DEVELOPMENT
The Miami Herald
Homestead dispute: evacuation vs. growth

A decision regarding growth in Homestead apparently jeopardized hurricane evacuations.

November 17, 2005

By Andres Viglucci
aviglucci@herald.com

When Homestead officials filed plans to allow 2,600 new dwellings in their fast-growing city, regional planners raised questions about the impact on hurricane evacuation from the Florida Keys and South Miami-Dade.

When Homestead officials failed even to acknowledge those concerns, the planners undertook something they rarely do -- recommend that state growth managers disallow the plans.

But the growth regulators at the state Department of Community Affairs instead approved Homestead's plans, with barely a mention of the evacuation worries. And then the regional planners got mad.

In an apparently unprecedented move, the South Florida Regional Planning Council tried to challenge the DCA's approval of the Homestead plan -- only to be rebuffed, once again, by the regulators, who administer the state's growth management laws.

The planners, environmentalists and Monroe County officials say the DCA's apparent avoidance of the evacuation issue is baffling because the state has been raked by seven hurricanes in two seasons and faces a greater frequency of storms for years to come -- even as developers are pushing to build thousands of new homes in flood-prone Homestead and other parts of South Miami-Dade.

"The state of Florida is engaged in playing roulette with peoples' lives,'' said Alan Farago, an environmentalist with the Sierra Club. ``The questions about weakness about state planning have been evident for years, but now this is a whole different level of concern because there are human lives at stake.''

Monroe officials say they were dumbfounded.

''Unbelievable,'' said Monroe County administrator Thomas Walli, who contrasted the DCA's apparent lack of concern in this case with the strict development controls it has enacted in the Keys, in part because of evacuation concerns.

"It's an absolute joke how ridiculous they are in Monroe, and in the rest of the state it's carte blanche.''

After repeated requests for an interview, DCA officials e-mailed a brief statement Wednesday saying Homestead is technically not required to worry about hurricane evacuation times because it does not directly front on the ocean.

WORK TOGETHER

''DCA does understand the importance of hurricane evacuation issues in the region,'' the e-mail said, adding that agency officials intend to work with local government to ensure adequate evacuation times.

Homestead officials say the DCA acted properly, contending it would be unfair to stall their growth plans over hurricane evacuation concerns that don't affect their city.

''We're getting hammered here because of the Keys,'' said Homestead City Manager Curtis Ivy, who suggests the answer lies in widening key portions of the evacuation routes.

''They've created a destination there in the Keys,'' he said. "Tourists create a lot of traffic. If we're worried about that, they're going to have to just widen the roads. They need to do their share of the heavy lifting.''

Frustrated planning council members say they will now press for legislation to force the DCA, which administers Florida's growth-management laws, to address issues raised by regional planners, who serve in an advisory role. Otherwise, they question the point of having laws requiring regional councils to review major development plans.

''The question in my mind, candidly, is why? Why doesn't the DCA see it the same as we do?'' said Bob Daniels, assistant director for planning at the council, housed in Hollywood, which suffered extensive damage in Hurricane Wilma. ``I'm looking out my window at what happened in just a Category 1 hurricane. We need to be doing something. It's a pretty charged-up issue.''

Many people concerned about the rapid pace of urbanization in South Miami-Dade hoped that the regional council's decision to recommend against the Homestead plan this summer -- just after Hurricane Katrina rolled through South Florida on its way to devastating Mississippi and Louisiana -- would portend greater scrutiny of growth by state authorities.

PLANS ANALYZED

Under Florida's growth-management laws, regional planners analyze plans for major development and amendments to the comprehensive plans that municipalities must enact to guide development.

The regional councils, which group together representatives of local governments, then make recommendations to the DCA, which can in many cases force changes. But the DCA is not obligated to consider the councils' views.

At issue now is a series of amendments Homestead wanted to make to its comprehensive plan as part of a broader strategy to guide its explosive growth, improve transportation and improve some older neighborhoods.

The planning council approved most of the plan, which would reduce the number of new dwellings allowed in some areas while increasing density in others.

But it recommended rejection of six changes encompassing a potential 2,616 new homes because the city failed to analyze their impact on hurricane evacuation times.

Homestead straddles the two main routes out of the Keys -- U.S. 1 and Florida's Turnpike extension, which also serve as evacuation routes for residents of Homestead and South Miami-Dade. Planners fear an explosion of residential growth could snarl the routes with traffic.

Regional planners asked Homestead to contact emergency managers in Monroe and Miami-Dade to conduct the analysis, but city officials did not do so.

The DCA nonetheless approved the proposed changes in September in a document that contained one comment on the evacuation issue, instructing Homestead to ''work with'' emergency managers.

That does not obligate Homestead to do so, planners say.

APPEALS PERIOD LAPSES

The regional council then filed a challenge with DCA officials seeking to overturn the approvals. But DCA lawyers determined the council lacked legal standing to do so.

In the meantime, the time allowed for appeals -- which could have been filed by a Homestead resident or by an adjacent jurisdiction, like Monroe -- lapsed.

Homestead's Ivy acknowledged he has not phoned Monroe and Miami-Dade emergency managers to follow up.

''We're still open to talk about evacuation and cooperate with anyone, but everyone wants to shut everything down that we're doing,'' Ivy said.

"We've got an approval. We're moving forward.''