Changing the Box

City board says a dire housing market is no reason to change zoning

By Angie Hargot

A developer requested an exception to city code to make his project more profitable. But the unimpressed Miami Zoning Board sent him packing — based on principle.

The board decided last week that a proposed project at 346 N.E. 58th Terrace did not deserve the zoning change that owner 64 Development Corp. was requesting. The company’s vice president, Marcelo Fernandes, wanted to change five lots from residential to commercial zoning after a handful of residential projects he planned to build there became economically unfeasible in a collapsing housing market.

He argued that there was already commercial development all over the block.

But board members weren’t buying it, especially after the city’s Planning Department recommended denying the project.

“It’s not a logical extension of the residential neighborhood,” said Roberto Lavernia, the city’s chief of land development, adding that approving the project could “create a domino effect in regard to future requests.”

Fernandes, who asked the board to “think outside of the box,” listed multiple projects that his company has been forced to abandon because of the ongoing real estate crisis. “I do not want to drive up prices” in the surrounding neighborhood, Fernandes said. “I do not want to drive out residents.” The median rent in the property’s zip code is $526 per month, according to 2000 U.S. Census data. Fernandes estimated that area rent is now about $650 a month. He said neighborhood residents could not afford $300,000 condos.

According to county data, the parcel was purchased in 2002 for $265,000 and currently has an assessed value just under $450,000.

Fernandes said he visited area Neighborhood Enhancement Team offices in Little Haiti and the Upper Eastside to garner support for his project. He also talked to Mark Soyka, owner of the nearby Soyka restaurant, the Lemon City Taxpayers Association and a homeowners association in Little River.

“They heard from some of the residents that the vacant land is the biggest nuisance there right now,” Fernandes said, arguing that the empty lot has become a haven for “drug use and prostitution.” 

Fernandes also spent a Saturday morning going door to door to get residents to sign a petition stating they wanted something built there. What the petition didn’t tell them was that a zoning change could allow anything to be built there, regardless of the project before the board at the moment, argued Chairperson Ileana Hernandez-Acosta. “I’m sure that most of [the residents] don’t know that,” she said.

Board member Ron Cordon said the nearby commercially zoned blocks existed to act as a sound buffer between the adjacent residential properties and the railroad tracks immediately to the east.

“I don’t think the people that live on this block are going to be happy to find out their neighbors are going to be commercial,” Cordon said. “What’s to keep [commercial] from continuing [to spread] down the block?”

The 64 Development Corp. also owns the adjacent commercial property and the commercial property directly across the street.

Although the board recommended against the zoning change, the Miami City Commission will have the final say.

Comments? E-mail angie@miamisunpost.com