How the Miami Heart Institute campus can and cannot be redeveloped — should Mount Sinai Medical Center decide to sell it — will come before the Miami Beach Planning Board next month, the City Commission decided at its July 11 meeting.

That means the commission will likely vote on a zoning policy for Miami Heart in October, just weeks before the Nov. 6 citywide election in which four of seven seats are contested.

The possible sale of Miami Heart was reported in a May 4 Miami Herald article that quoted Mount Sinai CEO Steven Sonenreich as saying it would not be sold to another hospital. Residents began calling and e-mailing City Hall with fears that the site would be used to build another high-rise like the nearly 50-story Blue and Green Diamond condominium buildings on Millionaire’s Row, or a high-density development like Aqua at Allison Island.

Commissioner Saul Gross put the Miami Heart item up for discussion at the May 16 commission meeting, where it was decided to continue talks at a May 30 homeowners meeting, held in the fifth floor auditorium of Miami Heart. Nearly 100 people attended that meeting, at which impassioned neighbors urged the city to pass some sort of down-zoning that would prevent Miami Heart from being redeveloped into a high-rise or other major residential complex, which they say would be totally unfitting for the surrounding, upscale single-family neighborhood.

The north parking lot of the Miami Heart campus, 4701 N. Meridian Ave., is zoned RM-1, a classification that allows buildings up to 50 feet in height. The south parking lot is zoned only for single-family homes. The site of the hospital buildings is zoned for hospital use, and would have to be rezoned to build anything else. Changing the zoning would require a comprehensive plan change, multiple public hearings in front of both the City Commission and Planning Board, and state approval; the process, it is estimated, would take six to nine months at minimum.

The task the commission has given to the Planning Board is to come up with a recommendation as to how to zone hospital districts when they cease being hospital. One proposal would call for a former hospital to have the same density as adjacent properties. In Miami Heart’s case, that would mean future development would be limited to RM-1. Gross himself recommended, during the July 11 meeting, a suggestion that was backed by the rest of the City Commission unanimously: that should Miami Heart no longer operate as a hospital district, future development on the site, if possible, should consist of residential structures no taller than three stories, as well as a park.

Besides keeping the campus for hospital use, one option that could help Mount Sinai skirt a change in zoning policy, and thus maximize the residential value of the campus, is to simply renovate the existing Miami Heart building into a condominium tower.

From the beginning, Mount Sinai’s representatives have argued that it’s unfair of the city to discuss zoning of Miami Heart should it be sold for uses other than a hospital. But neighbors and political candidates have pushed hard and praised Gross for his initiatives.

At last week’s commission meeting, Mount Sinai continued to ask for more time to evaluate its options with Miami Heart before a zoning policy is set.

“We believe that a reasonable time frame for us to be able to evaluate — and I don’t think it’s asking too much — is a six-month period of time so we can evaluate the various utilizations for this property and communicate with all of you, with the administration, and also the various associations that are represented today,” Sonenreich said.

Commissioners Simon Cruz and Jerry Libbin both supported giving Mount Sinai more time, but their support wasn’t enough. Libbin cited a covenant on the land that stipulates the homeowners within 2,000 feet would have to agree with what would be built on the Miami Heart campus.

“That kind of puts to bed the fear that there’s going to be some back-room, you know, smoked-filled deal, that all of a sudden you’re going to see a green or white diamond,” Libbin said.

Gross, who’s led the charge to downzone Miami Heart from the beginning, brought politics to the forefront of the discussion.

“There’s a little thing that happens in November in the town,” Gross said.

That’s when mayoral hopeful Simon Cruz expressed the belief that the issue is being rushed to politically whack him for accepting tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from Mount Sinai.

“That’s politics,” Cruz said. “As they say in The Godfather: Part II, ‘That’s the business we’ve chosen.’”

Gross, who withdrew a mayoral bid in March, told the SunPost his decision not to give Mount Sinai more time, but to immediately move the zoning talks forward, is not politically motivated.

“I’m just trying to help the residents,” Gross said. “I read it in the newspaper like everyone else. I simply did what I thought made sense.”

Mayor David Dermer expressed his support for Gross.

But Cruz, in an emotional, self-titled “diatribe” to try and dispel the community “perception” that he’s in Mount Sinai’s pocket, insisted that though he’s collected about $28,000 of his $284,000 in campaign donations from Mount Sinai employees and board members, that isn’t enough to buy him. The SunPost calculated that number to be at least $36,000.

“Ten percent of my money right now comes from them, but I have another 90 percent of people that have nothing to do with Mount Sinai that would strangle me if I throw whatever hope I have of ever getting elected on one particular issue,” Cruz said. “And anybody that’s a businessman, those aren’t good odds. You don’t take 10 percent against 90 percent.”

Cruz told those attending and watching the July 11 commission meeting that the donations he received from Mount Sinai have nothing to do with Miami Heart, but with his support of health care in general.

Cruz grew emotional, nearly to the point of tears, as he spoke about the long hours he’s spent in hospitals over the past couple of years dealing with his parents’ ailing health. His father died in December after being diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia in April 2006. His mother, who has a weak heart, was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago, and was to be operated on this week. Both his parents were treated at Baptist Hospital, not Mount Sinai.

Cruz said his relationship with Mount Sinai began a couple of years ago when there was an issue between the hospital and one of its physicians, and Cruz’s stance was that the commission shouldn’t get involved. Last year he supported Mount Sinai on several requests for money to mitigate the costs of making the hospital more hurricane-secure. The first was an “emergency allocation” of $1.9 million to begin making the hospital hurricane-ready; the second was $35 million over seven years for further hurricane preparedness upgrades. The city ended up giving Mount Sinai $751,611, and waiving $121,084 in fees for fiscal year 2005.

“I signed up for health care,” Cruz said. “I did not sign up for a real estate deal.”

Whatever the true intention of Mount Sinai’s board of directors, it’s the possible real estate deal, not health care, that now concerns the community. Much of the sentiment expressed by residents at last week’s commission meeting centered on their distrust of developers and belief that Mount Sinai made a poor business decision when it purchased Miami Heart Institute from Columbia Healthcare in July 2000 for $75 million. The nine acres that make up the campus were leased until April, when the land was purchased for an additional $6 million.

“Residents don’t want to be in a position where they’re fighting against a developer who has political ties,” Michelle Berger, president of the Lakeview Homeowners Association, said.

While most residents supported pushing the zoning on the Miami Heart campus as low as possible, some warned that forcing the issue could end up having negative consequences.

“I think we need to be careful about what we wish for and maybe slow this process down a little bit,” hospital neighbor David Moret said. “I recognize the fact that if we cram down the zoning too much, we are going to be stuck with a hospital use.”

How hospitals should be zoned will be discussed at the Aug. 28 Planning Board meeting.

Comments? E-mail ben@miamisunpost.com.