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The Miami Heart Institute continues to star
in an ongoing political epic in Miami Beach. Photo by Ben
Torter |
Miami Beach residents will vote on a referendum in January to
determine what will be allowed to replace the Miami Heart
Institute. Meanwhile, the Miami Beach City Commission will
consider an ordinance changing the definition of hospital
districts to include not only traditional hospitals, but also
assisted living facilities and other hospital-related uses.
To the chagrin of
Mount Sinai CEO Steve Sonenreich, the City Commission voted
unanimously Oct. 17 to give residents the power to determine the
future zoning of the Miami Heart Campus should Sinai sell it for
something other than hospital use.
Soon after, on
Oct. 23, the planning board backed an ordinance that would allow
hospitals to be replaced by acute care living facilities and
other health-related institutions.
Sponsored by
Commissioner Matti Bower, the charter amendment referendum will
appear on the Jan. 29 ballot. Voters must decide if, when a
hospital district is rezoned, its density should be limited to a
floor-area ratio no greater than that of the abutting property.
The referendum affects three of the four hospital districts in
Miami Beach. The Alton Road
campus of Mount Sinai Medical Center is exempt because it is
larger than 15 acres.
As far as the
Miami Heart Campus at
4701 N. Meridian Ave.
is concerned, if the referendum passes and the existing 10-story
building is demolished, anything built in its place could be
only half that size.
Since May, when
Sonenreich announced that
Mount Sinai was looking into selling its Miami Heart Campus (but not to
another hospital), residents fearful that a high-rise
condominium might be built in its place have fought to ensure
that can’t happen. Sonenreich has maintained all along that
Mount Sinai’s board of directors has no intention of building a high-rise on
the property, and that it’s unfair for the city to determine the
site’s zoning before Sinai has a buyer because it weakens the
hospital’s negotiating position. More recently, Sonenreich has
been meeting personally with neighbors; he had hoped a charrette
between Sinai and residents could be used to vet out the best
use of the Miami Heart property.
“This referendum,
in effect, chokes the [charrette] process for us,” Sonenreich
said at the commission meeting. “This referendum really makes it
impossible for us to move forward with that kind of workshop
process.”
Mid-Beach
neighbors were pleased with the charter amendment, but some
would like the city to help the charrette process proceed as
well.
The future of the
Miami Heart Institute has arguably become one of the biggest
issues of this year’s citywide election, in which four of seven
commission seats are up for grabs. The Miami Heart question is
also adding fuel to the Nov. 6 mayoral race between Bower and
Commissioner Simon Cruz.
Residents were
ecstatic when Bower proposed the referendum the day after a
contentious Aug. 28 planning board meeting, during which
neighbors and some commissioners felt slighted when the board
postponed making a recommendation. That was seen by many as a
stall tactic until after the election. Associates of Mount Sinai
have donated more than $80,000 to commissioners Cruz and Michael
Gongora and commission hopeful Luis Salom.
During that Aug.
28 meeting, the planning board’s decision not to make a
recommendation prevented the proposed code from reaching the
City Commission before the election. Participants in that
decision included board member Robert Kaplan, a Mount Sinai
“founder” who also worked at a real estate marketing firm that
the hospital hired to look into the possible sale of Miami
Heart, and board member Matthew Adler, another founder and the
son of Michael Adler, vice chairman of the board of Mount Sinai.
Neither Adler nor Kaplan recused himself from the vote. They
were not required to by law since they did not financially
benefit from the decision, according to City Attorney Jose
Smith.
Days later, Cruz
proposed a $95 million bond referendum to purchase Miami Heart
and turn it into a park. Mid-Beach residents who had been
critical of Cruz suddenly lauded him as their savior. The bond
referendum was passed by a vote of 4-3, with Commissioners
Richard Steinberg, Jerry Libbin, Cruz and Gongora voting “yes.”
The referendum was eventually killed after word got out that it
would likely cost taxpayers $180 million over 30 years (angering
many North Beach residents) and that no financial analysis of
such a bond’s impact had been conducted.
Bower’s zoning
referendum was initially rejected after Steinberg and Libbin
feared it would confuse voters if it were placed on the same
ballot as the bond referendum. Yet Bower was optimistic the
measure would pass on Oct. 17 — especially since her mayoral
opponent also supported it.
“It’s back here
today because I didn’t have the votes before, but Commissioner
Cruz said he would vote for it this time,” she said.
Cruz acknowledged
his promise to vote for Bower’s referendum, but also wanted to
know the status of the hospital district definition change to
allow ACLFs.
“I want to make
sure that that is in place before Jan. 29 because, if it isn’t,
then what we’re going to do is just destroy any possibility that
there’s going to be health care there in the future,” Cruz said.
Planning
Department Director Jorge Gomez told him the planning board
would hear that item at its Oct. 23 meeting, and that if board
members made a decision, it should be back before the
commission for a first vote in December.
After a nearly
four-hour debate, the planning board did make some
recommendations Oct. 23. Adler was not there.
The board agreed
that ACLFs and related uses like medical and nursing schools,
educational, research and diagnostic facilities and outpatient
care facilities should be included in the definition of hospital
district. The planning board also voted to allow demolition and
new construction in a hospital district as long as the new
building doesn’t exceed a 2.25 floor-area ratio.
Mount Sinai’s
attorney, Jeffrey Bercow, fought particularly hard to get rid of
a rule that says if the cost of renovating a building exceeds 50
percent of its value, the building should revert to the
property’s current zoning. He got the blessing of board members.
“We have proposed
a tweak to the adaptive re-use,” Bercow said.
He asked for Miami
Heart to be exempt from the 50 percent rule. Without the
exemption, if Mount Sinai sells Miami Heart to a developer who
wants to convert the existing 10-story building into condos, and
Bower’s referendum passes, the renovation couldn’t exceed 50
percent of the value of the building. If it did, the building
would have to meet the floor area ratio of the abutting
property, meaning it could only be about half its size. The
planning board agreed, although the City Commission will have
the final say.
Gomez said the
commission will hear the proposed zoning changes for hospital
districts on Dec. 12. |
