After two failed efforts, Miami-Dade commissioners created a new tourism district that expands amusement operations in the county’s rural Redland farming area despite opposition from residents and agriculture officials.
The proposal, passed 10-2 without taking public comment on Tuesday, will allow more buildings and parking — which residents fear will dramatically change the farming vibe that once defined the area.
“What we are seeing in the Redland is the proliferation of amusement parks,” said Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins, who represents the area and asked why the same rules don’t apply to ag land in other districts. “This is something that is being born on the backs of the residents of District 8 and South Dade and I simply don't think that it's an appropriate decision.”
The new Miami Redland Agritourism District would make it easier for wedding venues, hay rides, food trucks and other businesses to operate without obtaining certificates of use. Some such businesses already operate there, either without permits or as temporary operations.
Proposed changes that would have loosened truck parking regulations were removed ahead of the vote, with only on-site parking for agro businesses allowed. Fines for noise violations was increased to $25,000.
The latest iteration of the district also includes limits on the size of buildings, but expands the boundaries beyond a corridor along Krome Avenue — an already busy commercial highway cutting through the Redland — and came as a surprise to opponents.
READ MORE: Farmers fear rare agricultural land in South Dade will be turned into parking lots
“The Krome district was bad, but at least things were already happening on Krome. Now you have swiss cheese or little islands of development,” said Josh Sproat, policy director for the Hold the Line Coalition. “You’re putting those next to residential uses. The ironic thing is ag lands inside the [urban development boundary] are excluded because I would guess they do not want to impact people.”
Creating the district essentially bypasses protections set in place by the boundary created decades ago to protect dwindling farm lands, he said.
The rural Redland has come under increasing pressure to develop as Miami-Dade County grows. And while it continues to help fuel an ag industry that ranks as the third largest contributor to the county economy, smaller 5-acre lots that make up the patchwork of farms and nurseries are increasingly being used as wedding venues and include wineries and breweries.
The idea to expand uses in the area was first proposed last year by Commissioner Kionne McGhee, who said business owners complained to him about the economic struggle to maintain farming operations. Originally, the new ordinance also would have removed limits on truck parking — which is already happening illegally.
But McGhee said Tuesday he deferred the item twice and repeatedly revised the ordinance to beef up protections for parking and noise and limited expanded uses to Krome Avenue.
Just before Tuesday’s meeting, McGhee agreed to include all of the Redland, after meeting with county officials who worried that limiting the new uses to Krome would hurt businesses elsewhere.
“We're actually renaming it the Miami Redland Agritourism District. This would actually allow for everyone to be included, similar to what the mayor and the farmers are requesting,” he said.
The new district allows landowners to build structures that cover up to 5% of their property, but not more than 2.5 acres.
“This would infuse this community with billions of dollars. It would also save farmland and agricultural land from being sold off to shadow buyers,” he said. “But it would also deal with the issue that has persisted for over 15 years. That hasn't been dealt with. And that's the issue of noise violation.”
State laws forbids expanded uses
Although the new district would allow structures, Cohen Higgins pointed out the state’s agritourism law forbids building additional structures to accommodate expanded uses, like weddings. Florida created the law In 2013 to help struggling farmers, but limited it to uses directly connected to the farming or ranching being done on the land.
“There's good reason for that, because the entire intention of the agritourism statute when drawn by the state, by farmers and Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson, was to preserve and to protect agricultural land,” she said. “They recognized that by building commercial structures, you are then turning agricultural land and agritourism into amusements.”
In a January memo, Simpson’s deputy commissioner explained the law distinguishes between legitimate activities tied to farming and other business. “The specific benefits to agritourism operations were never intended to apply to general commercial activities,” the memo said.
The county’s agricultural practices board, the county farm bureau, the Florida Nursery Growers and Landscapers Association and the Redlands Citizens Association have also opposed it and worry that it will shrink already disappearing farm land.
“They’re not going to plant corn or grow mangoes,” said Mary Waters, a member of the county ag practices board who worries that existing illegal operations that have sprouted up will only increase. “As bad as the trucking was, this is worse. Money needs to be pulled out of some other place to hire code enforcement, ag patrol and metro cops because there’s going to be so many more violations.”
Others worried commissioners had too little time to consider the last-minute changes.
“The amendment came out late last evening. So less than 16 hours later, how can they be expected to correlate all those changes in one morning,” said Ra Schooley. “I don’t think they fully understand how their vote will impact the real farmers and residents of South Dade.”
An earlier version of this story used the term agro tourism. Florida and Miami-Dade County use agritourism.
