February 27, 2005

IN MY OPINION
Boundary line becomes target for growth
CARL HIAASEN

"The population is crying out for development, and I think we will represent the population well.''

These dumbfounding words recently spilled from the lips of Stuart Miller, the CEO of Lennar Corp.
He says his company is simply serving the public's desire by seeking to trash Miami-Dade's Urban Development Boundary and slap up new houses all the way to the Everglades.

Now, does anyone seriously believe that Lennar is being swamped with letters from people pleading for another huge subdivision? What a laugh.

Nobody's crying out for more development except developers like Miller. It has nothing to do with public service; it's blind, slobbering greed.

Thirty years ago, the county established the Urban Development Boundary, a line running north-south to buffer farmlands and the Everglades from the onrushing urban sprawl. West of the UDB, building is restricted to one dwelling per five acres.

Only once in the past decade have county commissioners monkeyed with the boundary, and that was to accommodate a 436-acre industrial park for political heavyweight Armando Codina.

At the time it was predicted that making an exception for Codina would unleash a flurry of assaults on the UDB. Three years later it's finally happening -- developers are snatching up farms and rural land outside the boundary, and recruiting lobbyists to lean on the politicians.

Lennar holds an option to buy nearly 2,500 acres near Florida City, where it hopes to construct several thousand homes on the fringe of Everglades National Park. The result, while lucrative for Lennar, could be catastrophic for the state's $8.4 billion Everglades restoration project.

An ally in the plan is Florida City Mayor Otis Wallace, who's eagerly trying to annex 4,284 acres of critical wetlands, including 981 acres currently under option by Lennar. If the county is foolhardy enough to hand over that land, watch for Wallace and other Florida City politicians to push for the UDB to be redrawn, clearing the way for developers' bulldozers.

Contradicting the laments of Miller and others, Miami-Dade planners say there's already enough developable land in the county to last until 2021. A report two years ago by the Department of Planning and Zoning stated that the UDB line shouldn't be moved.

Since then, vast tracts of farmland in southwest Miami-Dade have been converted to residential use. Sardine-can subdivisions have exploded in a clotted mess on both sides of the Florida Turnpike extension below Cutler Ridge -- thousands of new houses platted so tightly that a snake could barely squeeze between them without holding its breath.

It will take a few years before all those projects are finished and sold out, but the greedheads want more. So they've targeted the last green ribbon of privately owned mainland.

D.R. Horton, a Texas builder, is asking the county to move the development boundary to make way for 5,000 residential units along Krome Avenue. Others salivating in the wings include United Homes and The Easton Group.

If they have their way, west Miami-Dade will eventually look as ghastly as west Broward, where virtually every wetland has been drained and developed. As a result, the Everglades conservation areas are rimmed with concrete and asphalt.

The gutless wonders who let that happen in Broward never imposed a true urban development line, as it might have inconvenienced the developers and builders who contributed so richly to their political campaigns.

Miami-Dade commissioners are already feeling the same kind of heat. The first big test is the vote on the Florida City annexation scheme, which will soon get a public hearing before the full commission.
Loud opposition is coming from Monroe County officials, who fear that a population explosion in Florida City will snarl hurricane evacuation from the Keys, and have other negative impacts on the island chain.

In Miami-Dade, one important voice against the annexation is County Manager George Burgess. Citing numerous objections from planning and environmental agencies, he has urged commissioners to turn down Florida City's request.

And last but not least among the opponents is Miami-Dade's new mayor, Carlos Alvarez. In his recent State of the County address, Alvarez spoke out in favor of keeping the Urban Development Boundary exactly where it is.

''I don't believe we need to move it right now and I don't believe we need to move it anytime soon,'' he told The Herald's Jim DeFede.

No one would disagree that someday Miami-Dade, like Broward, will run out of raw land for megabuilders like Lennar to buy up.

But plenty of neighborhoods within the urban boundary are in dire need of redevelopment, which would give guys like Stuart Miller a legitimate claim to performing a public service.

There might be more profit in plowing westward but westward is almost over, except for the crying.