City May Close The WELL’s Bonus-Height Loophole

The Miami City Commission will revisit a controversial 2023 zoning change that a developer claims will allow it to add three extra stories to a luxury condo project in Center Grove.

The Miami City Commission will consider an amendment to a controversial 2023 zoning change that a developer is using to build an eight-story building in an area of Center Grove zoned for a maximum of five.

If approved, the proposed revision would exempt the entirety of Coconut Grove from a two-year-old city zoning ordinance that allows three stories of so-called “bonus height” for certain properties within walking or biking distance of Metrorail stations.  

The revision – which received a thumbs up from the city’s Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board (PZAB) late Wednesday – still requires city commission approval. The item will likely appear on the April 24 commission agenda, city planning staff told board members.

The proposed changes come in response to a groundswell of public outrage over The WELL Coconut Grove, an eight-story, 129-foot, luxury condo project planned for the corner of Tigertail Avenue and Mary Street. Critics say the project is out of scale with the neighborhood, will increase traffic, and will do little to promote mass transit use.  

Residents were further incensed by recent revelations that the property became eligible for the bonus height only after the city attorney switched the language of a proposed zoning change moments before the September 2023 commission vote that made it law. Originally, Coconut Grove was to be excluded from the code change. 

The language switch – which unexpectedly opened up many key corridors in the Grove to the bonus height provisions – was made at the request of former District 2 Commissioner Sabina Covo, city officials have confirmed to the Spotlight.

In a text exchange, Covo declined to comment.

What impact the city’s proposed changes – exempting the entire Grove from the bonus height provisions – will have on The WELL is unclear. 

When asked by board members on Wednesday if future commission approval of the amendment would prevent The WELL from claiming the bonus height, city staff from both the Planning Department and City Attorney’s Office explained that no written rules exist to address the question, but under the city’s policy, in practice, the key consideration is the status of the development application at the time any new laws are approved: if the “application is complete” the updated zoning code would not apply, leaving the bonus intact.

While the project’s partners, which include Coconut Grove-based Terra Group, are actively marketing The WELL as an eight-story structure, neither the site plans nor the building plans have been approved. 

According to a city spokesperson, zoning officials have issued a “dry run” review of the developer’s plans, but a formal application to move the project forward  – through what’s known as an Administrative Site Plan Review or ASPR — has yet to be submitted.  

The applicability of that dry run review is also unclear, given that the plans submitted at the time, in April 2022, before the bonus-height provisions took effect, were for a five-story building. 

Further, city staff describe as “pending” the developer’s proposals for increasing the allowable number of housing units (through a purchase of density credits from properties elsewhere in the city), and for its public benefits package – a requirement for receiving the bonus height. Despite repeated requests, city officials will not say if the proposals are in review or if they have yet to be submitted.  

Also pending is an in-house traffic study — ordered by the city’s Planning Department and to be conducted by its Department of Resilience and Public Works — as part of the project review. A city spokesperson has been unable to confirm whether the study had begun.

The project has overcome one key hurdle: approval by the city’s Urban Development Review Board. But that approval, also in 2022, was for the same five-story building — known then as The Residences of Coconut Grove – considered by city staff in its “dry run” review. 

City officials have told the Spotlight that, despite the proposed height change, the approval will carry over to the updated design and concept: the eight-story The WELL Coconut Grove. No additional review by the board is necessary, city staff contend.

Despite any uncertainty over The WELL’s application status, Terra Group attorney Iris Escarra made clear during Wednesday’s PZAB meeting that her client’s claim to the three-stories of bonus height would remain intact regardless of any code change, telling board members they were “put on notice of our vested rights.”

Miami District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo, who aides say is a key backer of the proposed changes, would not comment for this article.

The PZAB resolution – to remove Coconut Grove from the bonus height provisions – passed unanimously, following the vocal endorsement by a handful of Grove residents who attended the meeting. 

But the fate of The WELL, a city spokesperson clarified earlier this week, would rest solely in the hands of city administrative staff, with no opportunities for public input and no requirements for public notification.