Spotlight 212-260529

Good morning. What we’re covering in today’s Spotlight:

The City of Miami’s Zombie Boards
The Money Miami Makes Off Bonus Height
The Lingering Shadow of Old Smokey
A Vote to Protect the Grove from Density Transfers

Zombie Boards: The Life — and Death — of Miami’s Citizen Oversight

With three new citizen advisory groups created this year, the city now oversees more than 50 committees, boards, panels and semiautonomous agencies — varying widely in autonomy, viability and relevance — leading some to question how committed City Hall truly is to meaningful citizen oversight.

By Francisco Alvarado

Last month, when Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins made her pitch to skeptical city commissioners to back a proposed $450 million bond for new police and fire facilities, she pointed to a resident survey, deteriorating conditions inside city buildings, and safety risks to city residents.

Missing from the sales pitch, however, was an endorsement from the citizen advisory committee whose very existence is tied to weighing in on such matters: the City of Miami Finance Committee, whose primary responsibility is to review and make recommendations regarding the issuance and management of the city’s debt obligations.

So why the silence?

The committee wasn’t asked to weigh in.

Benefits Boom: How Miami Quietly Turned Bonus Height Into Big Money

As luxury towers rise across Miami, developers are paying millions of dollars into a little-known city fund that trades bonus height and density for cash — fueling parks projects, affordable housing deals and growing concerns about overdevelopment.

By David Villano

Last April, when Miami District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo sponsored a resolution calling for $15 million to be tapped from a little-known city account he hoped to use for park improvements and affordable housing projects in Coconut Grove and elsewhere in his district, his fellow commissioners appeared to take something of a collective double take.

“This opened Pandora’s box, and now you see what you see,” Commission Chairwoman Christine King remarked during the debate over the funding request.

In the end, commissioners approved most of Pardo’s request — along with millions more for projects in other districts.

The Lingering Shadow of Old Smokey in Coconut Grove

The trash incinerator’s smokestack was demolished in 1974, but Old Smokey continues to cast a shadow over the lives of Grove residents who grew up near the City of Miami solid waste facility.

By Oriana Reta

Reynold Martin and Clarice Cooper have been friends since kindergarten.

They remember the acrid smell that hung in the air on their daily walks as children to George Washington Carver Elementary and Middle School in the late 1950s and early 1960s. There was a thick smog that stained their white uniforms yellow.

That smell and smog came from Old Smokey, the City of Miami’s municipal waste incinerator that burned trash for 44 years in the West Grove. “It was so pervasive,” Martin says today. “We just got used to the smell.”

City Rejects 11th-Hour Rewrite, Approves Grove Density Transfer Carve-Out

The Miami City Commission on Thursday unanimously approved a controversial expansion of the city’s affordable housing density transfer program, rejecting a last-minute effort by city administrators to weaken carve-outs for Coconut Grove and other protected neighborhoods.

The 5-0 vote finalized a sweeping expansion of the program, which allows developers to purchase and transfer unused housing density from affordable housing projects to market-rate and luxury developments elsewhere in the city.

Where We’ll Be – A Grovite’s Calendar

Film, Flamenco, Flowers and Fido

Moms on the mats, dogs in the park, Motown with a mission and flamenco with feeling lead the calendar. So if anyone in your household is saying “There’s nothing to do”, that is not a scheduling problem. It’s a research problem. And the Spotlight is here to help.