A heavy equipment dealer hoping to build new headquarters on wetlands outside Miami-Dade County’s urban development boundary will now have to wait until May for a vote.
County commissioners again delayed voting on the controversially project after Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who issued a rare veto blocking the commission’s January approval, said Kelly Tractor had still failed to show why sprawling new headquarters need to be built outside the boundary. The 246-acre project would be more than 10 times bigger than its existing headquarters, with 2.2 million square feet for inside storage, more than 500 spots for truck parking, gas pumps, a helicopter pad and mechanics bays.
”The urban development boundary exists for a reason,” Levine Cava said at the meeting. “It's there to protect our environment, protect our residents, and protect our economy from the consequences of overdevelopment. These guidelines are not bargaining chips.”
READ MORE: Miami-Dade mayor vetoes heavy equipment dealership on wetlands
As divided commissioners debated whether jobs and economic development should trump protecting wetlands and preventing sprawl, Kelly officials offered to defer the vote to provide more details it normally keeps secret.
“ We don't want it to be too public. But we wanna be able to provide the information to give staff that comfort,” said Kelly representative Jose Gonzalez. “We have the data, there is clearly a need. They wouldn't be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a new facility to fail.”
The nearly century-old company says it needs to expand operations to serve the growing county by providing equipment and supplies for rock mining, highway construction, Everglades restoration and other work. To win approval, Kelly offered to donate 20 acres of wetlands to the county’s environmentally endangered lands program, preserve more than 60 acres of wetlands under a protective covenant and help restore 100 acres of wetlands elsewhere in the county.
But Kelly has drawn questions for bypassing more rigorous reviews under county growth rules and using a process normally reserved for governments seeking exception for public facilities.
“ We are setting precedent here,” Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins said if the board approved the application. “In the past, I've been very vocal about environmentally sensitive lands. If you're going to build outside of the urban development boundary, you have to demonstrate a need, and it's an extraordinary need.”
Debate also swirled over a so-called needs analysis, with some commissioners saying Kelly merely needed to prove its services are needed in the county. Cohen Higgins disputed that.
”The analysis has nothing to do with the private business need. Every business applying to do anything in this county will always say they need whatever it is,” she said. “The needs analysis under our [comprehensive] plan is whether or not there is sufficient available supply of land within our urban development boundary that you can utilize elsewhere in order to protect and maintain our urban development boundary.”
That led to outright questions over whether the county’s boundary, put in place in the 1970s to protect wetlands that recharge drinking water supplies, prevent sprawl and protect farmland, is even needed. Commissioner Jose “JC” Bermudez has repeatedly questioned its effectiveness.
”Without businesses, there is no Miami-Dade County,” Bermudez said, later explaining ”Fifty-two years ago, a bunch of rich Anglo men decided to set, because they owned all the land, an urban development boundary that we haven't looked at in 52 years.”
Commissioners mostly dismissed a last-minute letter from the Greater Miami Expressway Agency raising objections. Because the land sits in the path of a planned expansion of the 836 Expressway, GMX warned approving expanded development rights could increase costs for the highway. The highway has drawn objections from environmental groups worried that it could interfere with efforts to restore Everglades wetlands in Miami-Dade.
Commissioners set a new vote on the project at its upcoming May 5 regular commission meeting.
