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The savvy politicos’ approach to next Tuesday’s Miami Beach elections has been relatively simple: Position yourself as a staunch advocate of “controlled growth” and tar your opponent — by any means necessary — with the Portofino brush.
With the passage in June of a charter amendment calling for a citywide vote every time waterfront upzoning is considered, political aspirants on the Beach have discovered in “overdevelopment” an easy villain. Despite a $1.5 million campaign against the referendum financed by German developer Thomas Kramer, the measure triumphed resoundingly. The off-season election drew a 27 percent turnout, and 57 percent of those casting ballots voted in favor of the measure.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that everyone, incumbent and outsider alike, now declares himself or herself to be an advocate of controlled growth — as well as less crime, cleaner streets, more parking, and a chicken in every pot. When it comes to telling voters what they want to hear, it helps to know that thousands of people are incensed about overdevelopment in general and high-rises in particular.
Retiring Mayor Seymour Gelber, who appointed himself an arbiter of fairness in this election cycle, observes that Miami Beach voters, on the whole, haven’t evinced much enthusiasm for individual candidates. “I find that mostly the advocates — the people who are for one person or another — are the ones interested in the campaigns,” Gelber says. “By the time of the election, the candidates look alike, they’ve all moved to some popular middle, and everybody’s using the same buzzwords.”
Lay Portofino Tower and the Blue and Green Diamond skyscrapers end to end and you’ll get some idea of the gulf that often separates buzzwords from actual policy. As Miami Beach’s new elected officials are sworn in, they’ll find that gulf wider than ever, and their ability to do anything about it more constrained than ever.
Between May 1993 and September 1997, development projects containing nearly 6300 apartment or condominium units have applied to the city’s Design Review Board for approval. Many are under construction or have already been completed. Not all will be built, of course, and not all are high-rise monoliths. But the very prospect of more towering edifices jutting skyward has Miami Beach voters in the throes of a serious anti-development fervor.
Granted, the current commission engaged in a not insignificant round of downzoning in 1994, and just recently passed an ordinance capping the biggest buildings at 400 feet (about 40 stories). But with eighteen outsiders among the 22 contenders for five seats, voters will have ample opportunity to say whether those measures have satisfied their anti-development bloodlust — especially given the ubiquity of the incumbents’ connections to the reviled Portofino Agreement and its loathed figurehead Thomas Kramer.
The stupendous success of the June referendum has pressed some interesting creases into this season’s advertising campaigns. The phrase “Save Miami Beach” (the name of the political action committee that sponsored the referendum) has become a hot commodity. One example: incumbent Sy Eisenberg’s ad in the Miami Herald proclaiming, “Save Miami Beach from: Arrogance, petty politics, and character assassination.”
In the wake of Eisenberg’s appropriation of the slogan, Save Miami Beach vice chairman Eric Gottlieb says, the political action committee trademarked its name. But the phrase continues to show up in advertisements. The Council of Condominiums, for instance, has purchased print ads that read, “Help us save Miami Beach from false prophets.” In television spots, council president Henry Kay reads the names of favored candidates, who then stand together while Kay and other council members intone, “They will help us save Miami Beach.”
Though Save Miami Beach’s trademark claim may be difficult to enforce, the PAC’s leadership has notified Kay of his alleged transgressions and has been pondering legal action. Eric Gottlieb, however, has confidence in the discernment of development-wary Miami Beach residents: They see when they’re being misled. “People know what’s going on,” says Gottlieb, who is not related to incumbent Commissioner Susan Gottlieb. “We acquired a sensitivity to deceptive advertising with the Portofino campaign [against the Save Miami Beach referendum]. I have quite a bit of faith in the Miami Beach electorate to recognize this when it happens.”
A sampling of Beach voters from varying age groups, ethnicities, and neighborhoods — South Pointe to Lincoln Road to 41st Street to 71st Street — recently gave New Times a piece of their mind about issues most important to them as election day drew close. Themes such as crime and parking registered on the radar of many potential voters, but the overwhelming majority of those interviewed, when asked what was at stake in this Beach election, either figuratively or literally pointed to the nearest high-rise or construction crane. And they wondered, loudly, what the city could do to prevent the current development boom from spoiling those things that make Miami Beach a pleasure for its residents and for the many thousands of Dade County citizens who regularly visit.
Alan W., 44, North Beach, lifelong resident
I own a security business, so for me life has gotten better. The traffic situation is bad, and I don’t see a way out. I voted to contain the buildings and their height. I just think Miami Beach is wonderful and that the architecture is an important part of it. These big buildings every Tom, Dick, and tycoon want to put up — they take away the essence of the Beach.
Lynn Schuler, South Beach, five-year resident
I’m getting more and more discouraged by living here. I think that as time has gone by, they were working really hard trying to attract people here — investors and tourists — and I don’t necessarily think that’s the answer to everything. It’s more money, more money, more money. But it’s becoming overrun by who-knows-what. I don’t even want to come out and do things on the Beach any more because it’s not nice any more, it’s not comfortable. People are rude and nasty.
Elena Hernandez, 30, South Beach, four-year resident
The city keeps saying they are going to fix the parking problem, but every time someone who drives visits me, they get ticketed or towed. Everyone’s pretty much tired of it. It may be too late already. Parts of the Beach already have that strip-mall look.
Ms. L. Sanborn, 27, mid-Beach, two-year resident
I don’t think [the election] will make a difference. Business-wise, I’m sure it’s changed for the best — with Miami and the Beach being put on the map, so to speak. But in terms of being a resident, I don’t think it has changed for the best at all. I moved off South Beach because of vandalism, car thefts, constant parking hassles. Honestly, I have no idea what would make it better. The fact that it’s so congested and transient, that works for business. It seems that it’s either one way or the other: Either the residents suffer or the businesses suffer.
Anne Clark-Eriksson, 33, South Beach, five-year resident
Building-wise, the Beach is definitely in jeopardy. One of the things about Florida in general is that the buildings are low. You go to New York, you don’t know whether the sun is rising or setting any given hour because the buildings are so tall you can’t see. Here, you can watch the space shuttle go up from Miami. The higher the buildings, the high-rises, the more people there are too. This is a very small island. There’s already not enough parking, and they’re building these huge buildings.
Steve Rosenthal, 48, 6000 block of Collins Avenue, ten-year resident
South Beach has become such a hassle. I haven’t been to Ocean Drive probably in three years. We need the growth, but I think it’s gotten out of hand. I look out the window of my office on Lincoln Road and I wish I were in the crane business. There’s just crane after crane after crane. Then you go up to mid-Beach and there’s crane after crane after crane. I don’t know if moratorium is the right word, even though it’s being kicked around right now, but for lack of a better word, somewhere there’s got to be some sort of stop. Let’s take a step back, see what we’ve got, let these projects finish, and see what’s going on.
Miguel Zweig, 45, 5000 block of North Bay Road, ten-year resident
People will continue to come to the Beach. You can’t block it off, you can’t close it to newcomers. The last people in want everybody else to stay out, and I don’t think that’s right. If people want to live here, and there are people who want to invest in nice-looking buildings, I think the city should provide for more parking garages.
Raul Mavrides, 48, mid-Beach, 33-year resident
I don’t like this shit, these road-closings, and it’s the same all over. And they shouldn’t be developing so high. There’s only so much room. One thing I would like to see would be rent control — not just for people but for business. You keep seeing places open and close all the time because they can’t afford the rent. Another thing is parking. They make you pay for these residential stickers, and they charge eighteen dollars per parking ticket, and they’ll tow you away for nothing. I’ve seen people who work for a living, for five or six dollars an hour, they get their car towed and they don’t have the cash to get it out, so they lose their car.
Peter Amaro, 34, 2500 block of Collins Avenue, three-year resident
I’m just worried about all these buildings popping up all over the place and not being balanced. You know, there’s a bunch of buildings but there’s no place for the actual people who live in the area to go to a nice park or be able to do something where they’re not jostling between cars from tourists and tour vehicles and taxis — things like that. After a while it just won’t feel natural. It feels natural now to go to South Beach and do something on Ocean Drive, but it just seems like it’s getting to a point where it’s not going to be natural. It’s already getting to the point where you’re eliminating the resident for the buck.
Myrna Gross, 42, North Beach, lifelong resident
There’s a bigger influx of people, which is good for business. But with more people comes more traffic. It’s pretty out of control by now.
The roiling development debate in Miami Beach can be boiled down to two basic components: the building boom itself (which includes everything from scale to compatibility to aesthetics), and the most obvious consequence of that boom: congestion. Increased traffic, a deepening of the legendary parking crisis, and a strain on city services contribute to a generalized sense of strangulation.
Much as it might surprise Beach residents who see new construction barreling ahead unchecked, the city has the power to block any project that would degrade city services beyond levels city officials deem acceptable. In planning parlance, the procedure is known as concurrency. If the city determines that a planned condominium tower or supermarket or hotel will demand more in the way of services and infrastructure than the city can provide, it is not concurrent. Included are such things as the required amount of park land per resident, sewer capacity, storm drainage, and other services.
Perhaps the most salient aspect of concurrency for new projects is the impact they will have on traffic flow in the area surrounding development. If a new building were to generate enough trips to crowd nearby intersections beyond levels the city has deemed acceptable, that project is not concurrent and, theoretically, could be held up.
“The most legitimate issue I’ve heard [in the Miami Beach election campaigns] is services,” says David Dabby, senior vice president of Appraisal and Real Estate Associates (AREEA), a Miami market-research and property-appraisal firm. “Services should keep pace with development, and Miami Beach has always been a high-density place. But if you were to look at existing service levels, you’d find that they’re already below standard service levels.”
Recently, new development has been setting a brisk pace for services to match. Of some 40 apartment and condominium projects that have actually submitted applications to the Design Review Board since May 1993, five have been completed and twenty-one have reached at least the stage of being issued a building permit, according to the city’s master list of major developments. Though not all of them are high-rises, the projects with building permits would, if completed, account for slightly more than 2500 new residential units occupied by approximately 5000 people. Overall, the city’s population continues to grow and to get younger. The most recent estimate puts the head count at 98,000. Between the 1980 and 1990 censuses — the most recent figures available — the median age dropped precipitously: from 65 to 45.
One thing is certain, though: The Beach’s newer, younger residents are far more likely to own and drive automobiles than were their elderly predecessors. The Florida Department of Transportation’s traffic counts on Miami Beach’s state roads have shown an upward trend throughout the Nineties. At Alton Road and Twentieth Street, for example, average daily traffic has risen dramatically: from 23,680 vehicles in 1991 to 41,000 in 1996, an increase of 73 percent. On the Julia Tuttle Causeway just west of Alton, daily traffic has risen from 64,064 in 1991 to 82,000 in 1996, an increase of 28 percent. FDOT’s figures for the MacArthur Causeway cover only 1994 to 1996, during which period traffic increased twelve percent. Along 41st Street approaching Collins Avenue (and feeding the condo canyon to the north), traffic increased 35 percent between 1991 and 1996 — from 26,366 to 35,500 vehicles each day.
These numbers may seem to bear out residents’ street-level, anecdotal observations (and confirm their feelings of frustration), but a recent report issued by City Manager Jose Garcia-Pedrosa contends that, with the exception of troublesome intersections such as 41st Street and Indian Creek Drive, 71st Street at Abbott and Dickens, and Alton Road between Seventeenth and Twentieth streets, the city is in fact maintaining the acceptable level of traffic flow it had adopted in its 1989 comprehensive plan (amended in 1994).
Addressing traffic congestion in 1989, the city established as its worst-case scenario a level of service classified as D. This grade is based on a scale of traffic-flow measurement in which A is free-flowing traffic at all times and F is total gridlock. Says Miami Beach Planning and Zoning Director Dean Grandin: “D represents some congestion with intermittent backups, but not so much that a driver has to wait through more than one traffic-light cycle.”
This year’s much-maligned road work on the Beach’s major arteries will have little effect on traffic congestion per se; most of the work has been designed to bring another city service up to snuff: The city’s aging wastewater and potable-water systems are currently undergoing a $105 million upgrade, which has had the short-term effect of further snarling traffic as work crews tear up asphalt and replace pipe.
In his September report, Garcia-Pedrosa emphasized that the impact of new development on the city’s infrastructure is always considered before building permits are issued. “Concurrency findings are now required to control the timing of new development by linking development approvals … so that no new development projects can move forward if this test is not met,” he wrote. “In essence, it has the effect of a built-in moratorium for the project causing the impact only.”
The city manager prepared this report in response to the commission’s request for his and the city attorney’s opinions on whether an outright moratorium temporarily halting all development would be feasible and legal. Garcia-Pedrosa’s position was that an across-the-board moratorium on new construction was unnecessary, because the existing approval process already provides the city with the means to block any development that would unduly snarl traffic or otherwise overburden city services — even though such blocking has been rare.
Earlier this year, a long-awaited new Publix supermarket at West Avenue and Twentieth Street entered into an agreement with the city by which the corporation would pay for all necessary improvements to nearby intersections, especially those meeting clogged Alton Road. Attorney Jeff Bercow, who represented Publix in the deal, says his client had to commit to pay for the improvements before a building permit was issued.
Still, having seen imposing projects such as the twin Sunset Harbour high-rises, the two Diamonds, Portofino Tower, and the massive Floridian on West Avenue proceed apace, many residents don’t buy the explanation that existing city procedures put enough of a check on development. “Concurrency really is a two-sided situation,” says Joe Fleming, an attorney, Beach resident, and member of several city advisory boards over the years. “If you use it properly, [city administrators] would be right, but that’s not what’s happening. A lot of the jargon gets in the way of people understanding what’s really happening.
“Traffic is again a very legitimate way to restrict and monitor and establish controls,” Fleming continues. “But it never works out that way. You can drive on roads and notice traffic jams where they never existed before, and the traffic people — the consultants and experts — are people who are very good at using statistics to define problems, then solve them. But it never seems to key into the problem of controlling development. A good developer with a good traffic planner can convince you that there’s not going to be a problem.” (City planning administrators acknowledge that traffic-impact studies for individual projects are conducted by firms hired by the developers, not the city.)
Aristides Millas, a professor at the University of Miami’s School of Architecture and a long-time preservationist, also doubts that the city’s existing laws, even with the new height limitations, can truly limit development. “These myths that everything is okay, everything is beautiful, and we’re doing the right thing — it’s not at all that way,” he argues. “There’s a 36-story high-rise, the Sasson, [being built] in the Art Deco historic district that’s a result of [the 1989 zoning] ordinance. It’s under the code, so you can’t say no.”
Millas scoffs at the idea that the city’s concurrency policies can put any meaningful curb on development. “Where is the planning document that proves that?” he asks. “It’s just talk. Has anybody done any surveys like that? No, they’re too busy pandering to developers. Concurrency is just a buzzword.”
Connie Smith, 36, mid-Beach, ten-year resident
The whole thing in June was important because people really participated. It wasn’t the group that had the most money that won. I’m not sure [how that will carry over], but I think now they realize that they can’t just be the puppet of pro-growth to such an extreme that individual homeowners and such don’t have a voice. It’s the smallness and intimacy of the architecture on South Beach that attracted people, not the huge buildings.
Rupert B., 61, North Beach, 30-year resident
I thought [the referendum] was a very important election. I hadn’t really thought about the building situation until they brought it up, but I voted to stop the building.
John Prokop, South Beach, resident since July
I’m an architect, and I see some extremely out-of-scale stuff going on up the Beach. I’m particularly sensitive to Art Deco scale, and a community scale. With high-rises you get out of being a community and into a very urban landscape, and I don’t think that does anything but line developers’ pockets. And that’s what it comes down to — just greed. I tell you, the money involved and the political contributions, you factor all that in and you can literally buy anybody’s support for any project. You can buy architects’ support, you can buy planners’ support. Everybody works for the developers.
Yakov Gross, 35, mid-Beach, two-year resident
The city is too tilted toward developers and nonresidents of Miami Beach. I think it’s totally not family-friendly. Something has to be done about that so this becomes a viable town, not just some kind of boom-and-bust town.
Albert Goldman, 58, North Beach, 23-year resident
I would have voted to regulate new building on Miami Beach. I’m real glad it won.
Bill Greenhouse, South Beach, one-year resident
I don’t go north of Lincoln Road for a reason: It’s hell there. When I first moved here, I tried driving Collins through Miami Beach, just to see what was there, and it was — and I’m coming from Los Angeles — it was the longest, most painful drive I had ever taken in my life through street traffic.
Ed Hannaway, 39, South Beach, five-year resident
I like the amount of development. It doesn’t bother me in the least — I lived in midtown Manhattan. The local city government is so corrupt, New York City doesn’t even come close. These guys come out and they’ve got their hands out. They’re all a bunch of whores; they’ve all taken money already, so they’ve got to keep on taking money like any prostitute would. That’s all it is: They prostitute themselves to whoever is going to pay them the most money, and they don’t give a flying fuck in hell about anybody else. This is the most corrupt city I’ve ever been in in my life. I like it, though. I like it sleazy. It’s nice to be able to get whatever you want when you pay for it.
Several candidates are championing a message that speaks to residents’ frustration with increasing congestion and its attendant headaches. “All I know is my lights are flickering on and off and the traffic is unbelievable and the streets are filthy,” says mayoral candidate Mike Burke. “This city has put the cart before the horse. We’ve put construction up before we’ve provided the infrastructure.”
City planning and zoning director Dean Grandin stresses that infrastructure concerns will continue to be a factor in the the approval process for all new development — at least until the Beach reaches the point where it simply can’t take it any more. “At some point in time there’s a logical end to it all,” Grandin concedes. “Once we cannot mitigate any further, or maintain the roads at the adopted level, those projects cannot proceed — period. This will happen. I cannot tell you when or where, but there’s a logical end to all this. There is a limit — either a light at the end of the tunnel or a wall at the end of the tunnel.
“Even if not one new project is built, traffic will continue to increase on Miami Beach,” Grandin adds. “This is a popular destination, both for long stays and day visits, and all those trips are being added to our system notwithstanding development. Even if hypothetically we were to declare a moratorium, there would be additional traffic in Miami Beach.”
David Dabby of AREEA says that a moratorium would not seriously interfere with the real estate market because such considerations are a normal part of the development process. The market, he believes, will provide its own brakes very soon. “The city should not be concerned with overbuilding, from a market point of view,” he says. “For all Dade County waterfront — not specifically Miami Beach, which is about 40 percent of that market — if everything planned gets built over the next three to four years, then we do see an oversupply evolving.
“We’re still in the boom part of the cycle right now. If we’re talking about a moratorium that comes after those projects have undergone some of the design review process at the city, then I don’t think that will have much effect on the Miami Beach market. If you put the brakes on all projects [that haven’t received building permits], you would restrict supply enough to possibly create an undersupply, and if you create an undersupply, you’re hurting the public because of increased prices. Government needs to get its hands out of market forces.”
This past June voters in Miami Beach announced that they felt the invisible hands of the real estate market at their throats. It may be asking too much of mere politicians to “save” them. In fact, in some respects it may already be too late. “The fabric of the historic district is being torn to pieces, whether or not it’s a high-rise,” seethes UM professor Millas. “Below Sixth Street it sickens my heart to see everything that has happened. Anyone who comes to Miami Beach and has any sensitivity to architecture looks around and says, ‘My God, what’s happening here?’
