A local land use attorney assured Grove residents that they have little to fear from the Live Local Act. Not everyone was so sure.
A local land use attorney who helps developers supersize their projects under a new state law told Grove residents on Saturday they have little to fear from the Live Local Act that critics contend will overwhelm communities statewide.
“I have projects that are very tall, that are Live Local. I can’t do them here,” Anthony De Yurre, a partner at Bilzin Sumberg in Miami, told a crowd of about 60 people. “You guys have layers and layers of protection.”
Not everyone who attended the meeting at Vizcaya Village Garage was convinced, however. The meeting was organized to address concerns about the law, which neuters the ability of local government to restrict the height and density of multifamily housing projects, if those developments include rent caps on 40% of the units.
The law, adopted in 2023, has incentivized developers to propose massive new housing projects in Miami Beach, Doral, Wynwood, and elsewhere, alarming local officials, infuriating residents and triggering a political backlash.
“This is a terrible ordinance. It is going to rip apart communities, right and left, and allow people to do, not affordable housing, not workforce housing, but market-rate housing,” said Marc Coleman, an architect and developer who lives in the Grove and serves as the vice chair of the Wynwood Design Review Committee. “It is like a gift to developers.”
Champions of the law, including state Senator Alexis Calatayud (R-Miami), say Senate Bill 102 passed in 2023 and SB 328 from 2024 (together, the Live Local Act) will help to solve the state’s housing crisis and provide rental apartments that working people – nurses, teachers, police officers – can afford.
But at what price, residents wanted to know on Saturday. “As we continue to go vertical, we have less and less of a healthy environment in which to live,” said South Grove resident Renita Samuels-Dixon.
Calatayud, whose senate district includes Coconut Grove, had been expected to attend Saturday’s meeting, but did not show. De Yurre shouldered the lion’s share of the presentation in her absence. State Rep. Vicki Lopez (R-Miami) attended, as did Javier Gonzalez, an aide to Miami District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo.
Gonzalez sought to keep the focus on Coconut Grove and largely succeeded, despite a mixed audience that included concerned residents from Hialeah and Coral Gate, a neighborhood that abuts the Sears store on Douglas Road and Coral Way, where a developer wants to build three 8-story towers and more than 1,000 housing units.
De Yurre said developers who tap Live Local in Coconut Grove might be able to build an 8-story building – perhaps even 12 stories – on a commercial corridor like Douglas Road, Grand Avenue or Southwest 27th Avenue. But he all but ruled out taller buildings – like the 48-story tower proposed for Wynwood – because of local constraints.
In the Grove, De Yurre said those constraints include a lack of commercial, industrial, or mixed-use building sites that are deep enough to accommodate a parking structure, and that don’t border a residential neighborhood.
Live Local projects cannot be built in residential neighborhoods, and if the proposed development site borders residential property, certain height restrictions apply.
“Coconut Grove has very few opportunities and very few footprints for development from a practical standpoint,” De Yurre said.
Developers also won’t be able to duplicate the height of other, nearby tall buildings – the 37-story Cascade tower at the Douglas Metrorail station, for instance, or the 32-story Grovenor House on South Bayshore Drive, he said.
Although Live Local allows developers to “pull” height from tall buildings within a mile of their projects, the precedent only applies if current city zoning allows that much height. Cascade was built under special, county zoning rules, not City of Miami zoning. And past zoning rules that allowed Grovenor House no longer exist, De Yurre said.
Another constraint: De Yurre said construction costs rise exponentially once buildings top 75 feet (7 or 8 stories). Under Live Local, which requires developers to set aside 40% of a building’s units as “workforce” housing, the economics don’t work, he said.
“It is very hard to get past 75 feet with a full-market, even a luxury product. Mix into that building that you have a rent restriction on 40 percent of the building, it makes it almost impossible to go over 75 feet,” he said.
And, he noted, Live Local does not give developers a free pass on other City of Miami development rules. “You still have to comply with every other single development regulation that exists in the code – tree canopy requirements, setback requirements, lot coverage requirements, open space requirements.”
Given those constraints, “nobody is coming in here and (sky)scraping the Grove. It’s impossible. If it were possible, you would have seen it already, because obviously it’s a very desirable place to be,” De Yurre said.
But Coleman, the architect on the Wynwood Design Review Committee, questioned De Yurre’s assessment on several grounds.
“Seventy-five feet is not really much of a restriction. I’m a developer, we blow past that all the time,” he said. Coleman also said he’s seen developers build parking garages on smaller footprints than the 125 feet by 200 feet that De Yurre said was needed.
He also said the City of Miami’s tree ordinance is meaningless. “We all live in Coconut Grove. We know the tree canopy regulations stop nothing.”
Finally, Coleman questioned whether Live Local will deliver on its central promise – the delivery of housing units that are affordable to working families.
He noted that the 2024 rental cap for a studio apartment in Miami under Live Local is $2,385. At the sizes that some developers are building studio apartments – 350 square feet – that price point is effectively equivalent to market rate, he said.
“No affordable housing, no workforce housing, in reality,” Coleman said.
Lopez agreed that Live Local won’t solve Miami’s affordability problem, saying she will push legislation in Tallahassee that delivers housing that low-income families can afford.
“I’m going to do a housing bill that makes sense,” she said.
She also advised the audience to stay vigilant, despite De Yurre’s assurances that Coconut Grove is not fertile ground for Live Local projects.
“I think we have to hold the City of Miami’s feet to the fire,” Lopez said. “What I worry about is the City of Miami, because they are capable of a lot of things, as you know.
“And it’s only through our activism that we make sure that they don’t do something crazy, because they are liable to.”
I am at a loss for Words…. And the Funds to Rent a Studio Apt in “The Grove”!
It’s a good thing that I Own a 2 Bedroom, on the Water, off Brickell Ave.
Bob Deresz
Written above:
“He noted that the 2024 rental cap for a studio apartment in Miami under Live Local is $2,385. At the sizes that some developers are building studio apartments – 350 square feet – that price point is effectively equivalent to market rate, he said.”
2 points: 1) So we Grove residents shouldn’t worry about creative developers and their creative attorneys figuring out how to get around zoning regulations? Kind of like they got around the “Bahamian-style” architecture requirement in West Grove. Bet you all didn’t know the gigantic modern boxes under construction everywhere were “modern Bahamian” style. BTW as a retired architect, I still can’t figure out how they get around maximum s.f., lot coverage, canopy, etc. regulations. And 2) Specifically regarding “affordable housing” guidelines: do people with children need “affordable housing”? Perhaps the guidelines should be for a family of at least 3. I’d like to know how 4, 3 or even 2 people squeeze into 350 s.f. For perspective for you developers, that’s about the size of your own primary bedrooms. We citizens need to take back our power and vote out anyone who prioritizes developers over their supposed constituents. There is an election coming up. Just sayin’. . .