To the Editor:
A Play in One Act.
Scene: A book-shelved study. Two people being served tea by an older person seated behind a cluttered desk.
Players: Beeg, a developer of expensive high-rise condos. Thizway, his zoning lawyer. Dalogac, a renowned urban planner.
Beeg: Thanks, Dalogac, for meeting. We don’t have much time but need your guidance solving two problems: Too much traffic and too little affordable housing.
Thizway: Elected officials have given us Transit Oriented Development (TOD), Transfer of Development Density (TDD), and Transfer of Development Rights (TDR). All call for more high-rise apartment units.
Beeg: It’s brilliant. To relieve traffic congestion, we build “bonus” condo units near the Bay if we’re within a half mile – even a mile – of mass transit, with parking requirements reduced or waived. We also can buy discounted “unused” apartment credits so there’s money to build “affordable” rental apartments where poor people actually live.
Thizway: Everyone is happy. Rich people, poor people, working people. All can have a roof over their heads. To shut up the few unhappy neighbors, there’s the threat of the state’s Live Local Act. What do you think?
Dalogac: I see the death of a great city. People and cities are unique. You deaden them when you make them the same. They come alive when there’s variety.
Beeg: Please, stick to economics, not sociology.
Dalogac: Certainly. These laws are all designed to build more high-rises in places that don’t want them, to get at least some built in places that need them. They all will impact traffic congestion as well as that thing called “affordable housing.” But could we do better?
Thizway: “Perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Dalogac: Yes. But I said better, not perfect. Will people give up their vehicles? I don’t know. Working people need their cars and wealthy people like their cars. Will more people like living in high-rises? I don’t know. For some, it’s better than no home at all, or driving each day for hours.
Beeg: Please! Follow the money! “More high-rises everywhere” even if neighbors object.
Dalogac: I wonder: Would 48-story buildings built only alongside the Metrorail be less controversial? What if the required “public benefits” included more light-rail connecting those major streets and avenues you mentioned?
Thizway: Miami can’t get federal transportation subsidies unless our population is twice today’s. I thought you were a planner not a dreamer.
Dalogac: Is it dreaming to create a city where citizens have choices. If they need help to get just a roof over their head, then that’s a choice, too, for our elected representatives to make on our behalf. But “one size fits all” doesn’t work for shoes nor does it work for housing. I can give you a dozen other housing alternatives that if intelligently knitted together would begin to solve both traffic and affordability problems. Unfortunately, you are pressed for time and so are all our elected officials at city, county and state. “Haste makes waste.”
Andy Parrish
Coconut Grove
