commissioners yesterday!
Here is my take on the deal.
Mercy Hospital's assessed value in 2006 was $159,266,644 and they pay “0” taxes. The property owned by the Bishop McCarthy next door (to the North) is assessed at over $20,000,000. And, just west of that piece is another parcel - again owned by the bishop assessed at $9,696,400. That is — let me get a calculator - $188,963,044 of assessed value for all the property. And they pay “0“ taxes on almost $200,000,000 of assessment. Now if we go down the street a bit to what was Sylvester Stallone’s compound, they are assessed and paying taxes on $16,000,000 and they are not even close to the size of Mercy/Catholic properties. The total millage rate for 2006 for Miami is 24.64430 (8.37450 for the City). What this means I haven’t a clue but someone must. But anyway it is not part of my point. Yes, I do have a point.
The former Stallone compound paid $403,891.89 in taxes in 2006. Are the church people saving over $4,000,000 a year (I am not good at moving decimals)? At that rate, the good Mercy Hospital and Bishop McCarthy have saved multi millions over the years. How can you get away with saving millions and millions and then say: Oh, by the way, we are now going to sell this property at a profit and not give the city any tax money back. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t make profits if you are a non-profit at the citizens expense.
God, I wish I were better at math...If someone told me in 6th grade I would need this subject for blogging...I would have been more attentive. Nah, blogging wasn’t invented yet. I digress.
But from my little seat in my 100 square foot office, this seems like a really bad deal for the city of Miami. Make that rich church/hospital -- which is spending a lot of their money paying for the handiwork of pedophile priests -- pay their taxes if they are going to sell and make a profit. The city didn’t give them a break on taxes to make a windfall profit. It was for them to do good. I am pissed off at this deal.
22 comments:
This seems like a good place for affordable housing. Since the taxpayers have subsidized the church for so long - they ought to get something back. Let the church make amends for the priests who took the innocence away from so many children: Let them help the people as penance for harboring priests they knew were predators.
Correct me If I am wrong but dont they have to pay 3 years in back property taxes if they sell for profit. That is the satute of limitations, right? Also, what is wrong with this area as high density housing, its close to freeways, busroutes, highly dense Grove Isle, a... hospital. Isn't this a bit nimby naughty...
The church has built housing for the poor there. Both a former AIDS housing and current senior housing that is also very high desnity. They both have communal kitchens.
Finally, the bishops land is a... church not his private deer park.
The problem is that the roads in the area cannot support the current traffic that is there!!
And there is a huge difference in high density senior residents who pretty much don't own vehicles and
more high density over priced crap condos that will presumably be owned by fufu nouveau riche people.
Case in point,has anyone been out to Key Biscayne recently? Been in a store and tried to get service? Yuck-It has lost all its charm and become another country-one in which the comon folk are no longer welcome-Coconut Grove is trying to avoid that happening to them.
Oh and btw there is also a private school on the Bishops property that could be paying taxes!!
Anonymous 1:
-- I do not know the answers to your questions. I am a lowly blogger. Anyone can confirm what Anonymous 1 had to say?
Did Aventura hospital pay $1,631,809.80 in Ad Valorem taxes?
I know Mount Sinai paid: $355,544.42 in 2007 with their exemptions...it wasn't free. What gives with Hospitals?
Nimby? Not me. I thankfully live very far from this traffic jam..have my own to deal with.
A question for you Anonymous: Are you a priest?
I find it interesting that these mega churches become business-like with all the glitter and intrude in the community where ever they wish....and don't even pay taxes...
If I ran a business/school I certainly would hear from the tax collector.
The vote was 3 to 2 in favor of allowing the greedy developer, Jorge Perez, to ruin the neighborhood. Interesting to note. Local Commissioner Marc Sarnoff spoke passionately and accurately as he made a motion to deny the change in zoning. Three Commissioners from three other Districts voted to ruin the quality of life in Commissioner Sarnoff's District. Dumb as a brick Spence-Jones had no idea what she was voting on yet she did not let that stop her from catching all the eye contact from applicant Jorge Perez and voting yes. Clearly she knows who funds her campaigns. Joe Sanchez and Angel Gonzalez also voted to ruin someone else's neighborhood.
Let us see how Marc Sarnoff responds? He is obviously a very smart man. He ran his recent campaign on a quality of life platform. He cannot be too happy seeing other commisioners foolishly hurting Dist 2 constituents for their own selfish goals.
Shame on Mercy Hospital & 3 Out of 5 Miami City Commissioners
How dare Mercy Hospital use guilt to try to sway the public and Miami City Commissioners in allowing them to sell their property for $100 million for their claim to help them service our community better? I went to a Catholic high school, and I thought that the Church's scandalous selling of so called “Indulgences” in the 1500's for blessing and entry to Heaven had already ended. How does that expression go about fooling some of the people some of the time?
How dare Mercy Hospital claim that they need more money even though they have always been a not-for-profit institution and should have been able to manage their funds much better since they are not required to pay taxes like other business? How do other hospitals manage to get new equipment and improve their facilities without selling out chunks of land to luxury condo developers?
How dare three out of five Miami City Commissioners vote in favor of rezoning Mercy Hospital property for the sake of building more luxury condos? The City of Miami already has a huge oversupply of luxury condo units that will take several years for the market to absorb. More housing inventory means lower values for all homeowners.
How dare the Assistant City Attorney inform the City Commissioners that they have the right to vote against official Zoning Laws and recommendations from our own City's planning and zoning boards - their own appointees? It is reasonable to conclude that the City Of Miami would not approve you selling your house to a developer that wishes to build an Exxon gasoline station even though the zoning didn't allow it, just because you needed the money. Needing the money is not a criterion for changing zoning and besides needing the money was not even the issue before the Commission last night.
And where was Jorge Fernandez, the City Attorney? Maybe he was not able to face the Grove again to make another decision against them?
How dare former Chief of Operations/Assistant City Manager Alicia Cuervo-Schrieber, have the nerve to take a job with this project's developer, The Related Group? Why does the City of Miami not have rules in place that prohibit former employees to take such a job? Let's bring that ordinance up before the Commission and prevent this travesty from taking place again.
How dare Lucia Dougherty (former City of Miami Attorney) who now is the "go to" zoning attorney at Greenberg Traurig that represents The Related Group think she is doing our community a big favor by offering to build just 300 more units when the builders could have built many more? I guess she feels that a punch in the stomach is more acceptable then one to the face! And she can tell us that from her ivory tower in the Grovenor. Which brings to mind, where is the $600,000 the Grovenor promised the community - in a trust account in some lawyer's office?
How dare various wealthy adjacent neighborhood associations agree with the Mercy Condo project? I doubt that they would have agreed if they had not been promised considerable financial compensation. There are a lot of people in this town, by their own admission, who stand to financially benefit greatly if this project goes through.
How dare City Commissioners Sanchez, Gonzalez, and Spence-Jones claim that they are voting for more luxury condos on the Mercy property for the benefit of all of the citizens of Miami and its future? I believe that less then 1% of our communities population can ill afford a condo that sells for $3-$15 million dollars.
Shame on them all! That penance should be worth at least 100 million Hail Mary’s.
It seems that only City Commissioners Regalado and Sarnoff truly understand the needs of our community and listen to our citizens! Miami could sure use more consciences elected officials like them!
Harry Emilio Gottlieb
Coconut Grove, FL.
There must be grounds for a lawsuit based on traffic concurrency issue? Objectors to the project need to look at that and find a good land use attorney to go after the city.
Has anyone tried getting out of downtown, on South Bayshore, at shift change at Mercy Hospital? What these megadevelopments will do is shift even more traffic onto feeder streets and US 1 which, instead of being backed up to 17th Street, will back up to SW 8th Street.
Lastly, once again the success of developers and their lobbyists against the community points out the need for much stronger campaign finance reform. PLEASE.
Harry -- a bit shorter...but great points! Thank you. How did Mercy get this land to begin with? Maybe there is an old deed restriction -- it was part of the Viscaya compound. Also if we take the meager taxes that this hospital should have paid -- on AT LEAST their professional buildings-- Mercy should have paid the city at least $20,000,000 over the years. The professional building should not be included in the tax break.
The Catholic church (Sisters, Vatican, whatever) bought the land from the Deering heirs. The heirs couldn't keep up with the maintenance of that portion of the estate/gardens, which was a series of islands with canals interlaced among them. I have an old map of the entire grounds, showing a driving tour of the entire property, including these islands, and the "farm village" across the street.
Some remnants of the garden walls can still be found on the Lasalle school property.
There could have been some restriction in the sale, but I've never heard of one, and the fact that the farmland was sold off to a developer who built the Bayheights neighborhood, indicates to me that the heirs didn't have any qualms about what happened to their land.
I have never agreed in principle with the concept of non-taxation of church property. Leaving aside for the moment the pedophile issue, the catholic church is probably one of the wealthiest business-organizations in the world. It has been that way for centuries. Look back in time to the middle ages, the only real money around was in the royal famlies, or the churches. the buildings (castles and cathedrals) this "old money" built are still standing, and spectacular, even today.
We've subsidized them long enough.
On the pedophile issue (we have really digressed from the related project, haven't we?), my stepfather's sister was a nun in Virginia and told him stories about priest/nun sex parties in the priest's pool (an untaxed pool at that!). The catholic church and it's "employees" are no different than any one else in this world. There are pedophiles and promiscuous people in and out of the church. All pedophiles should be shot at sunrise (twice), but that's got nothing to do with the subject at hand.
I live close to this project and came to accept it would be passed long ago. It's going to be a mess, no doubt, and the neighborhood skyline will be forever changed. The buildings are beautiful however. A big improvment over Jorge Perez's usual mundane, low cost product.
I'm not in favor of this project, but being pragmatic about the situation, I think it could have been a lot worse.
Jorge Perez is counting on a market in Miami for mega-millionaires: who cares what he wants? We need affordable housing for PEOPLE in Miami. Not later. Now. Instead, we get the same old: More tax base, more tax base, more tax base: isn't that what got us where we are now?@#%SE AF
I sure hope John Lucas and the other sharp attorneys opposing the rezoning of Mercy come back at Second Reading of this abomination. If they do not win there I am sure an appeal would be victorious in a court.
Ok lets examin this in a Jesuit way. Its development E of 825, E of US1, near major roads, institutions, buses (for staff), similar to the neighborhood in character, but its... in my neighborhood, owned by the Catholic Church (thank g-d its not the jews cause how could you blog negtive against them), surrounded by affordable senior housing, the money is used to assist the only small non-profit hospital in this community that does sizable charity (Much more than larger Baptist.)
Religion?
This is a request to change zoning. City Code and State Law list criteria and rules that must be followed. Being browbeat and made to feel guilty by lobbyists is not a legal reason to change a zoning designation. There are a series of technical reasons and justifications to permit a change in zoning. None exist here.
The zoning is G/I now.
If Mercy is so great anyone can always give them donations.
A politically astute friend wrote me concerning my position to reject the Mercy Hospital/Related Group proposed luxury condo project.
She said...
“I have to disagree with you on this one. But do respect your right to opine. If you owned this very lucrative piece of property, I would imagine your tune would be different.
My responce was...
That is a most valuable property indeed because of its waterfront location.
It is even more valuable since it was gifted to them and cost $0.
The gift was made to help service the needs of our community it was never intended to be used for residential units.
They paid minimum property taxes for all these many years.
They are a not-for-profit and pay no income taxes.
They tried merging with other hospitals since they did such a poor job of management that they could not save much money for improvements.
They could borrow money or sell bonds and raise money but they don’t have very good credit and besides they don’t wish to pay any interest.
They now wish to sell some of the property to the highest bidder and they still wish to pay no taxes on the sale.
They wish to change our zoning and alter out neighborhood to do so.
Our community should not reward Mercy Hospital for being greedy and incompetent.
Our community should not reward the Related Group for building another super luxury condo that is totally out of scale in a market where there is a glut of thousands of units that will take years for the market to absorb.
Our community has paid for that property by subsiding their taxes and providing them with income.
Our community has a stake in that property.
Mercy should not have to alter our community in order to help them make improvements that thy should have made on their own a long time ago.
We should not be made to feel guilty for not agreeing with Mercy wishing to sell a portion of this land.
Will La Sal and the Church be sold in few years too?
Will the Planetarium be sold in few years?
Perhaps someday we can also get along without Viscaya and the Barnacle?
Do we really need more luxury condos on every inch of Biscayne Bay?
I wonder if the attorneys defending the sale of this property would be supporting them if they were not paid?
I wonder if Elena Carpenter the publisher of Miami Monthly Magazine would support this project if she was not going to profit as a lobbyist and recived and advertising budget.
I wonder if the neighborhood associations would have supported this project if they had not been paid off with an undisclosed sum.
Why can’t they reveal the sum if they are not ashamed of being paid off?
I doubt that those three Commissioners would not have supported this project were it not for all of the promises made for park money, walkways, affordable housing, personal perks and possible future jobs in the private sector.
Very few if any people would support this project if they did not have the potential for financial gains or a little too much Catholic Guilt.
If you still have guilt and wish to finically help Mercy Hospital you may do so by making them a most generous tax deducible contribution, will them your estate when you pass on or tell them to inflate your hospital bill even higher then normal.
The Related Group could do Mercy Hospital and our community a very big favor and recived lots of good PR and a City of Miami Commendation if they just donate enough money to upgrade the ER or to build a new wing.
More luxury condos is just not the right answer to resolve the mismanagement of Mercy Hospital and that of the City of Miami.
Harry Emilio Gottlieb
Coconut Grove
Mr Gottlieb,
Can you think of a way to encourage non-Dist 2 Commissioners Sanchez, Gonzalez and Spence-Jones to vote against the change in zoning?
I am just a concerned Grovite like you.
It is totally unprecedented that City Commissioners vote against another Commissioner that is being affected in his district.
Even Winton was not that arrogant.
I believe that Michele Spence-Jones is the swing vote, since Sanchez and Gonzalez have seldom voted against any development project, variance or up zoning.
It is really up to Marc Sarnoff and Tomas Regalado to convince Michelle to vote against the Mercy Hospital project on the second reading.
It will be up to Attorney John Lucas and concerned Grovites like Sue McConnell, Ron Nelson, Gary Hecht, Felice Dubin and others to file a lawsuit if need be to mandate that the City Commissioners enforce the Zoning Code and not change it for Mercy, Related or the neighbors that have been paid off.
And by the way, why is the pay off amount secret?
And isn’t it illegal to except money for a vote?
When will the States Attorney or Ethics Board look into this matter?
Harry Emilio Gottlieb
Coconut Grove
"Dumb as a Brick" Michelle Spence-Jones should realize her actions could have "unintended consequences." She already has trouble within her own District.
Height of the Mercy project needs to come down to 15 to 18 stories. And the FAR needs to come down 50%. Commissioner Spence-Jones needs to take some courses, study land use, study urban planning..., stop interfering in other districts...
Sanchez and Gonzalez are beyond training.
Spence-Jones might be too stupid to train.
And she might not have time for courses while she defends herself from Florida Election Commission investigations. Isn't she looking at $80,000 in fines?
All you that are bashing Michelle Spence-Jones for voting against the district commissioner should have bashed Marc Sarnoff and Regalado for voting against Crosswinds (in District 5) a month before the Mercy First Reading.
In addition, someone mentioned traffic concurrency. There is no such requirement in the City of Miami, don't fight me on this, read the Comp Plan. The entire City of Miami is in a traffic concurrency exemption area. No issue there.
Lets see, what else, this seems to be a case of hyper nimbyism. Everyone hates development. Guess what, like it or not, we need to add more infill unless you environmentalists all want to push out south and west into the Everglades. Every chance we have to add infill, we should take.
Spence-Jones voted for Crosswinds. Spence-Jones made the motion to approve Crosswinds. Sarnoff did not oppose Crosswinds. During the campaign Spence-Jones had promised Overtown activists she would oppose Crosswinds. After the election she changed sides. What does Crosswinds have to do with Mercy? Nothing.
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