Latest news with #MiamiDade
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Property values are cooling in Miami-Dade. New report hints at weakness to come
Miami-Dade's real estate market is cooling, with signs of a sharper slowdown to come, according to new numbers from the county property appraiser. The annual market summary released Friday shows a slower growth rate in properties' taxable values than this time a year ago — up 8.5% in 2025, compared to 10.7% growth in 2024. This is the first time Miami-Dade has recorded single-digit growth since the start of 2021, when the early months of the pandemic initially depressed real estate sales. 'The real estate market, after years of growth, appears to have stabilized,' said Property Appraiser Tomás Regalado. While he noted the pace of new construction was higher going into 2025, Regalado said: 'I don't believe that trend will continue.' While the headline number of an 8.5% increase in countywide taxable values suggests decent growth in home prices, some details of the report hint at a buyer's market to come. One countywide measure of changes in values that is calculated to more closely match market values showed growth of only 3.6% from 2024 to 2025. Last year it grew by 10%. Some of the notable figures in the report include: Developers and homebuilders created nearly $4 billion in new construction last year in the cities of Miami and Miami Beach alone, accounting for almost half of the new construction value in all of Miami-Dade. For existing properties, no municipality saw the kind of surge in values than did tiny Indian Creek Village, the elite 'Billionaire Bunker' island that's home to presidential daughter Ivanka Trump and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Without new construction included, Indian Creek Village saw taxable values spike 19%. At the other end of that scale is Virginia Gardens, with an increase of just 1.4%. The boomtown award goes to El Portal, population 1,900, which saw taxable values grow the most when combining existing and new construction. El Portal saw values climb 33%.
CBS News
2 days ago
- Health
- CBS News
Federal judge allows lawsuit over "excessive heat" at Miami-Dade prison to proceed
A federal judge has rejected a request by Florida corrections officials to dismiss a potential class-action lawsuit alleging the state has violated inmates' rights because of hot conditions at a prison in Miami-Dade County. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams on Wednesday issued a 30-page ruling that said inmates at Dade Correctional Institution can pursue claims under the U.S. Constitution's 8th Amendment, the Americans with Disabilities Act and a disabilities-related law known as the Rehabilitation Act. The 8th Amendment bars cruel and unusual punishment. Harsh conditions at Dade Correctional Institution Williams' ruling described a prison with a large number of older inmates that does not have air conditioning or adequate ventilation in dormitories or in the dining area. It also detailed heat indexes that often top 100 degrees in South Florida and said inmates are "regularly and consistently exposed to heat indexes within the NWS (National Weather Service) danger zone during the summer months." "Plaintiffs further allege that the issue of excessive heat at Dade CI is exacerbated by insufficient ventilation systems," Williams wrote. "Plaintiffs allege that the ventilation systems in the dormitories, which were installed decades ago, have not been adequately maintained and are missing critical components, such as fans and motors." Lawsuit details and named plaintiffs Attorneys for three inmates filed the lawsuit in October against the state Department of Corrections, Corrections Secretary Ricky Dixon and Dade Correctional Institution Warden Francisco Acosta. It seeks class-action status, though Williams has not ruled on that issue. The prison has a capacity of 1,521 inmates. The named plaintiffs are Dwayne Wilson, who was described in the lawsuit as a 66-year-old inmate with hypertension, an enlarged prostate and a burn scar over much of his body that impairs his ability to sweat; Tyrone Harris, a 54-year-old inmate who has conditions such as hypertension and asthma; and Gary Wheeler, a 65-year-old inmate who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. State's defense and judicial rebuttal In a December motion to dismiss the case, the state's attorneys argued, in part, that the 8th Amendment argument "fails because the facts do not give rise to a substantial risk of serious harm to plaintiffs, nor demonstrate that Secretary Dixon or Warden Acosta has been deliberately indifferent to the conditions and risks faced by these (named) plaintiffs in particular." "By itself, the lack of air conditioning does not pose a substantial risk of serious harm. The deprivation required to allege an Eighth Amendment claim must be objectively 'extreme' enough to deny an inmate 'the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities.' The allegations of the complaint (the lawsuit) have not 'cleared this high bar.'" the motion said, partially quoting legal precedents. But Williams wrote that the lawsuit "alleges a wide range of heat related injuries: heat exhaustion, heat cramps, heat stroke, and death. Plaintiffs also extensively detail how excessive heat can exacerbate underlying medical conditions, in a facility where over 50 percent of all prisoners are over the age of 50. Finally, plaintiffs allege that, since 2021, extreme heat has contributed to the deaths of at least four individuals at Dade CI." Evidence of known risks She also said that attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote to Acosta in September 2023 "detailing concerns about the extreme heat, lack of ventilation, and the serious threat of medical harm posted to the inmates based on those conditions. The court finds that the allegations plaintiffs raise about the ongoing excessive heat issues at Dade CI easily support the plausible inference that defendants were subjectively aware of the risks of heat-related harms." The Miami-based judge also cited a report published in 2023 by the KPMG consulting firm, which had received a state contract to develop a master plan for the Department of Corrections. "The report concluded that most FDC (Florida Department of Corrections) dormitories, including those at Dade CI, require retrofitting to comply with current ventilation standards, and that over one-third of FDC facilities were assessed to be in 'critical' or 'poor' condition," Williams wrote.
CBS News
2 days ago
- Climate
- CBS News
Person treated for smoke inhalation, Miami-Dade neighborhood loses power after fire rips through RV and shed
At least one person is being treated for smoke inhalation, and a Southwest Miami-Dade neighborhood is left in the dark after a fire ripped through an RV and shed early Thursday morning. Just before 3:30 a.m., Miami-Dade Fire Rescue was called to the fire near 11000 SW 200th St. in Goulds. MDFR told CBS News Miami that at least one person was being treated for smoke inhalation but everyone who lived in the home nearby was safely evacuated. CBS News Miami has a crew on scene, where a transformer box was seen above where the fire burned, which is believed to have led to the power outage, but CBS News Miami has reached out to officials to confirm exact details. FPL and Xfinity vehicles were also seen in the area, working on restoring power to the neighborhood. CBS News Miami has also contacted the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office for more information since the scene was blocked off with crime scene tape. The cause and circumstances surrounding the fire are under investigation. This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
CBS News
3 days ago
- General
- CBS News
Miami-Dade crackdown nets 137 handicap parking violations in single-day sweep
In a sweeping crackdown across Miami-Dade County, sheriff's deputies issued 137 handicap parking citations on Friday as part of "Operation Blue Zone," targeting drivers illegally using reserved spaces without proper permits. The May 23 enforcement effort, led by the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office, aimed to protect access for people with disabilities and parents with small children by cracking down on the misuse of handicap and stroller-designated parking spaces. Deputies patrolled the county throughout the day, issuing 137 handicap parking citations, 19 uniform traffic citations and eight citations for unauthorized use of stroller parking spaces. They also confiscated six fraudulent or improperly used handicap placards. "These spaces are not for convenience—they are a necessity," the sheriff's office said in a statement. "Our deputies remain committed to protecting the rights of individuals with disabilities and maintaining public safety." Officials said the operation underscores their ongoing efforts to enforce accessibility laws and ensure equitable access in public areas.
CTV News
3 days ago
- Climate
- CTV News
Get ready for several years of killer heat, top weather forecasters warn
Ricky Leath, an outreach specialist with the City of Miami, talks with Bei Zhao, right, as he works with the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust to distribute bottles of water and other supplies to the homeless population, helping them manage high temperatures, May 15, 2024, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File) WASHINGTON — Get ready for several years of even more record-breaking heat that pushes Earth to more deadly, fiery and uncomfortable extremes, two of the world's top weather agencies forecast. There's an 80% chance the world will break another annual temperature record in the next five years, and it's even more probable that the world will again exceed the international temperature threshold set 10 years ago, according to a five-year forecast released Wednesday by the World Meteorological Organization and the U.K. Meteorological Office. 'Higher global mean temperatures may sound abstract, but it translates in real life to a higher chance of extreme weather: stronger hurricanes, stronger precipitation, droughts,' said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, who wasn't part of the calculations but said they made sense. 'So higher global mean temperatures translates to more lives lost.' With every tenth of a degree the world warms from human-caused climate change 'we will experience higher frequency and more extreme events (particularly heat waves but also droughts, floods, fires and human-reinforced hurricanes/typhoons),' emailed Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. He was not part of the research. And for the first time there's a chance — albeit slight — that before the end of the decade, the world's annual temperature will shoot past the Paris climate accord goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) and hit a more alarming 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of heating since the mid-1800s, the two agencies said. There's an 86% chance that one of the next five years will pass 1.5 degrees and a 70% chance that the five years as a whole will average more than that global milestone, they figured. The projections come from more than 200 forecasts using computer simulations run by 10 global centers of scientists. Ten years ago, the same teams figured there was a similar remote chance — about 1% — that one of the upcoming years would exceed that critical 1.5 degree threshold and then it happened last year. This year, a 2-degree Celsius above pre-industrial year enters the equation in a similar manner, something UK Met Office longer term predictions chief Adam Scaife and science scientist Leon Hermanson called 'shocking.' 'It's not something anyone wants to see, but that's what the science is telling us,' Hermanson said. Two degrees of warming is the secondary threshold, the one considered less likely to break, set by the 2015 Paris agreement. Technically, even though 2024 was 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial times, the Paris climate agreement's threshold is for a 20-year time period, so it has not been exceeded. Factoring in the past 10 years and forecasting the next 10 years, the world is now probably about 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter since the mid 1800s, World Meteorological Organization climate services director Chris Hewitt estimated. 'With the next five years forecast to be more than 1.5C warmer than preindustrial levels on average, this will put more people than ever at risk of severe heat waves, bringing more deaths and severe health impacts unless people can be better protected from the effects of heat. Also we can expect more severe wildfires as the hotter atmosphere dries out the landscape,' said Richard Betts, head of climate impacts research at the UK Met Office and a professor at the University of Exeter. Ice in the Arctic — which will continue to warm 3.5 times faster than the rest of the world — will melt and seas will rise faster, Hewitt said. What tends to happen is that global temperatures rise like riding on an escalator, with temporary and natural El Nino weather cycles acting like jumps up or down on that escalator, scientists said. But lately, after each jump from an El Nino, which adds warming to the globe, the planet doesn't go back down much, if at all. 'Record temperatures immediately become the new normal,' said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson. Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press
