The City Commission took a step toward exempting Coconut Grove from a controversial zoning change that supersizes some development projects, but for The WELL and other properties, a place on the city’s Transit Oriented Development map is still a coveted prize.
The Miami City Commission took a step Thursday toward closing a loophole that allows new construction in many parts of Coconut Grove to climb three stories higher than zoning rules prescribe.
The unanimous vote – the first of two required to amend the city code – exempts the Grove entirely from the provisions of a controversial and little noticed 2023 zoning change that offers building incentives to properties within proximity to Metrorail stations and other transit hubs.
The issue came to light last December when Coconut Grove-based developer Terra Group announced it would replace a planned five-story tower in Center Grove with an eight-story mixed-use, luxury condo project called The WELL Coconut Grove.
City zoning officials declined to say what impact the new law, should it take effect, would have on the project and a nearby condo tower – the Lincoln – claiming the same bonus height. Attorneys for both projects insisted to commissioners Thursday that any zoning change should have no bearing on their clients’ existing site and building plans.
City records show both projects’ applications “In Review.”
The latest measure, pushed by Miami District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo following a groundswell of public outrage, addresses only the three-story “bonus height” allowance, leaving intact other building incentives for properties that fall within the City of Miami’s Transit Oriented Development (TOD) zones.
The incentives can include increased density allowances (meaning additional housing units, retail or office space), a reduction in parking requirements, and in some instances height increases.
The WELL, for instance, will include 192 condo units – 50 percent more than existing codes allow – due to its proximity to the Coconut Grove Metrorail station. This “bonus density” is unrelated to the three-story bonus height the project is claiming, and can be utilized even if extra stories are not approved.
The WELL’s density bonus is through a provision for properties near transit hubs known as Transfer of Development Density or TDD, that allows developers to “purchase” density credits from historic or other protected properties that would otherwise not use them. City officials have not released details of The WELL’s TDD proposal.
The WELL also could claim height and density bonuses available to transit-linked properties that achieve “Green Building” certification.
A variety of other height and density incentives will remain in place, regardless of the new legislation, for transit-linked properties that promise below-market-rate housing within its product mix. The WELL, where pre-construction condo prices range from $1.4 million to $8 million, will include no such units.
Thursday’s commission vote only affects transit-linked properties in Coconut Grove zoned T5, where building height is generally restricted to five stories. A variety of density and height bonus programs will remain in place for properties zoned for taller buildings.
And yet another category of bonus height and density allowance will remain in place for properties located within a quarter-mile of a “transit corridor,” a highly mutable designation defined as a thoroughfare serviced by mass transit vehicles every ten minutes or less between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.
The city’s TOD maps, which determine which properties may benefit from height, density and other incentives, are equally as malleable, relying on both the ever-changing transit corridor designations as well as varied measurement criteria connecting roadways to transit hubs.
While the city’s zoning code specifies TOD-qualified properties as only those within a half-mile of a transit hub, city zoning staff have expanded their interpretation of that distance to one mile, in some instances, by using what they call a “bicycle shed” method of measurement.
Under this approach, the half-mile distance only applies to properties that are connected to transit hubs by roads or pathways with no protected bike lanes. Properties up to three-quarters of a mile may now qualify for TOD status when shared-use paths are available, and up to one mile away for properties connected to hubs by protected bike lanes or other “premium facilities.”
The conflicting approaches to measurement are evident in two very different TOD maps the city maintains: one, from the city’s Miami21 zoning code, shows the concentric half-mile circles surrounding transit hubs, and the other, from the city’s GIS Open Data platform, reveals a sprawling, irregular overlay of qualified properties.
City zoning staff say The WELL building site lies three-quarters of a mile from the Coconut Grove Metrorail station but qualifies for TOD status on the basis of limited bike-lane enhancements to SW 27 Avenue. Officials say the Lincoln qualifies under the same measurement criteria.
City records also reveal a third Center Grove project underway, on Oak Avenue just a few steps from The WELL. Though the property is zoned for five stories, records show the proposed building – a 63,000-square-foot office tower topping 81 feet – has been approved for six.
City officials have not explained the basis for the project’s bonus-height.
“Bonus height and density” is what you get when you have a 300+ page zoning code, a blazing-hot real estate market, a District Court decision that said Miami 21’s stated Intent to preserve and protect neighborhoods “should be interpreted as merely setting out broad policy objectives” and is therefore unenforceable, and Commissioners whose re-election campaigns are funded largely by the development industry.
What is left for citizens to do who care about their quality of life? Environmentalist say, when nothing else works, “The solution to pollution is dilution.”
We need 9 Commission districts instead of 5, who will be required to have their offices in their districts, close to their voters, and not out at Mel Reese/Soccer Stadium Park. Then it will take 5 votes to up-zone properties, not 3, and a super-majority of 6 votes for some major changes. Not perfect, but at least this would make it harder for the “loop-hole” addicted developers and their attorneys. And Commissioners will have to face constituents daily, face-to-face, instead of in 2-minute bursts of outrage at Commission meetings.
This November, vote for 9 Districts.