02-05-2025
Legislature restores some protection for historic districts after backlash from Miami Beach
Reacting to a backlash from Miami Beach, the Florida Legislature restored some protections for historic buildings and districts like the famed Art Deco District as it approved a controversial expansion of the Live Local Act on Thursday.
The state Senate and House had passed companion versions of the legislation that Beach officials and preservationists said would have had devastating consequences, allowing developers to freely demolish historic buildings without interference from local government or any meaningful review. Live Local allows developers to override local limits on height and density if they set aside apartments in a project for so-called 'workforce' housing.
The new language, incorporated into both versions of the legislation before final approval, specifies that developers submitting Live Local projects must still meet requirements in a local jurisdiction's comprehensive development plan, which guides what kinds of construction and intensity are allowed, as well as other local development regulations.
According to Miami Beach Commissioner Alex Fernandez, who led the city's effort to protect its extensive historic districts from the worst impacts of the expanded Live Local Act, that means its planning and zoning officials can block demolition of a historic building or reject a developer's application if it doesn't conform to a broad range of local rules, including historic preservation criteria and those governing architectural character.
The new language, proposed by Democratic Sen. Shevrin Jones and GOP Rep. Ileana Garcia, also allows the city to require developers whose projects pass comprehensive plan and zoning muster to preserve or replicate historic building facades, Fernandez said. The original bills were filed by GOP Sen. Alexis Calatayud and GOP Rep. Vicki Lopez, who agreed to the concessions.
The Beach, however, continues to strongly oppose the expansion because it grants developers a significantly greater right to build big by overriding caps on height and density, still posing a significant risk to Miami Beach's cityscape and its historic buildings and districts, Fernandez said. It would bring skyscrapers to low-scale city neighborhoods where heights have historically been capped at about three or four stories, including some historic districts.
The expansion also effectively removes the ability of city boards, including the Historic Preservation Board, to hold public hearings on Live Local projects across most of the city, because it requires that all review must take place administratively, behind closed doors.
'The fire hasn't been put out, but the blaze has been contained,' Fernandez said in an interview.
The city will urge Gov. Ron DeSantis to veto the expansion, he added.
Fernandez outlined his understanding of the Jones and Garcia amendments, which he said came out of conversations with Calatayud, in a public letter to her.
The final version of the bills, SB 1730 and HB 943, passed 37-0 in the Senate and, subsequently, 105-0 in the House.
Still questions about scope
The precise contours and impact on historic districts and city neighborhoods across the state, and what powers local officials retain over Live Local applications, likely won't be entirely clear until they begin reviewing proposals and negotiating with developers. Some observers say it's also likely to produce litigation as local authorities and developers joust over what's allowed.
Early Live Local submissions in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, many of which would bring outscaled height and density to established low-scale neighborhoods, have generated furious public pushback and official resistance. So far, no Live Local project has broken ground in Miami-Dade even as its legislative champions goose its provisions to overcome legal and political obstacles.
Critics have said the act is weighted heavily in developers' favor while doing little to address the state's critical need for truly affordable housing.
Live Local, originally passed in 2023 and amended last year, has applied only in areas of counties and municipalities zoned for commercial, mixed-use or industrial uses. Under the law, developers can submit projects that are taller and more dense that allowed by local zoning if they set aside 40 percent of apartments for renters making up to 120 percent of local median household income -- a level currently set at $96,000 in Miami-Dade County. Live Local developers also get major breaks on property taxes.
This year's legislation significantly expands the definition of commercial areas to include any that allow lodging and restaurants. Beach officials say that means it would now cover practically all of the city with the exception of single-family neighborhoods.
Previously, Live Local applied only in commercial corridors like Alton Road, Collins and Washington avenues and Ocean Drive, but the city retained the ability to review and deny demolition permits for buildings designated as historic individually or listed as significant or contributing properties in historic districts.
Versions of the Live Local expansion bills passed by both the House and Senate before the last-minute amendments would have fully stripped the city of that power, Fernandez and other city officials said.
Nearly 'Doom of Art Deco'
Fernandez had called the expansion 'the doom of Art Deco' after Lopez, the House bill sponsor, this week stripped from it protections she had agreed to that would have exempted historic districts established before 2000, which includes much of South Beach.
Because the Live Local law already in place allows developers to build to the maximum height allowed by a local jurisdiction within a mile of a property, the expansion would potentially result in the replacement of predominantly two- and three-story buildings in Miami Beach's famed Art Deco District with towers of up to 500 feet, or about 50 stories.
The Shevrin and Garcia amendments reduced that radious to three-quarters of a mile, a provision that could lower some allowed Live Local heights but that Fernandez called insignificant.
City officials believe the legislation is being pushed by developers looking to redevelop South Beach and other neighborhoods where preservation laws and other zoning rules have limited the height and scale of what they can build.
The Live Local expansion represents the third effort by the legislature to open the door to demolition of historically and architecturally significant buildings across the state.
In 2023, a so-called resiliency law that purports to promote redevelopment better suited to meet rising seas and storm surge because of climate change would have had a similar bulldozer effect across Florida, but was significantly scaled back after a statewide uproar. That newer version, passed last year, still leaves significant stretches of Miami Beach's Atlantic shoreline, including some of its most prominent hotels of the 1940s and 1950s, vulnerable to demolition without city interference.
