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Posted on Mon, May. 23, 2005
The Miami Herald Letters
to the Editor
Urban Development Boundary
The subject of your article
''(Peerless landfill stirs a heap of controversy, May 9 Business
Monday'') was discussed at [the May 10] town of Miami Lakes Council
meeting.
Not only was Miami Lakes essentially
the first municipality to pass a resolution in opposition to the
expansion of the Urban Development Line, Miami Lakes will step
forward to lead this countywide fight.
'We encourage all municipalities
to join us in the fight to protect every resident's right from
Miami Lakes to Florida City, to a future with 'livable communities'
. . . our children's future with air they can breathe and water
they can drink . . . a future with unpolluted natural resources,
farms and wildlife . . . a future with schools not so overcrowded
to be able to learn and roads not so congested to be able to get
to the schools.
``If we all do not take this step,
together, in holding the Urban Development Line, to preserve the
already-teetering balance between nature and sustainable communities,
then surely we will, individually, suffer the loss of quality
of life for all our children to come.''
Wayne Slaton, Miami Lakes Mayor
----------------
Having lived or worked in many countries gives me a larger perspective
for assessing the problems of urban growth in Miami-Dade and many
things strike me. A few, principal ones are:
a) Although members of the County Commission, when asked, refer
to a "master development plan" for the County, it is
clear that no such plan has been implemented. Whether political
coming-and-going, lobbyism and/or plain cold cash has pushed the
Master Plan aside is less relevant than the fact that urban sprawl
has become as uncontrolled as a cancer.
b) Developers in this County build subdivisions with limited or
no consideration for recreational areas, schools, infra structure,
etc. In other words, they build the slums of the future with cookie-cutter
houses with no space in between them. That these developments
are unattractive is reflected in the simple fact that developers
never reside in the subdivisions they build. If these subdivisions
or high-rises were as great as the developers claim and as they
look in the colorful ads, wouldn't they want to live there? They
could afford it, something most of the people who need decent
living conditions cannot, which only illustrates the absurdity
of our unplanned urban growth.
c) What developers - and the politicians who uncritically accept
their plans- call a success, ends up being a headache for the
County. Obviously, since they don't live there it is somebody
else's problem. The increase in population in the County far exceeds
the increase in the road system.
Without effective public mass transportation, a community like
West Kendall, which is an example of an already congested area,
will be a total gridlock if new developments along Krome Avenue
are approved.
d) As zero-growth is a pie-in-the-sky policy in South Florida
(despite its unquestionable merits), there needs to be a process
in which new developments are measured against the impact on all
aspects of the lives of people in the community, both quantitatively
and qualitative, before a new project is undertaken. That requires
a new way of thinking, including engaging County residents, but
the alternative is not even an option.
Kindest regards,
Torben Riise
The Crossings
West Kendall/Miami
------------
I'm tired of self serving developers dictating how we should grow.
We have county planners who are experts and our elected officials
instead listen to developers. Since our elected officials won't
do what is right for the citizens, it is only fair that we the
people decide how we should grow.
I live in Aventura and I am always
in traffic. I would prefer to be able to take a train to downtown
-- that would take my car off the road for others and there are
more people just like me. However, there is no train to downtown
that people like me can choose to use. We need transportation
first.
All these giant cities they are
proposing on the edge of the Everglades burdens us in the denser
areas. We are subsidizing their sprawl infrastructure. They pay
at the same rate at us but their actual cost of services is ten
fold ours.
And where will these people work?
Yes, they will drive through all our Eastern Cities to get to
their jobs.
Frankly, I have had it! It is time to be fair -- for all of us
to decide how we grow. I say NO to moving the Urban Development
Boundary. We need to get our act together within the boundary
first.
Nancy Lee
Aventura
-----------------
I hope Miami Dade doesn't move the UDB line because I care about
the Everglades. I was just there last week.
I used to live in Miami at SW 137
Avenue (near Miller).
It was a nightmare getting around
that is why I left. It was traffic, traffic and more traffic.
I can't comprehend what it would be like with lots more people
West of where I lived. I guess there will be even more traffic.
I am so glad I moved. Being in that rush hour was torture.
Jacalyn Giraud
Coral Springs
--------------------
So let's get this straight. They say the UDB needs to be moved
because there's no room to put more people in places like Kendall,
right?
Dadeland's built out, right? That's Dadeland, where 18,000 new
residential units are in the pipeline. Dadeland's parking lots
are being turned into dense city blocks. Turns out we've got a
lot of parking lots in Miami-Dade, parking lots that are simply
too pricey to
stay the way they are.
Oh, that's right, they say poor
people need affordable housing, and that's why we must build out
at the edge of the Everglades. Because poor people need single
family homes, way beyond the reach of public transit, where the
cost of getting everywhere by car effectively doubles housing
costs. God save us from developers with such good
intentions!
Albert Harum-Alvarez
Kendall
