Hitting the Roof
Commission  Delays Metal Roof Ordinance

“You’re going to change the landscape of the city.”

Robert Fine’s home still has a tile roof, almost a year after he tried to replace it with a metal one. Photo by Cynthia Archbold

By Cynthia Archbold

 A proposal to allow metal roofs in the land of quaint barrel tile was broached but not confronted during the last Coral Gables City Commission meeting of 2006.

In the new era of hurricanes as an acknowledged way of life, like the fall colors of New England, Coral Gables residents would be able to replace quaint tile roofs with steel, subject to approval by a board of architects, if the proposed ordinance is passed.

Just the idea that the commission would consider allowing metal roofs, other than copper, as a new provision in the zoning code caused some citizens to hit the roof, so to speak.

“You’re going to change the landscape of the city,” warned Zeke Guilford.

Guilford was completely taken aback, which may seem ironic considering Guilford is the preeminent Gables zoning lawyer who makes a living petitioning the City Commission to change zoning laws so his clients can build bigger, taller and more commercial buildings. “We are clearly opposed to it out and out because we believe this is a major policy change for the city,” Guilford said.

“Right now, we only have a few metal roofs in all of Coral Gables,” he said. “And they’re made of copper, which is very expensive, deterring all but the most determined and wealthy from replacing their tile roofs.”

Guilford says one of the dangers of allowing metal roofs is that they are affordable, making them more appealing to someone whose only option before was to replace tile with copper, which costs about 10 times as much. The city planners’ proposal includes options ranging from allowing metal roofs only in certain more architecturally modern neighborhoods in the south-Gables-east-of-Old-Cutler-Road-and-south-of-North-Kendall-Drive section, or, allowing them citywide, but requiring a more stringent review from the Historic Preservation Board and the Board of Adjustment for approval.

How did the metal roof proposal come up in the first place? It all started with Old Cutler Bay resident Robert Fine. After the 2005 hurricane season, starring Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma, many of the tile roofs on the waterfront mansions in his Old Cutler Bay neighborhood incurred damage and could not be fixed due to a tile shortage.

But Fine’s neighbor, Andres Murai, is adamantly opposed to the look of metal roofs. “To put an aluminum color among the tile roofs would stick out like an eyesore,” he told commissioners.

In addition, Murai argued last summer that the shine from a metal roof could blind a yachtsman returning from a day on Biscayne Bay and would cause a “hazard to navigation.”

Fine was hoping Dec. 12 would be the day city commissioners gave him the green light to crown his home with a new metal roof. Now it appears the earliest roofers will be allowed to work is around Valentine’s Day. The commission deferred further action until the third meeting of next year, Feb. 6.In other action, the City Commission decided to make parking free on Gallery Nights, the first Friday of every month, for three months beginning in January, under a proposal for a pilot program from Commissioner Ralph Cabrera.

What does the city have to lose? Cabrera showed studies from the Parking Department indicating that the city will drop about $4,700 in parking meter change, $2,600 in parking tickets and $900 in garage receipts – actually losing half of those amounts, since it splits the revenues with the county.

However, commissioners decided it was worth sacrificing the parking revenue to encourage as many people as possible to explore the City Beautiful and its artistic, cultural and culinary gems on First Fridays.

In other action the Coral Gables City Commission passed on first reading three items related to the much-anticipated zoning code rewrite, a project of major proportions that’s been in the works for two years. Its purpose is to curb the symptoms of rampant commercial growth — escalating building heights, McMansions and traffic gridlock — while keeping the character of George Merrick’s Spanish castles.

The commission will hear the zoning items again on second reading on Jan. 9 at 9 a.m.

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