(Hit on images to enlarge them). Elaine Walker reported in the Miami Herald that Codina aims to rezone project. For those of you who do not get the newspaper, Armando Codina is one of our Uber Developers here in Miami...Jeb Bush’s former business partner. He is also on the Board of American Airlines.
What is with these guys? They say one thing and then they change their tune thinking everyone will forget what they originally promised. Codina promised if they moved the line for him in 2002 he would tightly restrict usage on his land. He swayed environmentalists with the promise that he would ONLY do industrial, which did not make them happy but they knew they were out-gunned by Jeb’s former partner. Now Codina is saying he needs retail too which will generate more people, more traffic and longer hours of activity near our west wellfields.
I thought Armando was cut from a different cloth. Live and learn.
This is what scares me about this change:
Turnberry waiting in the wings. Commissioner Sally Heyman, perhaps not inclined to help Armando (although he gave to her campaign) might be more inclined to help her constituent Donny Soffer of Turnberry. Helping Armando will by extension open the door for Turnberry’s 63 acres. And it will open the door for that Lowe’s development on the wrong side of the urban development boundary just south of these two parcels.
Big box stores to be located near our well fields when we have a drinking water shortage doesn't make sense. Well, it won’t matter to Armando, he has a mega farm up North. He can go there when the water is polluted. Developers keep saying, well we will just build a desal plants. At Tampa's cost of $150,000,000 to build it and the high energy cost to run it - it is not going to solve the problem.
Mark my words: water bills will be climbing very high. You think you can’t afford to live here now, wait till you start paying the real cost of water.
Rod Jude from the Sierra Club was quoted in the article, and he is on target about Codina:
''If he doesn't need all that warehouse space, maybe he should move the Urban Development Boundary back,'' said Rod Jude, past chair of the Sierra Club -- Miami group. ``That would be the honorable thing to do. We have to contain this sprawl.''
This zoning change request by Codina makes so much sense. Ick.
4 comments:
We must understand that the developer is only interested in making more and more money. He does not give a damn about the public. Further the politicians who give the developers what they want also do not give a damn about the public. They only care for the money the developers will give them. So, how do we save ourselves? We must find honest people and vote them into office. But, we have another problem. Our voters our Spanish and they vote for their own and are happy that their own are the developers. The problem is that they do not know what we publish in English or broadcast in English. Therefore it is vital that we get the facts published in the Spanish papers and broadcast on the Spanish stations. How do we do that? I note that the blogs and the comments seem to be written by all very intelligent people. Hopefully one of them will come up with a good plan.
I think the entire community is disgusted - no group excluded. I do not for one minute think that a Hispanic or Black or Anglo (or anyone) likes corruption or waste no matter who is doing it.
The problem is more of economics. If one is busy trying to make a living and pay for the gas, insurance, etc. they do not see the bigger picture or have time to do critical thinking: to evaluate what is increasing their costs.
They just see the money go out the door and never connect that they could do something about it with their vote. They feel hopeless about government.
The hopelessness is part of "the plan". Keep people passive, consumers. Feed them only information that passes corporate muster. It works. Keep people in cars in traffic. Use government statistics to make up how little inflation there is, and yet families have to have all hands on the earning deck just to get by with what families had, a generation ago. And, also, let communications professionals dictate the definitions and the language. The American consumer is like a hamster on a tread mill. If you make tread mills, business has been terrific.
Yes, I agree there must be more latin outreach. And more support to the new activist black leadership coiming out of Umoja village and MWC.
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