Latest news with #TransitStationNeighborhoodDevelopment
Miami Herald
09-08-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Miami adds incentives for high-rises up to 1 mile from rail stations. What to know
A new zoning program in the city of Miami will allow for denser developments in a radius of up to a mile around existing and planned Metrorail and commuter rail stations, including Brightline stations, inside city boundaries. Within those zones, developers can apply to build high-rise residential and commercial projects with considerably more units and height than the old local rules allowed, a strategy intended to sharply increase housing supply and affordability while boosting transit use. The city's current rules under the Miami 21 code's 'transitional zoning' strictly limits the height of new buildings abutting low-scale residential areas. But the new Transit Station Neighborhood Developments could erase those protections, planning board member Paula De Carolis told city planners in a June hearing before she voted against the measure. At the hearing, residents and board members also questioned the size of the designated transit zones, which can range from a half-mile to a full mile from a station. Transit-oriented development, a well-established approach across the country, typically extends to a half-mile reach — a comfortable walk for a pedestrian. But going out one mile, a distance that few in Miami will travel on foot to a station, undermines the premise that development at that distance could be reasonably linked to transit, while potentially blanketing too much of the city in high-rise, high-density new construction, critics say. 'I think the one mile is going to create a lot of problems,' planning board member Paul Mann said. 'I think it's going to change this city very dramatically.' Kim Hogan, a Coconut Grove resident, said expecting people to walk a mile to reach a transit station is 'insane.' 'You start sweating if you walk outside, let alone walking a mile to a station,' she said. 'It doesn't make any sense.' A reluctant 6-3 planning board majority, after an intense two-hour public meeting, recommended that the City Commission approve the legislation. The Miami City Commission gave its final approval on July 24. In a lengthy interview with the Miami Herald, city planning director David Snow and assistant planning director Sevanne Steiner said they instead expect the city's new program to produce a measured, gradual process of densification around stations, with most of the new height and density close by. The rules and incentives are designed to encourage lower heights and density past the half-mile radius, they said. The approval process sets out a complicated procedure that first requires a land-use change under the city's comprehensive plan, which guides where, how much and what kind of development is allowed. Under the new program, the city must first approve a new 'transit-node' designation for a property that depends on how much the area can reasonably accommodate. Then, a developer can elect to submit a Transit Station Neighborhood Development plan under two categories — general or enhanced — that specify what can be built, how dense and how tall a project can be, to what distance from a station it can be, and what public benefits must be provided. The enhanced category has extensive requirements that range from building or improving an existing rail station and development of a master plan that details how the project will be laid out, including new or improved streets and pedestrian connections. A developer looking to build out one mile must provide new pedestrian and bike paths or a transit circulator shuttle. The extensive requirements mean that only a relatively short list of ambitious and well-financed developers with the capacity to plan and build an entire urban neighborhood are likely to apply for the most intensive 'enhanced' category. It also means there may be limited areas in the city where the most intensive developments would be feasible or even possible. READ THE FULL STORY: Does new Miami law allow high-rises next to one-story houses? It's complicated
Miami Herald
08-08-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Does new Miami law allow high-rises next to one-story houses? It's complicated
A fast-track, far-reaching plan by Miami officials to encourage development of high-rise housing clusters for a mile around transit rail stations, already set to become law, has stirred up alarm from residents worried about its potential to transform vast swaths of the city — but the impact likely won't play out for years, if not decades. In late July, Miami city commissioners unanimously approved the complex new zoning strategy, which goes by the unwieldy denomination of Transit Station Neighborhood Development, or TSND, barely a month after its release to a surprised and bewildered public. The TSND designation creates new zones in a radius of up to a mile around existing and planned Metrorail and commuter rail stations, including Brightline stations, inside city boundaries. Within those zones, developers can apply to build high-rise residential and commercial projects with considerably more units and height than the old local rules allowed, a strategy intended to sharply increase housing supply and affordability while boosting transit use. In exchange, the developers must set aside a percentage of units as affordable or workforce housing and provide a menu of other public benefits that can range from green space and improvements for pedestrians to building a new rail station, depending on how big they want to go. At the same July meeting, commissioners approved the first, and so far the only, TSND project. It's a massive plan by veteran Miami developer Michael Swerdlow and his partners, drawn up in response to a bid request by Miami-Dade County to replace aging public housing projects, that will erect some 5,000 apartments, extensive retail and a new station in Northwest Miami's Little River-Little Haiti neighborhood for the struggling Tri-Rail commuter train line's spur to downtown Miami. But the unusually short window for review left residents, activists and members of the city's own planning and zoning board — some of whom fruitlessly tried to get Miami officials to hold off on approval — complaining of confusion as they tried to digest the legislation's sometimes Byzantine details and its potential to encroach on some of Miami's extensive low-scale residential neighborhoods. 'This was pushed through in under 36 days with no meaningful public engagement — there wasn't even a copy of the final ordinance being proposed at the last commission meeting made available to the public,' said Marlene Erven, who heads the Coconut Grove Park Homeowners Association. 'What began as a plan tied to the Little River redevelopment was expanded to apply across the city, and it really puts every neighborhood at risk of up-zoning and destabilization.' At its heart, the backlash generated by the TSND initiative reflects an intensifying debate over the future of a city that was laid out largely in the fashion of a low-density, auto-oriented suburb of mostly single-family homes and small apartment buildings but that now faces pressure for increased density amid relentless development demands, a crippling affordable housing crisis, intractable traffic congestion and a lagging public transit system. It also comes as the city has clashed with Miami-Dade over the county's increasingly assertive deployment — even within city boundaries — of its own transit-station development rules, called Rapid Transit Zones, or RTZs for short, which preempt Miami's local zoning rules and already encourage redevelopment of comparable intensity to that offered by the TSNDs. For many residents and activists, the biggest issue with what they say are the otherwise laudable goals of the plan is its sheer breadth. A city map displaying the areas around more than a dozen stations where denser new TSND development could rise covers nearly half of Miami's geography, though single-family neighborhoods are exempt. City planners stress that inclusion in a map does not mean that all that territory will qualify for a TSND. Mel Meinhardt, a member of the homeowners advocacy group One Grove Alliance, was alarmed when he first saw that map at a planning and zoning board meeting. 'Looking at the map showing the one-mile radius of the areas affected — it was half the city of Miami!' Meinhardt said. 'The folks living in those areas are too busy with their lives to realize these quiet little technical changes could put a 24-story building in their backyard.' At the last minute, the commission agreed to also exempt all city-designated historic districts, such as Morningside and the MiMo district, as well as conservation districts that cover virtually all of Coconut Grove. Still, critics note that in some places the new transit zoning category means towers of somewhere from 12 stories to over 24 stories tall could rise immediately next to someone's single-family home — a circumstance that the innovative Miami 21 code, the city zoning law enacted in 2009 after four years of public hearings, was specifically designed to prevent or ameliorate. But city planners say that the increased development height and density around transit stations that critics fear after July's vote has already been happening because of the county's RTZs, but with little recourse by city of Miami officials or residents to blunt their impact. The city's TSNDs, they say, represent their best attempt to regain some control by offering developers — who will have a choice of which zoning plan to apply under, the city's or the county's — a better flavor of rezoning that's also far more beneficial for city residents. Not all Miamians see it that way. 'They say this is beneficial for us, but that doesn't make any sense — how is this benefitting residents?' said Kim Hogan, who owns a townhome in Coconut Grove. 'We'll lose safety, community, character and charm. They want to turn everything into Brickell, and everyone is gonna leave. It'll just be foreign investors who're here only half the year,' Hogan added. The vehicle for the transit zoning is the Miami 21 code. It was designed explicitly to strike a balance between neighborhood protection and measures to foster development of dense urban zones, giving rise to modern-day Brickell, Edgewater and the gradual revival of downtown Miami. The code's 'transitional zoning' strictly limits the height of new buildings abutting low-scale residential areas. But the TSNDs could erase those protections, planning board member Paula De Carolis told city planners in a June hearing before she voted against the measure. That's a concern echoed by residents. 'Miami 21 zoning set up gradual height and density increases that allow incremental and respectful growth, quite rapidly actually, but it still respects the rights of neighborhoods as the city changes. There's a balance,' said the Grove's Meinhardt, a retired government engineer. 'Why is this being done so rapidly, so haphazardly? They're changing 20 years of rules overnight.' Like residents, De Carolis and other planning board members also took issue with the city's seeming hurry to get the plan approved. The planning board received two presentations from city planners shortly before its final vote on the legislation, which was being amended even as some members said they were struggling to fully understand it. Some noted that they were unable to offer meaningful recommendations for improvements before the measure was to go before the City Commission for a final hearing and vote of approval on July 24. After each presentation, planning board member Joseph Corral said, 'I get more confused.' 'This is massive. This is rezoning basically the whole city,' he said. 'We cannot possibly make a valid recommendation 30 minutes after reading this for the first time.' At the June planning board hearing, residents and board members also questioned the size of the designated transit zones, which can range from a half-mile to a full mile from a station. Transit-oriented development, a well-established approach across the country, typically extends to a half-mile reach — a comfortable walk for a pedestrian. But going out one mile, a distance that few in Miami will travel on foot to a station, undermines the premise that development at that distance could be reasonably linked to transit, while potentially blanketing too much of the city in high-rise, high-density new construction, critics say. 'I think the one mile is going to create a lot of problems,' planning board member Paul Mann said. 'I think it's going to change this city very dramatically.' Hogan, the Coconut Grove resident, said expecting people to walk a mile to reach a transit station is 'insane.' 'You start sweating if you walk outside, let alone walking a mile to a station,' she said. 'It doesn't make any sense.' 'No one is going to be using public transportation,' she added. 'These developers are just using the transit rezoning as an excuse to increase the number of units that they can sell.' Just how high or how far the contemplated TSNDs will actually go remains unclear, and it may not shake out for a long time. That's partly by design. Because the measure demands significant public contributions from developers and extensive review, city planners say it's unlikely it will lead to towers rapidly sprouting across the city in places where they don't belong. That, noted city planning director David Snow, is the problem with yet another controversial new housing-development measure, the state's Live Local law, which supersedes local height and density controls in the name of promoting construction of middle-class workforce housing. The city has received some 55 Live Local applications, and though none have yet broken ground, Snow suggested those pose a far greater threat to neighborhoods than the TSNDs. Live Local towers, he noted, can be 'peppered throughout the city with no rhyme or reason.' In a lengthy interview with the Miami Herald, Snow and assistant planning director Sevanne Steiner said they instead expect the TSND legislation to produce a measured, gradual process of densification around stations, with most of the new height and density close by. The rules and incentives are designed to encourage lower heights and density past the half-mile radius, they said. The scenario of a tower abutting a small home can happen, they acknowledged. But they stressed that most Miami 21 protections, including requirements that taller buildings next to short ones must be set back and step back as they rise to lessen their impact on neighbors, remain in force. They also stress that approval of developers' applications is not automatic. The city will retain the power to deny approval or require modifications to proposals that would significantly disrupt the quality of life in established neighborhoods, they said. Rules that require analysis of impact on traffic, water supply and schools also apply. Proposals will receive public review before the planning board, and neighbors will be properly notified, they said. Snow and Steiner also defended their choices and the short time frame for review and approval, echoing comments Steiner made to the planning board. And they insist that the city had no other choice but to move forward quickly with the measure — a position that a reluctant 6-3 planning board majority, after an intense two-hour public meeting, adopted in recommending that the City Commission approve the TSND legislation. That's because the county has aggressively expanded its own transit zones by extending eligibility to numerous private properties, not just public property. Most recently, those county RTZ projects, such as the new Coconut Grove station mixed-use redevelopment and the ongoing Douglas Road station multi-tower project, were mostly limited to station properties. The county's transit zones encourage development near bus stations in addition to rail, both inside municipal limits as well as in unincorporated areas. The city has sued the county over its application of RTZs, saying it improperly usurps local control over zoning decisions. After unsuccessful mediation, the city and county have been in long but as-yet unsettled discussions over a compromise. In addition, a county ordinance now requires municipalities to come up with their own plans to promote affordable housing development. The city's TSND initiative attempts to resolve both issues, Snow said. In the past year, Miami's planning department had been working on alternatives when Swerdlow approached the city. The county had approved his plan, but he needed to increase the project's zoning to build what he wanted. Both agreed it would be much smoother and more efficient to have city planners review and approve the needed zoning under its own rules. They worked in tandem to come up with a plan that would be suitable not only for Swerdlow and the other major property owner in the area, Tennessee-based AJ Capital Partners, but also for developers in the rest of the city. 'All this does is replace the RTZ for our property,' said Swerdlow, who noted it also means the city will receive more revenue in the form of development impact fees than if the county had jurisdiction. Some final and critical details of the TSND rules, however, were added just before the planning board and City Commission votes, as city planners scrambled to address feedback by elected officials and the public. But that led to confusion and complaints that the public and even officials were not privy to important aspects of the program before its approval. An internal city memo dated July 22 — two days before the meeting where the City Commission gave its final approval — included substantive changes to the TSND legislation that the public didn't have the opportunity to review. Those changes included allowing for the high-density developments to crop up in areas surrounding future Metrorail, Brightline and Tri-Rail stations — rather than at existing rail stations only. The timing has angered some activists, leaving them asking: Why the rush? Showing up to speak during the public comment period at City Commission meetings, Meinhardt, the retired government engineer, said he found himself thinking: 'This is going at lighting speed, without any review — there's something up here. This raises a yellow flag.' Critics have pointed to Swerdlow's involvement as evidence that the city transit initiative is little more than a gift to developers. While Snow acknowledged that Swerdlow Group has its own timeline that is 'moving rapidly,' he said the need for speed wasn't so much for Swerdlow's benefit as it was to avoid entangling the plan in potential political controversy in the months ahead. Snow said his department was motivated to finalize the legislation by the July 24 meeting — the final one before a seven-week City Commission hiatus that extends into September. 'We challenged ourselves to really try to get this across the finish line before the summer break,' Snow said. Miami has been in a state of limbo in recent months after the City Commission passed a controversial ordinance postponing the November 2025 election to 2026 without voter approval. But now that the dust has begun to settle, following two court rulings last month finding the change was unconstitutional, it's likely that the election will take place in November of this year. Snow said there was pressure to move forward with the TSND plan before election season was in full swing. 'It was important for us to really get this done and not have it get caught up in the, you know, political storm we're gonna see in the next few months,' Snow said. Snow added that the city 'went above and beyond' in the 'short window' between the City Commission's first vote approving the changes on June 26 and its final approval on July 24. That included hosting a public Zoom meeting and making changes to the legislation that addressed resident concerns. Yet records from the clerk's office show it took nearly two weeks after the commission passed the legislation for the city attorney and assistant city attorney to give final approval on Aug. 6. Asked for the reason behind the delay, the City Attorney's Office told the Herald that modified legislation needs to be 'manually updated in the system' and that there were 'many items on the last agenda and several of the items had modifications.' The city also needs to create an application process for developers before it can be more widely used. Erven, the Grove HOA president, described the city's process as 'a one-way street.' 'These are public meetings just to check off a box so they can say they had a public meeting — no one can really provide input or get responses,' Erven said. One leading expert — Miami 21 principal author Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk — suggests the city could have avoided some of the public backlash if it had taken more time to listen to and incorporate public comment and if it had published detailed maps showing more precise impacts in neighborhoods. Though she said the legislation meshes with Miami 21 and its protections, she said the code already has a section encouraging transit-oriented development that could have been amended instead of creating an entirely new program. But if managed properly, she said, the new changes could have a 'significant positive impact' on affordability and transit. 'This might have landed better if it was being considered for several locations where it could happen, instead of the broad brush,' Plater-Zyberk said. 'I wonder why it could not have been done within the code instead of getting everyone riled up about it.' If anything, the approval process for the Swerdlow project suggests the TSND may be painstaking and anything but a gimme for other developers who may seek to build under it. It sets out a complicated procedure that first requires a land-use change under the city's comprehensive plan, which guides where, how much and what kind of development is allowed. Under TSNDs, the city must first approve a new 'transit-node' designation for a property that depends on how much the area can reasonably accommodate. Then, a developer can elect to submit a TSND plan under two categories — general or enhanced — that specify what can be built, how dense and how tall a project can be, to what distance from a station it can be, and what public benefits must be provided. The enhanced category has extensive requirements saying a property must be no less than three acres. Other requirements range from building or improving an existing rail station and development of a master plan that details how the project will be laid out, including new or improved streets and pedestrian connections. A developer looking to build out one mile must provide new pedestrian and bike paths or a transit circulator shuttle. Swerdlow, for instance, said he plans to provide the Freebee service used by several local municipalities as a free car-share alternative. The extensive requirements mean that only a relatively short list of ambitious and well-financed developers with the capacity to plan and build an entire urban neighborhood are likely to apply for the most intensive 'enhanced' category of TSND. It also means there may be limited areas in the city where the most intensive TSNDs would be feasible or even possible. The city planning department is now studying the areas around Metrorail stations in Allapattah for possible transit-node designation, though it's at a preliminary stage, Snow and Steiner said. Since some of Miami's requirements are more stringent than the county's, the city TSNDs require fewer units to be set aside for affordable and workforce housing so as not to discourage developers from working with Miami. But the income restrictions are far lower, meaning they would produce more true affordability than buildings under the county RTZ. 'It's vastly more affordable housing,' Swerdlow said of his project. 'We tried to do the right thing.' Swerdlow's planner, Juan Mullerat, founding principal of Miami urban design firm Plusurbia, said he believes the Little River project will demonstrate the TSND's viability as a well-calibrated remedy to the city's severe growing pains, even if it changes the landscape many residents are accustomed to. He also noted it won't happen overnight. Swerdlow's project will take many years to build out, he said. 'From a planning standpoint, more development, more housing around stations, especially affordable housing, is critical,' Mullerat said. 'This is a perfect opportunity to apply the alternative to RTZ, given that there is a willing developer to create a station and put that much housing around it.' 'We do need the height around the station in order to support it,' he added. 'You can't have a city with functional transit if you don't provide that density. Is it going to be different? Yes, by all means. But it's the responsible thing to do.' Veteran Miami neighborhood activist Elvis Cruz, meanwhile, argues that the TSND will enrich developers while neighborhoods and residents are left to cope with worse traffic and a declining quality of life. 'The big picture is that developers are extremely powerful throughout the state. Now we're getting the city of Miami to do their bidding,' Cruz said. 'This is all about enabling profit for developers, and they're using affordable and workforce housing as camouflage.'
