"At long last Miami 21 is coming before the City Commission for first reading. As an observer of the process you can understand that there are a variety of naysayers, from those who are fearful of such a complex and thorough change, to those who feel the effort has fallen short of acceptable goals, to those whose individual interest is at odds with city-wide benefit. I am writing to ask you to participate in the City Commission hearing August 6th at 2:00PM in support of the proposed zoning code.This is a code to prepare the city for a transit-oriented, walkable, energy-conserving future. This effort has had extensive public participation and has been thoroughly responsive to individual concerns as they have been raised. (please click, 'read more')
Is it 100% perfect? Probably all would agree that it is not. However, it is a great advance over the existing code. Some of these advances are: an entirely new Chapter 23 for historic preservation that includes transfer of development rights; a response to neighborhood preservationists with a smaller single-family building envelope responding to the outcry over Mc Mansions; more appropriate transitions from commercial corridors to residential neighborhoods, a new medium-density urban townhouse and low rise apartment type; higher density building types providing wider sidewalks and pedestrian passages in overly long blocks; building liners to conceal garages; a new use type allowing live-work – including in industrial areas. Miami 21 also includes a Public Benefit Program designed to assist the City with its growing needs in terms of affordable housing, parks and open spaces, green buildings, civic infrastructure and brownfield redevelopments.
The overall Miami 21 project includes as well the Parks and Public Spaces Master Plan (by Goody Clancy), the Climate Action Plan, the Bicycle Action Plan, designation of new historic districts – all very much coordinated with the proposed zoning code.
Miami 21 cannot satisfy all its critics. However, it represents tremendous improvement over current regulations. I hope you can join us at the City Commission meeting and/or write a letter to City Commission. We need possible voices to give our City Commissioners the confidence to support the code. Please let me know if I can do something to enable your support."
17 comments:
Stop bashing the plan and take some time to take a look at it.
- The PAB recommended against limiting public input, which the current version of the new code would restrict by eliminating one of two hearing boards, and reducing the number of times the public could speak on issues from the current 3 or 4 times per month, to about once every 6 months.
- The PAB recommended 5 floors, or about 81 feet tall along Coral Way/3rd Avenue, 27th Avenue and 32 Avenue instead. The new Code allows the first floor to grow from 15 to 25 feet high, and additional floors from 10 to 14 feet high, pushing the overall heights of buildings up, a new building with 8 floors will be 123 feet tall.
A new 8 floor building would be the same as an old 12 floor, and a new 12 floor building will be as high as an old 17 floor building.
These recommendations and about 20 others, which have not been adopted yet, would be included during the first reading if the Commissoners vote to include them, which only a yes vote from 3 commissioners would accomplish.
I cannot stress enough how important it is for the community to get involved on the proposed Miami 21. Not all is bad in the new Code, but many of the new ordinances and regulations are actually terrible for single-family homeowners.
Please take the time to look at Miami 21 on-line and read the proposed recommendations made by the PAB. It is very important that the community supports these recommendations.
-Beba Mann
Independent experts who have studied Miami 21 have consistently criticized it as not being ready for prime time. Obviously planting a form based code on top of an existing City the size of Miami has never been done.
In the 4-5 years since the taxpayers began pumping money to Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and her friends the economy and particulary the South Florida real estate market has tanked. As anyone can see the oversupply of product, too easy credit and now massively increasing unemployment have crushed any incentive for buyers to buy or builders to build.
Tell your commissioners to take a step back or they will be facing "another Miami moment".
RECENT Modifications List and Marked Code Now Available on Web
A document with the most recent modifications, revisions, and clarifications since the Planning Advisory Board meeting of January 7, 2009, along with a marked copy of the Miami 21 Code, is now available on the Miami 21 website.
Modifications, revisions, and clarifications will be presented for discussion during the meeting of August 6, 2009. The majority of the items are nonsubstantive, technical and clerical in nature. Other items are the result of Commissioners' directives from additional community input since the Planning Advisory Board; the balance reflects recommendations by the Planning Advisory Board.
To view the documents, please visit www.miami21.org and look at the LATEST DOCUMENTS section.
Beba your a candidate for City of Miami Commission, give us your take on Miami 21?
Cato: See my first post. I just got back from walking and will do a short summary for you and post it here as soon as I can.
Miami 21 posted a few recent changes after the close of business on Friday night, July 31st, 2009. These changes were not reviewed by the Planning Advisory Board or by the public. (Many problems have not yet been fixed.)
There was no chance for the public to comment on these latest revisions. Four business days is not enough time for the public and actual real estate experts to review the latest revisions. Miami 21 consultants and promoters had seven months to post the latest changes. What are they still hiding?
I have been a Miami-Dade County homeowner for over 30 years, and also an over 30-year Miami business owner and commercial property owner. Many long-time stakeholders like myself request that Miami 21 be deferred at this Thursday, August 6th, 2:00 PM special Commission meeting.
Liz Plater-Zyberk makes Miami 21 sound heavenly in the general descriptions she sets forth. But beware! Many of the particular details in this complex zoning code (over 500 pages long) are difficult to implement and have no "city-wide benefits," as Ms. Plater-Zyberk claims.
One must take Ms. Plater-Zyberk's statements with a grain of salt. For example: She states that one of the "advances" under Miami 21 is a "new use type allowing live-work - including in industrial areas." The fact is, the new D1, "Workplace" designation, only allows "1 unit per lot of record." Translation: 1 residential unit per commercial lot, meaning possibly a night watchman can be allowed to live on the premises ... no big deal, and not a very big advancement. This problem might have been fixed but we have seen no proof. Many other problems remain.
Clearly Miami 21 does not take into account the new economic reality facing Miami which is 11% unemployment and the dire recession. People might be renovating and doing adaptive reuse to their properties IF they have the money and the confidence BUT few residents and investors have any intention or ability to do new construction. Ms Plater-Zyberk and the Miami 21 promoters appear to live in an ivory tower full of pretty pictures but divorced from real life.
It is important to note: The Miami 21 "Recent Modifications List and Marked Code" (462 pages long!) was posted on Friday, July 31st, at 7:15 PM. That only allows the City Commissioners and the public less than six (6) days to review and analyze the monumental proposed zoning code. The timing is made even worse because the Commissioners need to find solutions to the City budget crisis in the next few weeks. Concerned citizens rightfully request that the budget take precedence, and that Miami 21 is postponed ... best until after the elections, so the new Commissioners and a new Mayor can devote proper time and effort to this complex item.
Miami 21 is a waste of time and money... Lets see if there is even a quorum next week. There was a battle of memo's between the Mayor and Chairman Sanchez last week.. He does not want to see it. Regalado is a no, probably Gonzalez as well... Sanchez wants this to stay far away from him, so, no telling where he goes. Marc is an toss up, Michelle is a yes vote (because Manny told her so). So, they need to squeeze two votes out of the two players, Sanchez and Sarnoff, that are still on the fence. I hope it dies quickly!!
$118 mil budget deficit! Why waste time on anything that increases the deficit? Typical Manny Diaz stupidity. Concentrate on the trivial and ignore the crucial.
Plater-Zyberk and the Duany brothers are major players in the New Urbanism movement. The documentary "Subdivided" (see subdivided.org) demonstrates how suburban sprawl has contributed to a whole host of problems with the growth around our cities. (When a 2 car garage is the welcoming feature to your home instead of a front porch with chairs, you start to understand why our society is unable to function as a community) The problem with this whole Miami 21 concept, though, is that it is isolated to the city of Miami. It does not address the sprawl of Miami-Dade County and the county's perceived goal of doing what is best for developers and not what is best for our communities.
Ideally, careful city planning should be what is best for the community as a whole. I believe that the intent of Plater-Zyberk is just that. The problem is that during Diaz's reign, the good of the community never seemed to be his concern. Even his recent "green" movement is only for photo ops and his plan to move on politically. Giving away valuable tax dollars to a baseball team showed where his loyalties lie. Plater-Zyberk should do her best to distance herself and her good name from Diaz and the Miami political machine. It is unfortunate that she has had to lower herself to work with these hacks.
I do find it interesting that the community of Seaside, Fl., a Duany-Plater Zyberk plan, was the town used for the movie "The Truman Show".
The other M
Anyone realize that Seaside, Florida, a DPZ Liz Plater-Zyberk designed community has no affordable and no mid-priced residential housing? Until the recent crash every housing unit was $1,000 per sq ft or starting prices at $600,000. Now, who knows?
Does an existing city of 400,000 like Miami really want to be a test case? An experiment? So DPZ can make massive fees at the expense of the taxpayers?
Hello to all the fine folks of the City of Miami…July 29, 2009. I have never posted in this paper before but in reading all the anonymous comment it is aware those that write have no backbone to stand for their words, therefore all who read them should disregard….. I am going to paste a comment I wrote to Miami 21 back in 2008 ….. If anyone has read the Miami21 code and actually related scenarios that are fact in the devaluation of property and the ultimate condemnation of many properties and business’s, this will be the action promoting property devaluations even more than the economic down turn all of us are coping with at this time….
Many of you throw around the “grandfather” issue called…NONCONFORMITY… within Miami 21 the fact is when it comes to readaptive use, kiss that idea goodbye, existing improvement rehabilitation kiss your structure goodbye,,,, when it comes to expanding your business in any nonconformity kiss your business goodbye…. When it comes to selling your pre-Miami21 improved property kiss that sale goodbye… just imagine the banks redlining nonconforming structure loans or to a business occupying that nonconforming structure or just being a nonconforming business that will never be able to expand on site regardless of how important or successful or community spirited it is….. It is fact, all areas need the vitality of business and commercial property to provide a jobs base for a living community … Miami 21’s rules are great for the new developing community but disastrous for and existing urban core infrastructure of existing property….. The Miami 21 basis is derived from The Smart Code.. Any one can see that this code is for developing rural type community’s into the utopian community by guiding the new graduating infrastructure into a new Urban Core Center…. Miami 21 treats the City of Miami as it’s own island for utopian development from rural to urban core center… this is the tunnel vision of Miami 21…. The City of Miami is the Urban Core Center for Dade County…. In that, our planners should be developing a zoning strategy for this fact… Miami 21 is not the answer…. Code 11000 has proven deficient…. But with good enforcement's,,, common cense amendment’s, community support and comment, with backroom special interest approvals curtailed this ole City may just have a chance…. SO before any of you make a comment please read the code, apply a real scenario and write the truth and have the courage to stand by it and attach your name. Ideas and opinions built this country….. Illusions and smoke screens are trying hard to destroy it. How far would the Declaration of Independence gotten if it was signed as anonymous???
Thank you for letting me have the freedom to express my interpretation and opinion… Bennet Pumo …. Now for your information this is what was sent to the writer’s of Miami 21 a year ago as most still applies today…. Please note the writers of Miami 21 have since changed versions in many of the chapters and referenced paragraphs…but the facts are true once assimilated….
this site would not post 2008 Q&A comment (about the same as above)
Now July 2009 the City Commission and Miami 21 have given the folks of this fine town a little more than TWO WEEKS NOTICE, in the middle of summer, for this first reading and no one can answer what has been changed, when the change occurred and if changes are still being made.... This applies to both them MIAMI 21 text and the atlas maps!!!! Of course all above is just one persons opinion..... SO NOW LET YOURS BE HEARD. Thanks
I looked at the "Atlas" for Miami 21 and it shows the environmentally sensitive NORTH POINT area of Virginia Key as "urban core." Would this pave the way for the City's proposed hotel/"overnight lodging"/corporate retreat center proposed in the final Virginia Key Master Plan that was rejected by the City's own Planning Advisory Board and Waterfront Board?
The existing system is broken- It led to the explosive overdevelopment and condos next to single family homes. The current commission allowed it, project after project, after project; each one was voted on. Miami 21 is a new foundation based on more than new urbanism- its energy efficient, transit oriented, pedestrian friendly, less opportunities for changing zoning means residents do not have to sort through the miami herald every week to wonder if their way of life is changing as the wind blows at city hall bi-monthly. Wake up Miami!
Many of the questions raised about Miami 21 are the areas of the code no one wanted to change- 1st nonconformities, Miami 21 is more flexible than currently. 2nd- signage, its the exact same language as today. 3rd- density, its not changing, the uses may but not density that was given away a long time ago. 4th- public notice, it's more demanding in Miami 21 than 11000. You may not think it goes far enough, but Miami 21 improves from 11000! Where were you when commission made all these decisions over the last decade? Is it just snowbirds complaining? Were you here?
Since when is 65 units per acre equal to or more than 150 units per acre. More lies. Miami 21 takes away height and density.
Signage. Miami 21 promotes and encourages massive billboards downtown. How is that a people friendly public benefit? That only benefits the lobbyists who are paid to promote Miami 21.
Let us hear from actual Miami taxpayers.
Post a Comment