The Miami City Commission on Thursday rejected a controversial proposal to eliminate independent environmental impact studies for certain major city land transactions after city officials said the provision had been mistakenly included in a broader legislative package updating the city’s traffic-impact study requirements.
While the traffic study provisions did pass, language was removed from the legislation that would have eliminated the city’s longstanding environmental review requirements.
Miami District 4 Commissioner Ralph Rosado, the measure’s sponsor, said through a spokesperson that eliminating environmental review was attached to the measure in error.
“The Commissioner’s intent was solely to eliminate duplicative traffic studies when both the City and Miami-Dade County require separate analyses evaluating the same impacts,” Jennifer Torna, Rosado’s spokesperson, wrote in an email to the Spotlight. “At no point did he propose or intend to eliminate environmental impact studies or environmental review requirements.”
The initial proposal up for a vote Thursday would have repealed a longstanding provision requiring independent environmental impact studies for city acquisitions, sales, and leases of publicly owned property valued at more than $2 million. The requirement could have applied to future redevelopment of some of the city’s most valuable public assets, including waterfront properties.
Miami City Attorney George Wysong, in a memo issued Wednesday to commissioners, acknowledged that the environmental-review provisions had been added “inadvertently” to the original legislation.
The code changes that did pass will establish new thresholds for when traffic statements and impact studies are required, eliminate the need for independent review by a traffic engineer, and give the Department of Resilience and Public Works broad authority to interpret and enforce those requirements.
