Breaking News: Target Buys Land Outside the UDB From Lowes Store. By geniusofdespair

Read Oscar Musibay's article in the South Florida Business Journal: Will Target - like Lowe's - push for store outside Miami's urban boundary?

I hope this isn't a case of: HERE WE GO AGAIN.

Observations from the County Chamber ... by gimleteye

At the Miami Dade county commission meeting yesterday, I was curious what transformation may have occurred as a result of the recall of former Miami Dade mayor Carlos Alvarez and Natacha Seijas, district commissioner from Hialeah. On the table in the special meeting: to set a date for the election to fill empty seats. There was also a question whether an interim mayor would be appointed by the commission. I wondered: had attitudes changed? Was arrogance banished, now that the catalyst-- Seijas-- had been dismissed by 88 percent of voters? Had The New Age of Humility arrived?

The TV news cameras were out in force. Not that they had done much good, exposing the depths where Seijas and her supporters wallowed. On several occasions I had witnessed Seijas commandeer the TV trucks to her purposes. She had less luck with the Herald, despite the fact her supporters complained to the publisher every time a story appeared that contained a whiff of criticism against her core constituency; the builders, developers and rock miners. The Miami Herald printed "by the barrel of ink", she would declaim from the dais while her funders rubbed shoulders with the brass at One Herald Square. It became a popular rallying call of the unreformable majority (and part of the insanity that led Art Teele to blow his brains out in the Herald lobby). According to yesterday's meeting, the refrain hasn't lost its currency. If you read EOM you will know our view: The Miami Herald hasn't done nearly enough to expose the toxic sludge through which Miami Dade politics moves in a torrent. Yesterday, there were again dark utterances from the dais against the media. For doing what? For instigating the public? For using hysteria as a tool to sell advertisements?

The commissioners still find fault everywhere -- too few voters, too few town hall meetings, too few opportunities to meet with each others' constitutents-- everywhere but in their own culpability for the sorry state of the county. Won't the media finally expose how many BILLIONS in infrastructure deficits piled up during the time in which "growth paid its own way"?

A few themes emerged, along the lines of the dark undercurrent of Miami-Dade ethnic politics. During the Charter Review process two years ago (whose recommendations were entirely rejected by the county commission), former state legislator, GOP operator and lobbyist Miguel De Grandy represented the status quo. He claimed (rather, lectured) that anything other than single member districts disenfranchises minorities. It is an appealingly simple concept for the deal-makers on the African American side of the county commission and was embraced, yesterday, by Audrey Edmunson and Barbara Jordan although in cryptic, incomplete thoughts. They are against anything that threatens single member districts (ie. the addition of some at-large members of the commission, as recommended by the Charter Review). So are the Cuban Americans: Javier Souto, Joe Martinez, et al.

Single member districts mostly represent the horse-trading of votes by distant commissioners in the inner city for zoning changes in open space and farmland to benefit land speculators who seed and fertilize political campaigns. That is the equation that Seijas represented in her metaphorical whip and leatherettes. But who gets metaphor on the county commission? (please click, 'read more')

No one. Certainly not Javier Souto who reliably delivers the inappropriately memorable whenever he asks "for a few minutes to speak". Yesterday after emphasizing something about co-chairing the 1992 state legislative committee on reapportionment-- that delivered a Congressional seat to my dear friend, Carrie Meek, he said five times-- he added, "At the end of the day we are shooting ourselves in the head." He meant, foot. Who knows what he was shooting at, but the African American commissioners nodded. (Souto also said, "I decided to leave before I vomited on the people.") I had no idea what the 29 year veteran of political life was talking about and from the fidgeting on the dais-- exasperation, tedious patience-- no one else did, either. Someone in the audience waved a toy American flag at the end of a pencil or chopstick.

There were other non-sequitors worth mention. At the start of the meeting, Chairman Joe gave two members of the audience an opportunity to speak. Miss Williams-- a constituent of Barbara Jordan-- got up to ask that she be appointed county mayor as she was the only candidate to run in the last election in which Alvarez was voted in. She demanded her "first amendment rights" for the "60,191 people who voted for me". I was prepared to move to the speaker's podium to throw my own name in the ring for the interim appointment (Please appoint me, relentless blogger and critic, to fill the vacuum in County Hall.) , but one Pedro Martinez who "put his life on the line when this was a ghost town", which was in 1959, took the wind out of my sails. I assume he meant the Bay of Pigs. "Enough is enough!", he sort of thundered, winning me over. Then he darkly intoned against one who I assumed was Norman Braman, our billionaire benefactor who turned the county commission jugos cart upside down. And that was enough for me. Clearly I haven't been listening to Spanish language radio, but what I gather is that the refrain echoed from several directions on the dais-- that a small group that controls the media (I'm guessing, bloggers too?) is responsible. Oh that small group! Oh those do good'ers! Oh, oh, oh!

Small groups. Media. Meeting in the dark. Conspiracies to wreck democracy. Actually, there are a handful of reporters who, if they had adequate backup and funding from their corporate gigantic parents, could run about half of them to federal prison. But when I go on about that, your eyes glaze over the same way mine did when Joe Martinez kept saying, "some day we have to go back to governing and not just reacting one crisis at a time."

Joe. Joe who wants to fix the Urban Development Boundary is wistful for the chance to "govern". I'm not entirely oblivious to the fact that while the elections and charter amendments ping around in the county attorney's office and on the dais, that the operations of government have virtually ground to a halt. Sources tell us that morale is dragging along the bottom like a claw anchor on smooth rock bottom. It does make me wonder what the county commission is good for, that couldn't be provided by a strong regional civil service taking direction from a county administrator. Why, the county commission?

Joe Martinez is looking forward to the county commission governing again and said so enough times to make even the "ink by the barrel" crowd wake up. But what exactly has Joe Martinez done, other than the bidding of the Growth Machine when the going was good; ie. the time in which he was able to secure a sweetheart price for a building lot from Charlie Martinez of the LBA and Lennar co-host of suburban sprawl where presumably his wine cellar is filled? (If you don't get the reference, read our archive under "Martinez" back to the beginning.) Or to shill for Lowe's at the edge of the Urban Development Boundary. (Read our archive, "Lowes") We all remember the performances, the rent-a-crowds dragged in to fill the Chamber and diminish the do good'ers, and we all know perfectly well that it would not take much juice to recall Joe Martinez. Next!

The will of one man-- Norman Braman-- his wallet, and feisty volunteers organized around Vanessa Brito in Hialeah shook up the political order. Alas, if yesterday confirmed anything, it is that the order is intact. For the time being the lobbyists representing the builders, contractors, rock miners et al. are out of sight. Construction and real estate development is in the biggest ditch since the Great Depression. Yet the facilitators are itching for action. All there. Watching on their video monitors and reading the blogs.

Who could fail to observe yesterday Raul Martinez in the county chamber. Former Hialeah mayor, former candidate for US Congress, former subject of a federal criminal investigation and former supporter of every development pushing to the Everglades. Hialeah was Everglades. Sweetwater was Everglades. Kendall was Everglades. If Joe, Javier, Pepe, Bruno et al. yearn to govern again, just wait for Raul to be up on that dais, settling into his seat and cellphone.

Urban Development Boundary Fight: We Have a Win. By Geniusofdespair

Lowe's lost their appeal for a store outside the UDB Line. For background see this post on Eye on Miami. It has been in and out of court for years. Let's hope this is the last gasp.

We have many good posts today -- big news day -- be sure to scroll down.

Collier County Commission set to vote on future use of Everglades Jetport, today ... by gimleteye

I don't like doing it: getting in a car and driving across Tamiami Trail to spend a whole day in Collier County to sit through a county commission agenda on changes to the local growth management plan, in order to comment against a plan that would allow off-highway vehicles into the Everglades adjacent to the old Everglades Jetport site. The change-- scarcely noted by the public-- was requested by the Parks and Recreation Department and Miami-Dade Aviation, probably egged on by county commissioners in Miami-Dade who delight in antagonizing citizens who have made it difficult for them to change the Urban Development Boundary in West Dade to satisfy their campaign contributors. (Cf. Pepe Diaz, Natacha Seijas, Joe Martinez, et al.)

But I am going to do it. I volunteered to be conservation chair for the group founded by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Friends of the Everglades who forty years ago formed around the battle (successful!) to stop the Everglades Jetport. In an email, Joe Browder-- an Everglades activist who was deeply involved in the Jetport issue at the time-- wrote, "The only responsible action now is for the U.S. to condemn the jetport site, and make it part of Big Cypress National Preserve... Dade County is displaying such contempt for the values of Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve as they relate to the old jetport site that it is clear that the county cannot be trusted to manage the land in ways that are consistent with the National Park Service's responsibilities. Given Dade County's earlier proposals for oil drilling and rock mining, their discussions with the Colliers about oil development, and their failure to develop an ORV proposal that provides even minimal protection for Big Cypress National Preserve, it's pretty clear what Dade County is really doing: cooperating with the Colliers to develop an industrial and commercial center at the jetport site, to help provide an economic base for the Collier's plans for extensive, panther-threatening housing development in the Big Cypress."

There is more. Development interests in Miami-Dade who want to push the Urban Development Boundary past Krome Avenue, like Rodney Barreto, Sergio Pino, the directors of US Century Bank and investors in the massive development called Parkland, want to build a constituency for more development, more people, more motorized access into the Everglades. They might even put a Lowe's Home Improvement right at the edge of the UDB, willing to fund another incursion against the Everglades. What a great plan: get a CDMP amendment passed two hours from Miami so practically no one from Miami will be involved and then take the battle to Tallahassee. Another fine example where Amendment 4, Florida Hometown Democracy, would help: if voters were educated and had a chance to decide if it makes sense to put off road vehicles in the middle of the Everglades, how do you think they would vote?

Governor Crist and Cabinet vote to protect against sprawl in Palm Beach County ... by gimleteye

Yesterday, Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Cabinet today voted unanimously to order Palm Beach County to rescind two comprehensive plan amendments that would have increased density for these two properties. Both cases involved inappropriate conversions of rural lands for urban and suburban development. Sound familiar?

This important order follows on the heels of two other significant Cabinet rulings protecting urban service boundaries in Miami-Dade and Marion Counties. 1000 Friends of Florida writes, "As with the Miami-Dade and Marion County cases, today’s decision reinforces and upholds the importance of urban boundaries as a growth management tool, the need for overall consistency with the goals, objectives and policies of the comprehensive plan, and the necessity of demonstrating fundamental need prior to granting density or intensity increases."

Plaintiffs were represented by the Everglades Law Center’s Richard Grosso on the Palm Beach County cases. Grosso has also been involved in all the recent challenges by developers and the Miami Dade County Commission to the Growth Management Act. In addition to this important Cabinet ruling, these cases are also significant because they overcame the difficult “fairly debatable” legal test to determine that the land development regulations authorizing the increased density were not in compliance with the local comprehensive plan. Are you listening, Pepe?

On Urban Development Boundary application, County Commissioners vote to punt ... by gimleteye

In the midst of an epic glut in commercial and residential real estate capacity, there is no need to move the Urban Development Boundary. The UDB extends in a ragged edge along the western edge of Miami-Dade, separating the urban service area from farmland and open space edging toward the Everglades. But the county commission could not summon the political will to stop another application to move the Urban Development Boundary. If there was ever a time to say, OK we made some mistakes in the past approving unsustainable growth but now is the time to reconsider and act in good faith on behalf of taxpayers, this was it. But it wasn't. Yesterday the commission decided to continue to litigate against the state of Florida and an administrative court decision to uphold the state's position that a new Lowe's store outside the Urban Development Boundary violated the state's Growth Management Act (see, Lowe's below) Today, the commission voted to "transmit" without recommendation the Ferro application in order to get the judgment of the state that it rejected in the Lowe's case.

What is so amazing, here, is that Natacha Seijas and the unreformable majority keeps saying that the county should "retain" control; ie. local control, yet, they keep punting developer applications to the state. At the same time, the Growth Machine lobbyists promoting developer applications judged to be violations are promoting changes that would eviscerate the state agency whose opinion the commissioners profess to want. If this isn't government designed to fail, I don't know what is.

Clean Water Action Dawn Shirreffs countered Joe Martinez. Noting the huge volume of empty retail, office and housing in the Kendall Commons area, Shirreffs argued that you can't "build it and they will come. We built it, and they are not coming." That's too much common sense. Tropical Audubon Society Laura Reynolds held up a photo of the Kendall Commons site with a "For Sale" sign on it. Just what we have said: the Urban Development Boundary is all about land speculators, flippers, and political insiders trying to cash out of property bought too high. Change the underlying zoning, recoup some cost from another vulture willing to sit on the property until the markets return.

The only surprise, and it raised some eyebrows: African American county commissioner Audrey Edmunson voted against the application. Perhaps it is becoming clearer, in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, that encouraging more suburban sprawl comes at the cost to inner city taxpayers and residents who end up funding the costs and diversion of public resources to outlying areas. Also voting "no"-- the right vote-- were Katy Sorenson, Rebeca Sosa, and Chairman Dennis Moss. If Sally Heymann had been there-- she wasn't-- and if Carlos Gimenez had voted with the minority, as he usually does on UDB changes, the measure would have been defeated. Instead, local activists and community organizers will chase, again, into the rabbit hole of state review, sending the controversy far from the prying eyes of local constitutents; a diversion of energy and talent and money that may in itself be the point of these senseless attempts to circumvent responsible planning in Miami-Dade County.

Update: Proposed Lowe's store on the other side of the Urban Development Boundary. By Geniusofdespair

That Lowe's store on the other side of the Urban Development Boundary just keeps going. Even though the Governor and Cabinet said "no", the County Commission won't let it go. About an hour ago they debated whether to continue the lawsuit against the State of Florida on Lowe's big box store.

Pepe Diaz insisted that the "process should be allowed to take place" and wants the appeal to continue.

Rebeca Sosa asked for clarification questions about what the costs would be - County Attorney's office indicated some transportation, staff and county attorney time.

Carlos Gimenez said "let's just take a vote."

Sorenson outlined that we need to just cut our losses, she noted (hopefully) that the County was not going to take it to the Supreme Court. She then asked the attorney to prepare an ordinance rescinding the County vote to approve the Lowe's. Chairman Moss declined to take any motions on the item and that was it, until the next installment of 'as the stomach turns'.

Another morning walking the dog ... by gimleteye

In other parts of the country, August is the dog day of summer. Or month. Walking my dog in the pre-morning dark, the humidity reminded me that in Miami the dog days of summer are October. A film of sweat covered me before I was halfway home. I was thinking about the 1960's as I tried not to slip on the sidewalk coated with a fine algae. The flu has been the lead story in the evening news for four days running, briefly set back to number two by the deaths of American troops in Afghanistan.

I was fourteen-- 1968-- when I came down with what was later called the Hong Kong flu. Even today I have vivid memory of being ill, throwing up and sweating, dozing in and out of delirium until the fever broke. Then it was over and done with. It was the same year I came of age, politically speaking; fervently hoping Eugene McCarthy would be elected president and end a terrible war against an enemy dug into their jungles with as much determination as Afghani warriors on steep, dusty terrain slippery with scree. We are told that the Afghani people want us to succeed, that they hate the Taliban. The same was said of the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong lead by cyphers-- mysterious Asians who we knew nothing about--, until the people could no longer stand the corruption of the South Vietnamese government we supported.

A big difference with the 1960’s was brought home to me in the most recent episode of “Mad Men”. The lead-- an advertising executive, Don Draper-- is called to Rome to look at one of Conrad Hilton’s star properties, the Rome Hilton. His wife, Betty, goes along for the ride. In the summer of 1968 I was lucky to visit Rome and stayed at the Hilton Hotel with my parents. It was the best hotel in Rome, quiet, refined and new compared to the commerce and chaos on bustling Via Veneto. The Hilton was a triumphant symbol of an effervescent, youthful American culture; a point I expressed later that night on the lawn overlooking Rome with a teenage girl from Missouri I had introduced myself to, at the Hilton swimming pool earlier in the day.

“Mad Men” captures that moment of arrival. When Betty Draper nudges her husband for leaving the bell boy a tip almost handsome as he is, she says, “He probably doesn’t make two dollars a week.” And there is the difference, notwithstanding I am forty years older. Simply put, we are fighting all our wars—for health care, for national security, for economic and environmental security—on a dollar that feels more and more like the old lira, then.

I watched on TV, liberal Bill Maher ask the question, the other night, of Nobel Prize winning, NY Times columnist Paul Krugman, a writer I normally agree with on all points. In frustration, Maher asked: “Where are we going to get the money to pay for all this shit?” Krugman assured him: we are still a very wealthy nation. We still can generate a lot of wealth. I’m not so sure. Not so sure at all.

The question of the day, economically speaking, is whether we are in a “V” or a “W” recovery from this nasty Great Recession or Little Depression. But to me, most of the conversation and chatter seems to revolve around economic signals that have nothing to do with the real economy that people experience every day. How do we pay for all this shit?

This is what I was thinking as I was finishing my morning walk in the dark with my Chesapeake Bay retriever. We do it with debt and with fraud. There is nothing wrong with debt, per se. But it depends on the ability to repay. It is hard to be complacent when so many conservative standards of honest accounting have been jimmy'd and fixed. In the 1960's, the US economy was still grounded in manufacturing; making things of value that generated wealth. Now it seems we are surrounded by scams. The only fool was the one who wasn't in on the scamming.

There is Dorrin Rolle, Miami-Dade county commissioner from one of the poorest districts in the nation, enriching himself at the expense of constituents relying on the charity he headed. Voters keep returning him to office. His campaign war chest filled with money from developers and real estate interests outside his district, who need his simple vote to obtain their supermajority. There is the county commission, funding a lawsuit against the State of Florida in defense of a new Lowe’s Department Store that would be built outside the Urban Development Boundary in West Dade. The liars and thieves of the public interest need the Lowe’s to fuel more suburban sprawl outside the UDB. For Lowe's continuing to push is a minor, petty cost of doing business even if the business model has been crushed by economic reality.

A county lawsuit against the state for rejecting Lowe's is a total waste of taxpayer dollars, but it does serve to reinforce the pecking order at County Hall. Voters are clueless, or, simply assume that when times are fat, the thieves are fatter. When times are bad, the thieves are hungrier than they are, fat. It is not what voters want. Yet voters keep returning the same unreformable majority of the county commission to office.

Just yesterday, Mayor Carlos Alvarez sent the county commissioners a request to abandon continued expense and support of an application for a zoning change that the state has rejected. Good for him. And FPL still wants to build $20 billion in nuclear reactors at Turkey Point, surrounded by ghost suburbs and the detritus of the building boom and the worst politics in a century. Who will pay for that?

As the Stomach Turns: Lowe's Crappy Big Box Store is Back. By Geniusofdespair

When the Florida Cabinet denied the Lowe's Store on the wrong side of the UDB line, we all thought it was over, in fact the Herald reported on July 29th, it was pretty much over for the county:

"The county will now live with the decision, said Assistant County Attorney Dennis Kerbel".

Well, don't listen to Dennis. He was dead wrong. Just like a toe fungus, it is hard to get rid of the Lowe's issue.

Miami-Dade County filed an appeal with the 1st District Court of Appeal on the Lowe's decision. Miami-Dade is in a serious budget crunch yet they are about to invest County funds in an aggressive appeal of the Governor and Cabinets' decision to find Lowe's out of compliance? Who is the instigator because a loss by the County could result in the County losing additional funding for infrastructure. Chapter 163.3184(11)(a) Florida Statutes states:

If the Administration Commission, upon a hearing pursuant to subsection (9) or subsection (10), finds that the comprehensive plan or plan amendment is not in compliance with this act, the commission shall specify remedial actions which would bring the comprehensive plan or plan amendment into compliance. The commission may direct state agencies not to provide funds to increase the capacity of roads, bridges, or water and sewer systems within the boundaries of those local governmental entities which have comprehensive plans or plan elements that are determined not to be in compliance. The commission order may also specify that the local government shall not be eligible for grants administered under the following programs: (I snipped them out, you get the point!).

The County needs to rescind the Lowe's Amendment through a Commission action. This would end the appeal making it Moot. Spending on the case and the potential sanctions by the state in this critical time of budget constraints is not fiscally responsible for a another hardware store.

Who out there wants to call Vile Natacha and tell her to rescind the Lowe's Amendment? She has to work her magic on the rest of her unreformable majority. Any brave soul want to tape the conversation for me?

Hold the Line Gal At 30 Weeks. By Geniusofdespair

Celebrating the Victory for the Hold the Line Campaign -- Namely, stopping the Lowe's Application -- Madeline Mateo dances around at Big Cypress Preserve. That belly might look familiar, in an earlier stage, from my June 29th post on the Hold The Line Beach Party. Getting close Madeline!

Lowe's Loss - See the Video of the Cabinet Meeting and Read the Herald Article. By Geniusofdespair

The county will now live with the decision, said Assistant County Attorney Dennis Kerbel. But Martha Harrell Chumbler, the lawyer who represented Lowe's, said that her client will decide in the next 30 days whether to appeal the ruling. - Miami Herald and:
Miami-Dade County Commissioner Joe Martinez, who championed the Lowe’s application, said he was disappointed by the ruling and hoped Lowe’s would continue its fight. - The South Florida Business Journal

Watch the Cabinet Meeting on the Lowe's application to move the Urban Development Boundary.
The discussion begins at 41:00 on the counter but don't bother going to the link if you don't have Real Audio Player. Here is the Miami Herald article (that McCollum is a real idiot):

Florida Cabinet thwarts plan to alter Miami-Dade development boundary

By MARY ELLEN KLAS
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

Gov. Charlie Crist and Cabinet members sent Miami-Dade and other urban counties a message Tuesday when they rejected the county's attempt to move the development line west to accommodate a Lowe's Superstore.

Crist and the Cabinet, voting 3-1, agreed with an administrative law judge that the county violated the state's Growth Management Act when it expanded the urban development boundary for the home improvement center.

Environmentalists and urban planners hailed the decision, saying it sets a precedent for dealing with counties that attempt to bend state growth management laws and allow sprawl. They hope the ruling will halt attempts by politically powerful developers who are seeking to move development boundaries in other counties, including the creation of a new suburb on the Everglades' doorstep in Miami-Dade called Parkland.

"You can't hire a consultant to sort of gerrymander a needs analysis to determine the outcome," said Richard Grosso, a lawyer who represented the National Parks Conservation Association and 1000 Friends of Florida in the case.
He said counties like Miami-Dade can't "justify moving the boundary for the next parcel" just because it's next to farmland. "It's a boundary for a reason."

In Miami-Dade, the Urban Development Boundary, or UDB, is a demarcation line that runs along the western and southern edges of the county and limits development to one dwelling per five acres outside its borders. Lowe's sought the boundary change in order to build a store at the intersection of Tamiami Trail and Southwest 137th Avenue on a 52-acre parcel.

The Cabinet decision was a blow to county commissioners who twice overrode a veto by Mayor Carlos Alvarez and pushed through the changes based on a consultant's analysis that said there was a need for the Lowe's store in the region. Alvarez had argued that the county had enough commercial space and the expansion wasn't needed.

APPEAL BY LOWE'S?
The county will now live with the decision, said Assistant County Attorney Dennis Kerbel. But Martha Harrell Chumbler, the lawyer who represented Lowe's, said that her client will decide in the next 30 days whether to appeal the ruling.

`WRONG STANDARD'
Chumbler told the governor and Cabinet that the judge's ruling was flawed because he failed to consider an analysis that showed the community needed general commercial development. ``The wrong standard of review has been applied,'' she said.
In a separate case, the panel also agreed with Judge Bram D.E. Canter that the county was within the law when it approved another amendment for a 42-acre commercial development at the western end of Kendall Drive, known as the Brown tract.
Miami-Dade's Department of Planning and Zoning had urged denial of that change as well, saying there was plenty of available space inside the boundary lines. But Canter said the exception was justified because of the unusual configuration and location of the parcel and because it set no precedent for future developers wishing to move the UDB line.

Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson was the lone no vote.

But Attorney General Bill McCollum also seemed to waver. When he was first asked his vote, he responded: ``I didn't say no.'' Twenty minutes later, he amended his vote to ``yes'' and explained that he still had questions about the issue.

`I'M NOT SURE'
``I'm not sure which side is correct on it,'' McCollum said after the meeting. ``It seems to me there is an argument and it may go to court to challenge it.''

He said that because he was in doubt, he voted to approve the staff recommendation to reject the Lowe's amendment and approve the Brown amendment.

Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at meklas@MiamiHerald.com

STUNNING VICTORY FOR US - End of the Line for LOWE'S Outside the UDB! By Geniusofdespair

The governor and cabinet's Final Order said Lowes Big Box Store was found out of compliance and they also limited the precedential adverse impact of the Brown Amendment.

The County is ordered to rescind the Ordinance allowing the Lowe's store on the other side of the Urban Development Boundary within 60 days. The unreformable majority on the County Commission that originally approved it should hang their heads.

Yet Again: Lowe's Sucks. By Geniusofdespair

You all know I am angry at Lowe's recent decision to appeal to the Florida Cabinet the Administrative Hearing Decision that denied them the move of the Urban Development Boundary. I think they suck for trying to move the UDB when we all know they own enough land within the boundary to build the friggin' store. Anyway, it appears someone else on the internet thinks Lowe's sucks:

Lowe's Crappy Big Box Store is Going to Appeal the UDB Decision. By Geniusofdespair

IT'S BACK!

Adam Rivera of Environment Florida said Lowe’s announced today that it would appeal a recent Miami-Dade County administrative ruling that upheld the integrity of the Miami-Dade Urban Development Boundary (UDB).

For over seven years, Lowe's has pushed to build a Superstore that would straddle the UDB and include more than 10 acres of wetlands bordering the Everglades that are officially designated as off-limits to development. Mind you, Lowe's have enough land WITHIN the UDB to build their damn store.

In May, a Miami-Dade administrative law judge found that County Commissioners inappropriately moved the UDB to accommodate the proposed Lowe’s Superstore. If you want to help our hardworking attorneys, send a check TODAY made out to the Everglades Law Center, Nova Southeastern University, 3305 College Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33314. Put UDB on the subject line of your check, or, my favorite, Lowe's Sucks.

Charter Schools get poor marks ... by gimleteye

The St. Pete Times reports, "Florida is a leading state in the charter movement, with 389 charter schools and 117,000 students enrolled in them". A new report offers evidence that charter schools are performing, in aggregate, very poorly in Florida. In response to a national study by a group "many education experts regard as procharter," T. Willard Fair, chairman of the Florida Board of Education, said literally, "So what?"
Fair is a Jeb Bush appointee and proponent of Miami's charter schools which have not only taken hold as competition to public schools, but are routinely used as a wedge to leverage county commission approval for zoning changes and development applications in areas where the public school administrators do not believe new schools are required. This happened in the case of the application to move the UDB for Lowe's, rejected by a state court, and Florida City Commons, a proposal for a small city in Biscayne Bay wetlands that died in the crush of the housing market implosion. Both used charter schools as bait for approval by the unreformable majority of county commissioners.

What happens is that public school administrators, reluctant to antagonize county commissioners, sit quietly while outlandish claims are made by developers and charter school operators-- who by virtue of their privatized status become major campaign contributors to commissioners' campaigns--in support of development applications. This was exactly the case in the Lowe's application where a charter school operator popped up and was fawned over by Pepe Diaz and Joe Martinez for helping to "solve" a school problem that public school administrators said did not exist but local citizens, paid for by Lowe's lobbyists to be at county hall in the zoning hearing, all shouted down in enthusiasm for a new charter school.

For instance, in the case of the Urban Development Boundary, the public school system once had a policy called "the McAliley Line", through which schools would not be built within a mile of the Urban Development Boundary. Why? Because schools are magnets for growth and, at the time, the school board recognized its responsibility to steer development way from the UDB. This conflicted sharply with the ambition of land speculators, who used charter schools and their profit motive to link up in opposition to public school goals.

According to the report, "Black students, bottom-tier students and top-tier students in Florida charter schools all perform "significantly worse" in reading and math than their peers in other public schools, says the study by Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes." (reprinted in full, below) This important story-- and the role of charter schools as bait in zoning applications to move the UDB-- has never seen the light of day in The Miami Herald.


Charter schools get poor marks

By Ron Matus, Times Staff Writer

Published Monday, June 15, 2009

On average, students in charter schools lag behind their peers in traditional public schools, and the black and Hispanic students among them perform even worse, says a high-profile national report released Monday.

The findings were even less flattering for Florida, a leading state in charter school enrollment.

Black students, bottom-tier students and top-tier students in Florida charter schools all perform "significantly worse" in reading and math than their peers in other public schools, says the study by Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes, an outfit many education experts regard as procharter.

"Despite promising results in a number of states and within certain subgroups, the overall findings of this report indicate a disturbing — and far-reaching — subset of poorly performing charter schools," the report says.

Florida is a leading state in the charter movement, with 389 charter schools and 117,000 students enrolled in them. But the response from T. Willard Fair, chairman of the Florida Board of Education, was literally, "So what?"

"We're doing (charter schools) because parents have the right to have a choice, the same kind of choice of educational options that other parents do," said Fair, who co-founded Florida's first charter school in 1996 with former Gov. Jeb Bush. "If they enroll their students in a charter school that's underperforming, they have the right to transfer them to another school."

Charter schools are publicly funded schools run by educators, businesses, community groups or nonprofits. In return for greater accountability, they're given flexibility from many regulations. The hope is they'll spur innovation and competition — and ultimately bring better results for kids.

The Stanford report comes just as charter schools are gaining a bigger spotlight. Some charters, most notably the KIPP chain, have won glowing publicity for unprecedented success with struggling students. President Barack Obama has praised them.

But there is little evidence about the performance of charters overall. And there remains widespread concern that states are not doing enough to filter out marginal charter applicants before they start or to shut them down quickly when they flounder.

The Stanford study, based on standardized test results from 2,400 charter schools in 15 states and the District of Columbia, is the most in-depth look at charters to date. To compare, the researchers matched every charter student in the study with another student in surrounding public schools with the same race, income and test scores.

The result: Forty-six percent of charter schools offered a comparable education to similar public schools, 17 percent offered a superior education and 37 percent offered an inferior one.

"We find that a pretty sobering finding," said Margaret Raymond, the study's lead author.

It shows "charter schools are not the panacea they often are made out to be," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, in a written statement.

But at the same time, it "creates a national imperative to scale up as many of those successful (charters) as we can," said Bryan Hassel, a Harvard-trained education consultant who has studied and criticized Florida's let-1,000-flowers-bloom approach.

The Stanford study wasn't all negative.

It also found that high-poverty students and students who speak English as a second language perform better in charters; students in elementary and middle charters are making bigger gains than their traditional public school peers; and by their third year, students in charters are doing better than their peers who remain in traditional public schools. The study did not attempt to answer why.

In Florida, many charter schools are humming. The Learning Gate Community School in Lutz, which offers an environmentally based curriculum, earned its sixth A in a row last year. The arts-centered Academie Da Vinci in Dunedin annually ranks among the top schools in Pinellas.

But other charters skirt the edge. Between 1996 and 2007, 100 charter schools in Florida closed, including 11 around the Tampa Bay area.

In Hillsborough, Metropolitan Ministries Academy, a charter school for homeless students, gave up its license last week. And the district has told four other charters that they're on the brink of being shut down.

State Rep. John Legg, R-Port Richey, said Florida's efforts to beef up oversight of charter schools in recent years has made an impact. He pointed to a recent Florida Department of Education analysis that shows Florida charters now have a higher percentage of students reading at grade level than other public schools. (The DOE did not analyze test data in the same way as the Stanford study did.) "It was not a policy of quantity over quality," said Legg, who co-founded the Daysprings Academy charter in Pasco. "But (years ago) there was no criteria to judge quality charter schools when they opened up. Now there is."

Gayle Neithamer hasn't looked at the Stanford report, but he's not surprised.

Last year, the St. Petersburg resident chose Imagine charter school over a neighborhood school for his 8-year-old son, who struggles with reading. He and his wife heard only good things about charter schools. They didn't hear anything good about the neighborhood school.

But their son has continued to struggle. And now they're looking to put him in the neighborhood school after all.

"We thought he'd get a better education at a charter school," Neithamer said. But they're not sure he did.

Times staff writer Tom Marshall contributed to this report. Ron Matus can be reached at matus@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8873.


By the numbers

389 Number of charter schools in Florida this year.

117,602 Number of students enrolled in Florida charter schools.

41 Number of charter schools in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando counties.

8,534 Number of charter school students in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando counties.

100 Number of charter schools that closed in Florida between 1996 and 2007.

4,700 Rough number of charter schools nationwide in 2009.

1.4 million Rough number of charter school students nationally in 2009.

Calusa Campground: Miami Dade County Commissioner Pepe Diaz gets his day before the county commission... by gimleteye

Tomorrow, Pepe Diaz has his day before the county commission. The Monroe County Commission. Therein hangs a tale.
The Florida Keys have always been a playground for Miami politicians; mostly under the sign of "what goes on in the Keys, stays in the Keys." Why not? The Keys are a place to cut loose (Joe Gersten), to speculate in property, or just let one's hair down. Things began changing during the real estate boom in the mid-1990’s. Suddenly it no longer seemed a developer's dream that Key Largo could be a bedroom community serving sprawling Miami-Dade.

There was the Homestead Air Force Base fiasco, that advertised proximity to the Keys as a drawing point for $10 billion of economic impacts. Lennar attempted to snuggle permits for a small city of 12,000 outside the Urban Development Boundary, a stone's throw from the Monroe County line, called Florida City Commons. Miami-Dade commissioners, like Pepe Diaz, couldn't vote the development forward fast enough, but it foundered in the housing market crash. And road widening, everywhere, including the 18 Mile Stretch.

Ask a resident of the Keys what they think about being married to Miami, and most will shake their heads, no. The people of the Keys treasure their Conch Republic just the way it is.

Jose Pepe Diaz is a charter member, as Eyeonmiami likes to say, of the unreformable majority of the Miami-Dade County Commission that uses zoning decisions for big developers and land speculators to guarantee permanent incumbency. Diaz owns at least one lot in a former trailer park, now condominium association in Key Largo, called Calusa Campground. As a “zoning council member” for the association he claims to have spent four years in the effort to obtain a development agreement with Monroe County. That agreement, subject of tomorrow's hearing, will ostensibly remove the source of hundreds of code violations and a legacy of bad relations with the county. Its collateral effect will, also, vest all 367 units of the 28 acre facility with the right to convert an RV lot into a transient, single-family residence.

To get a sense of this odd disproportion of interest, as a county commissioner, consider that: in 2007, Monroe County's budget was $373.1 million. Miami-Dade's was $7.3 billion.

Local zoning is the mother’s milk of Florida politics. Its utility in cementing incumbency is a core value for Diaz and his colleagues in Miami-Dade. Consider this example: Diaz has been the driving force on the Miami-Dade County Commission to move the Urban Development Boundary closer to the Everglades to accommodate a new Lowe’s Home Improvement Store. (A state court recently supported the state of Forida and intervenors and rejected the county's approval.) The Lowe's application that was vehemently opposed by citizens tired of the costs of sprawl; on families, on the Everglades, and the inevitable distortion of democracy that send concerned citizens to court to battle their own government.

The Lowe’s application was not only about providing a nearby hardware outlet for locals who didn’t want to get in their car to drive to Home Depot a few miles a way, or a charter school for needy students. It was also about using families to agitate for more growth and services to constantly expand development into "low cost" wetlands.

The May 20th meeting of the Monroe County Commission invites comparison. There was Pepe, on the other side of the dais, surrounded by local citizens dressed in white T-shirts as a “show of support”.

At least one Monroe County Commissioner was unaware that the Miami law firm and lobbyist, Tew Cardenas, the commission recently hired on behalf of the county was also representing Calusa Campground. (Mario DiGennaro, Diaz’ ally on the Monroe County Commission, owns a trailer park in Homestead, Florida, purchased through the New Aquarius Corporation.)

Al Cardenas, founding partner, is a top general in the Bush political dynasty: he was a Bush Pioneer, former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, and among other benefits that association conferred, his firm was designated “outside counsel” to the South Florida Water Management District. The former Miami-Dade water czar Roman Gastesi who is now Monroe County manager is a former Tew Cardenas lobbyist.

On its website, Calusa Campground offers: “An island paradise situated at the gateway to the Florida Keys at mile marker 101, near John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, the Calusa Campground Resort and Marina offers gated, bayfront resort community living for sale or vacation in luxurious RV condominiums surrounding a beautiful marina with direct access to the Atlantic Ocean via Marvin Adams Cut.”

But this island paradise has been engulfed, for years, in hundreds of code violations, citations, law enforcement actions and a legal battle that is costing neighbors hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The development agreement depends on a contested easement. The property Calusa Campground uses as an entrance and exit is under separate ownership. But there are other issues as well: long-time neighbors who value privacy are alarmed at the party-atmosphere of Calusa on weekends, dangerous boat traffic, and especially, the suspicion that the 367 owners will use a secondary road as a reliever for cars, boat trailers, trucks, and RV’s. In addition to code violations, there is also violation of US Army Corps regulations in the construction of illegal boat docks along an adjacent canal.

“I’m not going to let my house and two children fall victim to weekend parties, trash and garbage everywhere and a high volume of traffic,” said Harbor Drive resident Kelli Cuppett to the Key Largo Free Press (Calusa redevelopment hung up by access issues”, March 25, 2009) A local judge recently ruled in favor of Calusa’s claim to an historic easement. But it is not just the easement that is a problem for local neighbors.

Local neighbors are determined that the only other ingress and egress—through their small homeowner’s association—is not used as a release valve for whatever is coming to Calusa. So what is coming to Calusa? A trailer park seems small stuff, hardly worth the involvement of Tew Cardenas. And Tew Cardenas has been pushing its legal weight around, plenty, dividing neighbors and seeking to impose a cone of silence. For some reason, publicity on the Calusa Campground issue has struck a raw nerve. A dead silence has descended over the controvery, leading to tmoorrow’s hearing.

On May 20th, Pepe Diaz addressed the Monroe County Commission: “I understand the frustration of residents of Keys. I respect you want to keep a certain lifestyle. That’s why we come here. We love it. I understand. Everyone is passionate and everyone has their way of being. We’re here to work with staff. This is positive in every nature. … This is balanced and this gives a straight normality to a system that has been all over the place. Your frustration is our frustration. What is right and what is wrong. We just want to have our weekend and some more days here or there, that’s what we want to do, maybe later on life I can do that.”

It is hard to know what Pepe wants, because the public experience in Miami-Dade is that when Pepe has a zoning ordinance he is promoting, as in the case of Lowe’s, there is always another angle.

Then, too, there is the question of sincerity. “I will tell you that our intent has always been honorable and respectful to this community and will continue to be,” Diaz told the Monroe County Commission. Only a few minutes later, in the parking lot outside, Diaz confronted the property owner at the heart of the easement controversy, Albert Vigil, and called him “an extorionist and a racist.” Never mind, that Vigil—like Diaz—is Cuban American.

Vigil, who owns the property used for access by Calusa Campground, has spent more than a hundred thousand in legal fees on the issue of whether Calusa Campground has a legal easement to his property. He alleges that Diaz and insiders are spreading their own legal fees among condominium association owners while at the same time buying units as the come to sale. The association has spent more than $5 million on sewer and water upgrades to resolve longstanding code vilations. “As a share comes up for sale, they are supposed to offer it to everyone. Since the board is notified, only, of any foreclosure action, they (the board) are gobbling everything up.”

Vigil and a partner purchased their property for $250,000 and have offered it to Calusa for $1.2 million.

On April 23, 2004 Pepe Diaz paid $205,000 for a unit in Calusa Campground. (It is listed in Monroe County records at 1500 square feet and assessed at $292,164.) 2004 was the same year that Diaz “received $20,000 … from what federal prosecutors describe as a shell company used to conceal fraudulent proceeds from a hospital kickback scheme.” ('Naked Politics', Miami Herald, July 24, 2008) Diaz listed the funds on his public disclosure form from a medical supplier, Kaufman Medical Products. He later told the Herald it was “a bonus for work performed for the Astri Group”, owned by Carlos and Jorge de Cespedes. In a statement of income filed with Miami-Dade County in 2003, Diaz reported primary income of $78,000 from the Astri Group.” Documents listed his title as Director of Corporate Affairs for the Astri Group. (“Pepe Diaz Cancun Visit is Probed”, Miami Herald, June 10, 2006).http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/533817/pepe_diazs_cancun_visit_is_probed/index.html
The de Cespedes, who are now serving time in federal prison, also co-signed documents for Diaz’ condo unit at Calusa Campground.

A federal investigation was examining the relationship between the ultimate zoning lobbyist and developer, Sergio Pino, Carlos De Cespedes, and Diaz, who had taken a “fishing trip” to Cancun aboard Pino's private jet during a period when the Miami Dade county commission was considering a development approval for Pino project called Grand Bay Entities. Pino, a prominent campaign fund raiser in Miami Dade county commission races, was also in 2004 a Bush Ranger. No charges were filed.

A recent article in the Florida Keynoter reported: “After a long week at work, Miami-Dade Commisioner Jose Diaz likes to escape to Key Largo for a weekend of fishing and relaxation. His destination: Calusa Campground… Last Wednesday, the Monroe County Planning Commission said the RV site owners at Calusa Campground and other Keys RV parks can build vacation homes on their RV pads—and they can do so without waiting in line for building allocations in accordance with the county’s rate-of-ordinance, known as ROGO.” (3/30/2009)

At the end of the day, tomorrow, the main value of the development agreement may be to secure the rights to build a single family home, designated transient, on each of Calusa’s 367 lots. The Rate of Growth Ordinance (ROGO) is a unique aspect of local law in Florida. It is meant to create scarcity, in terms of building units, in order to protect a reasonable time for hurricane evacuation out of the Keys.

Looking at Keys real estate today, and the massive oversupply out of the housing boom, it is hard to say that ROGO, first implemented in 1992, did much good by limiting the vast overdevelopment of the Keys. The fact remains, ROGO units are not easy to come by. There is a complex point and tier system that is meant to fairly allocate growth but also provides opportunity for lawyering and lobbying. Wherever scarcity meets politics there is opportunity to make a lot of money.

In the case of Calusa, it is possible that the owners of ROGO units could trade or sell them for a right to construct similarly zoned property, or affordable housing, somewhere else in the Keys. The value of those ROGO rights could be worth millions, or, very little. But many paid as little as $35,000 for an individual lot at Calusa.

It certainly wasn’t planned that way. Up the Florida coast at Briny Breezes, at around the time Diaz became involved in Calusa Campground, a development group offered to pay trailer owners $510 million to owners of each of 488 trailers on 42 acres fronting the Atlantic. The news turned trailer park owners into instant millionaires.

Today, the Keys are sinking under the weight of for sale signs. By August 2007, the deal for Briny Breezes collapsed; a victim of the housing bust. It is hard to know whether units at Calusa purchased in the froth of the housing boom, like Diaz’, retain anything near their assessed value. It is a question millions of Florida homeowners are asking themselves every day.

Some kind of consolidation, separation, and transfer of ROGO units to affordable housing seem to be the play for trailer parks in the Florida Keys. Perhaps Calusa Campground is the model for a grand development that will wrap up scarcity and opportunity in a way that only works when “local control” is secured by powerful lobbyists. The only thing certain about the controversy at Calusa Campground is that legal costs for all parties total hundreds of thousands of dollars. Neighbors, contesting illegal boat docks whose permits cost only a few hundred dollars, have spent tens of thousands in court.

Whatever happens at the Monroe County Commission tomorrow, the Calusa Campground story is not over by a long shot.

What does Pepe Diaz have against Albert Vigil? ... by gimleteye

It was quite a moment in the parking lot, when Citizen Pepe Diaz called Albert Vigil a racist. The moment was in Marathon, after a zoning meeting of the Monroe County Board of County Commissioners on May 20th. A 3-2 majority of the county commission had just voted against something that Pepe Diaz and Calusa Campground's attorney, Tew Cardenas and Santiago Echemendia, really wanted: a zoning change for the condominium association where Pepe owns at least one lot. There are rumors that straw buyers have been buying up lots in Calusa for the past couple of years. In the photo above, Calusa is what you see sticking into Florida Bay. The zoning change would upzone the 367 RV park, filled with hundreds of code violations including trailers converted to immoveable residences, to a Destination Resort classification.

In Miami-Dade County, where Pepe Diaz is a county commissioner, I've seen the race card played time and again by developers who accuse opponents of not sharing whatever Cuban-American values their applications seem to be steeped in. And I've seen county commissioners do it too. (Natacha Seijas) The problem with Albert Vigil is that he is also Cuban American. Oops.

So what does Pepe Diaz have against Albert Vigil? (Please click, read more.)

RV sites. Trailer parks. Mobile homes. Whatever name you call them, they have been an integral feature of low cost housing and temporary destinations in the Florida Keys, for decades. The conversion of these "campgrounds" in the Keys was the last play of the real estate boom. It is still the play, in the case of Calusa Campground.

The problem for Calusa Campground is that the condominium association does not own the road connecting to US 1. That property is owned by Albert Vigil, a Keys' businessman who has been locked in a multi-year fight over the legal question, whether or not there is an easement right for Calusa to US 1. Vigil has been willing to sell the property to Diaz et al., but Diaz et al. have been unwilling to meet his price, originally over $1 million. Last week, a Monroe County judge ruled in favor of Calusa, removing an obstacle to the Monroe County Commission approval of the zoning change sought by Calusa.

When and if the zoning change occurs, the owners of teeny lots will have the right to build a single-family home or trade that right as the case may be. How could a county commission allow 367 homes to be built on a parcel (Calusa) that is scarcely 20 acres? Maybe that is not what Pepe Diaz and his investors want to build. So, what is the end game? I'll write more on this, later.

What's up with Miami Dade County Commissioner Pepe Diaz and Tew Cardenas in the Florida Keys ... by gimleteye

It's almost better than watching American Idol, -- the May 20th meeting of the Monroe County Commission (BOCC 5/20/2009, #2) where Pepe Diaz, Miami-Dade County Commissioner and Santiago Echemendia, of the Miami-based political and legal shop, Tew Cardenas, pleaded and were on the losing side of approval of a development agreement regarding Calusa Campground, a 367 unit trailer park where Diaz owns a lot. The issue will come again, at the mid-June meeting of the local county commissioners.

There has been an enduring, multi-year controversy surrounding the campground. There are issues of code violations, numbering the high hundreds, of calls to the Monroe County Sheriff's department-- in the past two years, more than 400, overcrowding of adjacent canals in violation of US Army Corps of Engineer rules, and most importantly a question of legal access from US 1 to the campground on Florida Bay, through property separately owned.

I recently wrote about the Calusa Campground. There is more to come. Why is a big law firm, best known for its close association to Jeb Bush through the name partner's role as campaign finance chair, Al Cardenas, wrapped up in a zoning issue with a RV park in Key Largo? It's costing Tew Cardenas' clients a lot of money to keep the powerhouse law firm commuting back and forth from Miami to Marathon and Key Largo. Why is the former mayor of Monroe County, now county commissioner, Mario DeGennaro running point for Diaz? Why did Tew Cardenas recruit state representative Ron Saunders to its cause? Roman Gastesi, a former Miami-Dade County water official and lobbyist for Tew Cardenas, is now county manager for Monroe County. What is Tew Cardenas' role in Monroe County? These mysteries tie, one way or another, back to money.

Diaz bought his unit as the housing bubble was reaching its top, in 2004. One aspect of the videotaped meeting that is particular delicious: Pepe Diaz blowing through the clock / buzzer at the speakers podium and alloted time for him to speak "as a private citizen" in the losing cause before the Monroe County Commission on May 20th. When Pepe, Miami Dade County Commissioner, commandeered the dais on behalf of Lowe's Corporation and its application to move the Urban Development Boundary in Miami-Dade, he often used the clock to cut critics short.

I'm going to expand on components of this story related to Calusa Campground. (Pepe Diaz didn't like our last post very much, telling whoever would listen that "no one reads this blog". Hmmm. Whoever would listen is also reading this blog.)

Lowe's Shareholders get Scolded by "Environment Florida"! by Geniusofdespair

From a Press Release:
Environment Florida delivered the concerns of 10,000 South Floridians to the Board of Lowe’s Companies, Inc., regarding the major home improvement retailer’s proposal to build a Superstore in protected wetlands near the Florida Everglades. As the shareholder representative of Green Century Equity Funds, an environmentally responsible mutual fund, Environment Florida Advocate Adam Rivera addressed the Lowe’s Board at its Annual Shareholders’ Meeting and handed over 10,000 petition signatures from citizens opposing development in the Everglades. (hit read more)

“Over half a century of development and pollution have disrupted natural water flows, harmed wildlife and destroyed half of the Everglades ' unique, species-rich wetlands. Projects like the Lowe’s Superstore bring us closer to cementing the fate of Everglades ,” said Rivera.

Lowe’s has been pushing to build a big box store in Miami-Dade County that falls outside the Urban Development Boundary (UDB), a line drawn in the wetlands to protect the endangered Everglades from swiftly-encroaching sprawl. Development already extends up to the boundary itself in many areas of the County. The proposed Lowe’s store would straddle the boundary and include more than 10 acres of wetlands officially designated as off-limits to development.

BREAKING NEWS! Lowe's Application to Move the UDB Found NOT in Compliance. By Geniusofdespair

Administrative Law Judge Bram Canter found the Lowe's application to move the Urban Development Boundary NOT IN COMPLIANCE with the County's Comprehensive Development Master Plan. You might remember that the County Commission approved Lowe's and even did an override of the Mayor's veto. Subsequently, the State would not approve the application, thus, this administrative hearing...the County suing the State as it were.

The Brown application, the Judge recommended finding it in compliance with the plan, under the "fairly debatable" standard. The opinion is 54 pages. If anyone wants a copy send me your email.

Conclusion
184. Petitioners proved that, in construing the CDMP in its entirety, the County’s adoption of the Lowe’s Amendment is not in compliance.
185. Petitioners failed to prove that, in construing the CDMP in its entirety, the County’s adoption of the Brown Amendment is not in compliance.