Miami-Dade County commissioners voted Wednesday to reconsider a controversial heavy equipment headquarters on wetlands outside the county’s urban development boundary rather than reject a rare veto by the mayor.
In proposing the do-over, Commissioner Juan Carlos JC Bermudez, who championed Kelly Tractor’s expansion plan, said he wanted to give the company and county staff a chance to work out a deal.
“ The mayor may take the same position, and if the mayor does take the same position, then I think we all know what we have to do. At least I know what I'm gonna do,” Bermudez said before taking aim at what he described as a bigger problem and the focus of much of the meeting: the county’s urban development boundary.
READ MORE: Miami-Dade mayor vetoes heavy equipment dealership on wetlands
”It was never meant to be a permanent line,” he said. “Never, ever, ever. That's why Broward doesn't have one.”
The boundary created in the 1970s and formalized in a 1983 countywide growth management plan often draws ire from commissioners dealing with pro-growth constituents outside the line dividing wetlands, farms and rockmines from urban growth. The line starts west of Miami Gardens at the county line and runs south Florida City.
Kelly Tractor’s project has become the latest proxy in the battle likely for two reasons: state lawmakers increasingly approving pre-emptive measures to prevent local control of growth are now considering a study to determine whether such boundaries are justified. Kelly also skirted the standard application process that includes a zoning change requiring detailed plans when it instead submitted a text amendment to the county’s growth plan. The change would carve out a special district for the large equipment dealer on 246 acres the company owns just west of where the Dolphin Expressway ends.
Those amendments, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said, are typically used to revise code, not approve projects.
“ When you have a full application, you have a joint zoning application. You can see exactly what's gonna happen and then you can discuss those exact impacts. You also establish need,” she said. “This is a great company. Nothing that I have said or would ever say is against the company itself…But they have not, because they use the text amendment process, they've not been able to establish why it was necessary for them to go outside the UDB to build this.”
Kelly Tractor says it wants to build buildings covering more than 2.2 million square feet, along with a rail connection, repair bays, fueling depots and helicopter pad on the 246 acres of mostly protected wetlands to better service large infrastructure projects being built.
Commissioners approved it in January over staff objections that it would pave over some of the healthiest wetlands remaining in the county that protect water supplies and lessen flooding. Some of those wetlands include previously restored land placed in what was supposed to be a protective covenant.
Levine Cava vetoed that approval this month, a move endorsed by the Everglades Foundation, Miami Waterkeeper and the county’s League of Cities at a press conference Tuesday.
While much of Wednesday’s discussion focused on whether to change growth policy — something the county is now considering in a series of public workshops as part of a regular seven-year update to its Comprehensive Development Management Plan — commissioners ultimately voted to give Kelly Tractor and county staff a month to come to an agreement.
Commissioner Oliver Gilbert, among the most vocal in Wednesday’s discussion, doubted any agreement would be reached.
”Your point fundamentally is that you don't want the functional expansion of [the urban development boundary] based on very specific parcels via the text amendment process,” he said. ”That point cannot be remedied with [Kelly Tractor’s] negotiations.”
While she would be open to considering a deal, Levine Cava argued the massive scope of the project warranted more details than a mere change in wording in the county growth plan.
“ Text amendments have historically been brought forward to refine our [growth] policies,” she said, adding “I, just like you, need time to consider what is being proffered. We're talking a month."
"This is a project that would be over a decade. This is not a short-term project," she said. "I think it's appropriate and valid to allow me — and the community and concerned citizens and business people and everybody — to have a chance to see what is being proffered.”
