Miami Beach

The Frank Factor

The Planning Board took Frank Del Vecchio’s advice and approved a new restaurant in the historic district South of Fifth Street

By Ben Torter

Frank Del Vecchio

Hardcore South of Fifth activist Frank Del Vecchio proved himself a reasonable man when he told the Miami Beach Planning Board to approve a restaurant that otherwise would have been impossible to build under the accessory use ordinance that he fought so hard to enact.

The board took Del Vecchio’s advice, which was in line with that of city Planning Department staff, and unanimously voted to allow Noah Restaurant to move into the back of the Hilton Bentley Beach hotel at 101 Ocean Drive.

The positive vote for the project was a result of back and forth between Del Vecchio, the developer and the city, which led to a compromise that balanced the needs of the business community and the residents.

“The applicant has accepted stringent conditions that will eliminate our fears of this becoming a nightlife entertainment establishment,” Del Vecchio said.

The 17 accepted conditions are meant to keep noise and other possible disturbances to the neighbors, such as queuing and music, inside the confines of the hotel. One rule is that alcohol cannot be consumed on the restaurant’s outdoor patio after midnight.

“We accept all the conditions in the staff report as recommended,” Noah’s attorney James Rauh said.

Del Vecchio has become a force for developers to reckon with. If the retired Harvard-educated lawyer, who spent a career in urban planning, feels a project is bad for the neighborhood, he fights like a pit bull until he’s exhausted every possible means available to him. As Fred Rado, the developer of the yet-to-be built Bijou Hotel at 315-321 Ocean Drive found out, battling Del Vecchio means spending tens of thousands of dollars in extra legal fees, and being forced to compromise anyway.

Del Vecchio’s ironic approval of Noah didn’t go unrecognized in the business community.

“I very much appreciate what Frank Del Vecchio has done in meeting with the property owner and working out a solution so these people can go ahead with their hotel,” said South Beach Hotel and Restaurant Association President David Kelsey.

The situation surrounding Noah’s application was complicated. It had originally been approved a few years ago, but was delayed and, thus, found itself falling under the new accessory use guidelines. Though the accessory use ordinance still needs final commission approval in March to become actual law, something called zoning in progress means the ordinance is already recognized as law.

The accessory use ordinance states that restaurants in the historic district South of Fifth Street can only have a total of one seat per hotel room. Because the Hilton Bentley Beach has 109 hotel rooms, it is only allowed 109 restaurant seats total, no matter how many restaurants are in the building. The problem the proposed 86-seat Noah faced was that the 201-seat Vivi restaurant was already in the building. The accessory use ordinance does have a provision that allows boards to approve more seats, but only up to twice the number of hotel rooms. In this case, that meant 218 seats, which still weren’t enough to accommodate Noah.

The Planning Board faced a dilemma: It could either approve the application or take no action and let the City Commission deal with it.

“Obviously we can approve this today and this application would go forward, but obviously that flies in the face of the commission that put us up here,” newly appointed Planning Board Chairperson Frank Kruszewski said.

Commissioners cleaned house on the Planning Board last month when they appointed five new members to the seven-person board. The previous board had been rude to residents and had gone against the commission on politically charged items surrounding Mount Sinai’s possible sale of the Miami Heart Institute.

But in the end, the Planning Board decided that, because of the special circumstance, approving Noah’s application was the decent thing to do.

Planning Board member Gary Appel put it this way: “It’s purely out of fairness, as Frank [Del Vecchio] said.”

Comments? E-mail ben@miamisunpost.com