Miami Approves Zoning Overhaul – With Hidden Changes

City commissioners on Thursday gave the green light to a major transit-linked development plan, but internal documents reveal last-minute amendments never disclosed to the public.

A sweeping overhaul of Miami’s zoning laws approved by commissioners on Thursday – which supersizes development on properties surrounding transit hubs – included a package of pro-development amendments not publicly disclosed prior to the crucial commission vote. 

Over time, the changes could permit significantly greater building height and housing density across wide areas of the city previously excluded from the law — dramatically boosting their land and development value.

The commission’s unanimous vote on what’s known as a “substitution ordinance” could be a violation of state transparency laws, which require local officials to provide public notice of all pending municipal legislation, including additions and modifications that alter the impact of a law.

Thursday’s commission vote gave the go-ahead to a far-reaching program to remake Miami’s skyline by incentivizing dense, mixed-use, high-rise development in proximity to fixed-rail lines – such as Metrorail stations – and along the roadways that connect to them. For instance, new construction on sites once restricted to five stories may now reach twelve, while those capped at twelve could rise above twenty-four.

Roughly half of the City of Miami will be impacted by the changes.

Leading up to Thursday’s vote on what’s been dubbed Transit Station Neighborhood Development, or TSND, city commissioners sought to ease resident concerns over the law’s impact by instructing city staff to revise the ordinance to exclude the city’s Neighborhood Conservation Districts – including all of Coconut Grove – as well as locally designated historic areas such as the MIMO district north of downtown.  

But those changes were not the only ones inserted into the legislation. 

An internal memo obtained by the Spotlight reveals that two days before the vote, City Manager Art Noriega signed off on a request to add key amendments to the legislation – greatly expanding the inventory of eligible properties; creating a pathway for developers to sidestep minimum lot-size requirements; and allowing developers to modify the plans of large-scale projects without public notice or input, as existing rules require.

The changes also stipulate that the high-density allowances will apply to areas surrounding future fixed-rail lines, not just existing ones.

In a brief email exchange with the Spotlight, City of Miami Planning Director David Snow, who drafted the last-minute amendments, sidestepped the question of legislative process. 

“The updates provided in the new substitution memo are reflective of updates requested by commissioners, public input and additional legal clean up,” Snow shared through a city spokesperson.

Noriega and City attorney George Wysong did not respond to detailed emails requesting comment on the substitution ordinance and on possible violations of state notification requirements.

Briefed on the last-minute changes, former District 2 City Commissioner Ken Russell, now a candidate for Miami mayor, says modifications as substantive as those directed by the city manager’s memo, at the very least, would require public notice, and could likely trigger a “reset” – essentially a legislative do-over that brings the ordinance back to the city’s Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board for review and public comment.

“Not good,” said Russell. “There’s a reason that we have ‘government in the sunshine laws’ – that ordinances can’t be crafted in the dark and snuck past the residents.”

This is not the first instance of city officials inserting 11^th-hour amendments to pending legislation without public notice. 

Two years ago, at the request of then-District 2 Commissioner Sabina Covo, city officials quietly altered the language of a pending zoning ordinance, thus opening up wide sections of Coconut Grove to increased building height and density that were meant to be off limits. 

The legislative sleight of hand came to light through press reports earlier this year – fueling months of public outrage – prompting the City Commission in June to revisit the ordinance to remove the altered language. 

But the fix came too late for at least one development in Coconut Grove: City officials say the revision will not apply to The WELL Coconut Grove on Tigertail Avenue, which filed paperwork to claim so-called “bonus height” and “bonus density” shortly after Covo’s pre-vote maneuver, and whose development rights are vested under the old law.

The TSND legislation was not the only “substitution amendment” approved by the city commission on Thursday. 

Moments prior to the vote on a separate transit-linked zoning initiative that incentivizes workforce housing construction, the city clerk noted that the ordinance under consideration reflected changes authorized by a “substitution memo” signed two days earlier. City officials have declined the Spotlight’s request for a copy of the ordinance’s final draft approved by commissioners. 

The workforce housing legislation passed unanimously.

Miami District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo – a key backer of the transit-linked legislative package, who made the motion to approve the TSND legislation and seconded the motion to move forward the workforce housing proposal – declined to answer questions for this article.

But before casting his votes Thursday, Pardo explained to fellow commissioners why he supported the measures. While acknowledging residents’ concerns about traffic and other quality-of-life issues, he said of greater importance is the need to advance a pending project: “The reality is we do have [development] projects where we need to kind of move this forward.”

The comment mirrors an email, shared with the Spotlight, from Pardo’s community liaison, Alexandra Alexieva, explaining to constituents why the commissioner has rebuffed calls to table the TSND item pending an impact study and additional public comment. 

“[Pardo] would have preferred to defer both items,” Alexieva wrote, one day before the vote. “However, there is a significant project requiring the creation of a rail station relying on some of these changes.” 

Asked to clarify the statements, a Pardo spokesperson said Pardo and Alexieva were referencing a massive mixed-use development project promising, among other things, 5,700 mixed-income housing units on 63 areas of land in Miami’s Little River Neighborhood centered around an as-yet-built fixed-rail station. 

“It’s one of the most impactful projects the county has seen,” wrote the spokesperson, sharing a link to an April 2025 news report.

The $3 billion project, led by Coconut Grove-based Swerdlow Group – will rely heavily on the newly enacted TSND provisions. To access them, commissioners, also on Thursday, approved a new transit-oriented zoning overlay for the Little River neighborhood, assigning values – known as Nodes 1, 2, 3 or 4 – that will dictate the high-density development incentives available to each property.

Among the previously undisclosed amendments approved Thursday was a doubling of the qualifying radius — from half a mile to a full mile — for properties in Node 2 and 3 to receive development incentives, significantly expanding the number of eligible sites and boosting their value.

Similar transit-overlay designations will be assigned throughout Miami. The one-mile radius qualification, specified in the substitution ordinance, will apply citywide.

The substitution also significantly expanded TSND eligibility by adding all properties within Miami currently zoned D1, or “Workplace” – typically warehouses and light industrial facilities. Little River has a high concentration of such properties. Existing laws generally prohibit residential construction on D1 sites but the revised rules would override those restrictions, greatly enhancing their value. 

Much of Little River’s industrial neighborhood is now owned by investors and real estate companies, such as Miami-based MVW Partners and Nashville-based AJ Capital, which, through a partnership, have assembled a 27-acre portfolio of properties in the area, including a number of warehouses and industrial facilities, records show.

Thursday’s legislation becomes law if signed within ten days by Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. 

Florida courts have invalidated municipal ordinances on the grounds of failure to comply with state public notice requirements. In 2011 a judge overturned a City of Key West law regulating transient rentals on the grounds of improper public notification. And in 2014, an appellate court sided with a St. Pete Beach resident, voiding a comprehensive plan amendment due to lack of proper public notice and related Sunshine Law violations.