Photos from the housing crash... by gimleteye

These photos, submitted by a reader remind us of the many stupidities driven by a supermajority of Miami-Dade County Commissioners beholden to developers of suburban sprawl. (We encourage you, wherever you are in Florida, to email us your own favorite photos and stories of the housing crash to geniusofdespair@yahoo.com )

How many times have we heard lawyer/lobbyists paid $500 an hour pontificate from the speakers podium at County Hall during zoning heearings: "This is what the market wants"? Too many to count.

The housing bust is littered with recommendations by professional county planners against bad development that county commissioners balled up and threw away in the trash. One such recommendation by planners: that Krome Avenue, in far West Dade, should NOT be used to justify more development out west, close to the Everglades.

That agreement was forged on the point of a lawsuit brought to an administrative judge by conservation groups and civic associations.

County commissioners rejected that recommendation, because the dreams of gold by powerful lobbyists and land speculators, manifest in huge, costly bets on property outside the Urban Development Boundary, would have been thwarted. (In successive sessions of the Republican legislature, one measure after another has been passed making it harder and harder for citizens to access the courts and for courts to rule on growth management issues: a manifest reason Florida Hometown Democracy will pass if voters are given the chance to vote on the amendment to the Florida Constitution at the ballot).

Companies like Krome Gold, whose principals are no doubt celebrating the US Conference of Mayors festivities from the inside irrespective of the fact the pressure they exert harms constituents and taxpayers of the city.

We call our photo essay and contest, Krome Gold (check our index feature for past winners): it is in recognition of the development corporation (that includes powerful local businessmen and lobbyists like Rodney Barreto, chairman of the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commisssion) that is pushing to move Miami's Urban Development Boundary closer to the Everglades, using Krome Avenue in far West Dade as the transit "hub" to facilitate the urbanization of the edge against Everglades National Park. (Now that the business model these homes represent has cratered, they want to build rock mines.)

These are photos of 5 acre "estates" outside the UDB, Ranchos del Sol, in the middle of nowhere and collecting dust on some bank's balance sheet. Maybe it is Ocean Bank, of US Century, or First National Bank of Homestead. Maybe the mortgages were written by Countrywide.

I hope federal regulators come down and require all Florida banks to appraise their toxic "assets" at their true worth instead of the ficticious accounting that allows the Masked Ball of Bad Development to rule Miami and Miami-Dade government.

Notice, in the photos of these 5 acre "estates" how they are built either close to the road or to the corner of the properties: as placeholders for zoning changes that would allow them to build sprawl around them.

These are photos of Miami's past, present and future unless voters can summon the willpower, finally, to drive out of office the incumbents in the county commission who have turned Miami and its environs into the Mediterranean-tiled Rustbelt of Florida.

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