San Marco House Rejected, Then Approved, by Zoning Board
Some Neighbors, Including High-Rise Dwellers, Feel Single-Family Home Is ‘Too Big’

“I still don't know why governmental boards vote the way they do.”

By Bonnie Schindler

In a city where views of the water are prized, such views often spark fights when a developer wishes to plot a high-rise near the shoreline.

So how much controversy can a towering single-family home generate? Apparently enough for the Miami Zoning Board to first reject, and then accept, an application to increase the allowed height on a proposed house on San Marco Island by eight feet, during a meeting Tuesday.

The Zoning Board’s first action, rejecting the height variance requested by developers Richard Aronsky and Nassim Dali-Bey by a vote of 4 to 3, was on par with the Planning Department’s recommendation of denial.

“It is found that the requested variance is the result of the applicant trying to build more than what the existing envelope allows,” a Planning Department analysis stated.

However, almost immediately after that motion was voted on, another motion to approve the resolution was passed 4 to 3.

The reasons for the sudden turnaround were unclear, even to Aronsky and Dali-Bey’s legal team.

“I have been doing zoning work for many years, and I still don't know why governmental boards vote the way they do,” Gilberto Pastoriza, the developers’ attorney, told the SunPost in an e-mail after the meeting.

 The resolution’s passing will allow the structure, located at 1260 S. Venetian Way, to be built up to 33 feet high, which, according to a variance application filed by Pastoriza, would satisfy the property’s flood elevation of nine feet.

The current maximum height for a single-family home is 25 feet, according to the Planning Department.

Barbara Bisno, president of the Venetian Island Alliance, admitted that she lives in a condo that reaches further into the sky than the proposed house. Still, she felt that the home wouldn’t fit on San Marco. “It’s too tall for our neighborhood,” she told the board.
Pastoriza contended that almost all of the islands surrounding San Marco have zoning allowances for greater heights — some of them unlimited.

Pastoriza said the house next to his clients’ property is 54 feet tall, and other surrounding houses “also benefit from increased heights beyond those allowed by the zoning code,” he wrote in his variance application.

“As such, this petition for a height variance would be compatible and in scale with the existing properties in the neighborhood,” he stated.

Fearing their views would be blocked, neighboring households demanded more time from the board, leading to approval of a continuance during the Nov. 13 Zoning Board meeting. Since then Pastoriza said he and adjacent property owners came to an agreement: They decided to move the house backward, from 26 feet from the water to about 45 feet, thereby opening up larger columns for views.

“To us, the height is not an issue …,” said next-door neighbor Luis Dominguez.

Nina West, a resident of Coconut Grove who spoke during the meeting’s public forum, believes the agreement was based less on the view, and more on greed.

“McMansions have done nothing but [bump up the market value] of the adjacent homes,” she said.

Pastoriza, who said this house is not a McMansion because it is implementing more green space than the city requires, does not find anything wrong with boosting the area’s value.

He wrote in the variance application, “The proposed elevations and design elements will improve the prestige of the area, as well as the vistas from the bay, as well as the MacArthur Causeway.”

And while Chairperson Ileana Hernandez-Acosta insisted that design aspects are not meant to be discussed at Zoning Board meetings, resident Judy Sandoval expressed her distaste for the future house’s architecture. “[It’s a] three-story home that looks like a parking garage.”

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