City Closes Bonus Height Loophole, But Not for The WELL

The controversial Center Grove development that prompted the new law can build to eight stories –and possibly far higher if city officials adopt a far-reaching plan to supersize developments within a full mile of transit stations.

The Miami City Commission on Tuesday voted to close a two-year-old zoning loophole that allowed buildings in Coconut Grove to rise as high as eight stories within areas normally limited to five.

But the luxury mixed-use development that prompted the change – Center Grove’s The WELL Coconut Grove – will be allowed to claim the so-called “bonus height” available under the old zoning rules, city officials have confirmed.

“[The WELL] can be developed under prior development standards,” city zoning officials told the Spotlight through a spokesperson. “Project is vested prior to [the new] ordinance.”

Construction is scheduled to begin later this year with a completion date of 2028.

Tuesday’s vote reinstates a provision in a 2023 zoning change exempting Coconut Grove from rules allowing increased height and housing density within areas close to Metrorail stations and other transit hubs. That Grove exemption had been quietly removed — with no public notice or input – just hours before city commissioners approved the new rules.

Following the 11^th-hour change, Coconut Grove-based developers Terra Group

scuttled plans for a five-story housing project on Tigertail Avenue in Center Grove in favor of the eight-story, mixed-use development The WELL.

An attorney for the project did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Miami District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo, who sponsored Tuesday’s measure, has said the change was in response to public outcry over The WELL.  

Local residents have been further outraged by revelations that The WELL would be a luxury product targeting high-end buyers – a demographic unlikely to forgo car ownership, as is the promise of transit-linked developments.

The city’s decision to apply the old zoning rules to The WELL, allowing it to claim the bonus height, is just days old. As recently as June 6 city zoning officials acknowledged, the project’s developers had yet to submit a completed application for the eight-story tower.

City zoning officials also say that another Center Grove project hoping to build to eight stories under the old rules – the Lincoln, on 27^th Avenue near Tigertail – would likely be barred from doing so after residents noted that city reviewers had overlooked a restriction that prevents properties adjacent to single-family homes from receiving the bonus height.

But the bonus height ban in the Grove might soon be irrelevant. Also on Tuesday city commissioners voted unanimously to move forward with a far-reaching plan that, once fully implemented, would vastly increase building height and housing density within a mile of Metrorail stations and other transit hubs – an area that would encompass much of Coconut Grove.

While Tuesday’s vote created the regulatory framework for the new plan, still pending commission approval are the new land-use designations proposed by city planning staff for Coconut Grove as well as the specific zoning rules that will shape development there.

Those rules — known as Transit Station Neighborhood Development — received a thumbs up last night from a sharply divided Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board. The city commission is expected to vote on the changes later this summer. If approved, the city’s existing zoning code will be profoundly impacted: As presently proposed, the new rules could allow The WELL and The Lincoln to build, under certain conditions, upwards of 20 stories.