By the Miami Herald Editorial Board
The new version of Florida’s controversial Live Local Act — meant to get local regulations out of the way for the construction of affordable housing — risks opening the flood gates to rampant development in Miami Beach if lawmakers don’t keep exceptions for the city.
Think of South Beach lined with buildings as tall as 50 stories. That’s how Commissioner Alex Fernandez described the impact of legislation the Florida Senate passed with a 36-0 vote this month.
So far, the Senate and House differ on their versions of legislation to fine tune the 2023 Act. The law gave developers the ability to bypass local height and density regulations in certain cases if they are building rental projects where 40% of units meet certain affordability requirements.
Local not-in-my-backyard policies have historically stymied efforts to build more multi-family projects that are affordable for working and middle-class residents. But the jury is still out on whether the law will actually help address South Florida’s lack of housing options for those who aren’t wealthy, or if it will be better for developers trying to circumvent community wishes for controlled development.
In 2023, for example, the owners of the iconic Clevelander Hotel and Bar on Ocean Drive announced they were planning to use the Live Local Act to redevelop the property into a multi-story tower.
Now, Miami Beach is again at the center of what will happen with the new version of Live Local. The House has moved a bill sponsored by Rep. Vicki Lopez, R-Miami, that creates an important exemption for the city. The Senate so far has not done the same.
The legislation does many things to make it easier for developers to build projects that contain affordable housing. For example, the bill requires local governments to reduce parking requirements for those projects and to allow the construction of accessory dwelling units, also known as efficiencies, in single-family neighborhoods.
Here’s the part that matters the most to Miami Beach — and is especially alarming to Miami Beach officials: The legislation expands what state law defines as properties zoned for “commercial” uses to include those where building a hotel, restaurant or retail would be allowed, which covers a good portion of Miami Beach, including neighborhoods with older apartment buildings, according to Fernandez. Those two-to-three-story buildings are the last vestiges of affordability in the city.
That’s important for two reasons:
First, the Live Local Act already allows commercial land to be used for for mixed-use or residential multi-family rental projects that surpass height and density limits as long as affordability standards are met.
Second, unless there’s an exemption for the city, the Live Local Act would allow developers to demolish — without city approval — historic buildings in the famous Art Deco Historic District, “replacing iconic, low-scale, two- and three-story historic buildings with modern high-rise towers and forever erasing the architecture that defines the city’s identity and drives its economy,” the city wrote in a news release. Also affected would be historic neighborhoods such as Flamingo Park and North Shore.
Those historic buildings could be knocked down and replaced with towers as tall as what’s allowed within a one-mile radius of a construction site on the Beach — in the most extreme cases, more than 500 feet, or 50 stories, according to the city.
“It would turn South Beach into Manhattan,” Fernandez told the Herald Editorial Board.
The House version (House Bill 943) would protect buildings within a historic district that was listed in the National Register of Historic Places before Jan. 1, 2000. That would include hundreds of buildings in South Beach’s Art Deco District, Fernandez said.
The bill would also require city approval for the demolition of structures that have been classified, as of July 2023, as “contributing” in a local government’s historic properties database. There’s a caveat: The demolition of the rear part of a building abutting or facing an alley would not require a public hearing.
That still means that 2,600 historic properties, according to the city, would have some type of protection on the Beach compared to the Senate version. The House is scheduled to hear its version on Tuesday.
With the legislative session expected to end this week, a compromise needs to happen soon on behalf of a city whose historic architecture is a major economic and tourism driver.
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