US Conference of Mayors in Miami... by gimleteye

You had to read it in Miami Today, the photo and quote by Republican lobbyist Rodney Barreto: "The headlines are going to be coming out of Miami." It is still too soon for the headlines to resonate, the way they should and as they will, once the worst real estate crash since the Great Depression takes hold.

In the meantime, the US Mayors might pause to consider Barreto's own role as a land speculator outside the Urban Development Boundary in fostering policies that are harmful to cities, encouraging suburban sprawl at the expense of existing taxpayers and economic base.

Barreto is on the side of conservation one imagines, as chair of the Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission appointed by Governor Charlie Crist. But Barreto is also on the side of land speculation and unsustainable development. He is heavily invested in moving the Urban Development Boundary in far West and South Miami Dade County.
As a partner in Krome Gold, he and other speculators are trying to gain some advantage out of local zoning and permitting to site a massive rock mine in the middle of the last rural, agricultural area of South Miami Dade County. Krome Gold has had two applications for rock mines turned down by local community councils and are clawing their way toward the county commission, where their influence is measured by campaign dollars.

The goal of Krome Gold and nearby investors like Sergio Pino and the board members of US Century Bank is to build out the last open space in Miami-Dade County. There is nothing more to it: they plan to convert the last open space in South Dade to the same land use pattern as Kendall.

For now, they are weighed down by huge carrying costs of farmland bought at the top of the market--now plunged to half its value, if that--and they have no choice to dig big pits out of the aquifer and hope that there will be money to be made supplying rock fill for the 1000 acre DRI development called Parkland, planned by Lennar even though the company's fortunes and new housing starts have fallen off a cliff.

What makes the quote by Barreto, on behalf of the Miami event beginning June 20th-- the US Conference of Mayors-- so difficult to accept is that the potential of Homestead, itself, was squandered by land speculators in the quest to pave over farmland, planting platted subdivisions and big box retailers anywhere and everywhere.

The result is traffic, sprawl, and now--foreclosed homes and abandoned swimming pools filled with mosquitoes-- at the expense of the historic downtown of Homestead. This is the backstory of the Miami Herald report, "Homestead's quiet but quaint downtown district has yet to feel the economic boost of new development", a story featured in today's Miami Herald.

The carpetbaggers who allowed land speculators like Barreto and lobbyists to run roughshod over South Dade are no where to be seen now, plying the Bahamas in their yachts, but they were the ones who condemned environmentalists and any civic activist who stood in their way. Interestingly, even after their grand plan for the Homestead Air Force Base redevelopment was stopped by the federal government, they still rejected the recommendations of the conservative Urban Land Institute to swap air base land for development rights closer to the urban core of Homestead.

The ULI plan, had it been embraced, would have reinforced and built on the Homestead urban downtown, instead of fostering sprawl and traffic. (This is a story worth going over again, by The Herald and mainstream media.) It is too bad because we are all stuck with the consequences.

Just remember this: in the next few days you will see all the lobbyists and land speculators glad-handing mayors from around the United States, but they are no friends of the city.