Greetings:
At long last Miami 21 is coming before the City Commission for first reading. As an observer of the process you can understand that there are a variety of naysayers, from those who are fearful of such a complex and thorough change, to those who feel the effort has fallen short of acceptable goals, to those whose individual interest is at odds with city-wide benefit.
I am writing to ask you to participate in the City Commission hearing August 6th at 2:00PM in support of the proposed zoning code.
This is a code to prepare the city for a transit-oriented, walkable, energy-conserving future. This effort has had extensive public participation and has been thoroughly responsive to individual concerns as they have been raised. Is it 100% perfect? Probably all would agree that it is not.
However, Miami 21 is a great advance over the existing code. Some of these advances are:
an entirely new Chapter 23 for Historic Preservation that includes:
transfer of development rights;
a response to neighborhood preservationists with a smaller single-family building envelope responding to the outcry over McMansions;
more appropriate transitions from commercial corridors to residential neighborhoods;
a new medium-density urban townhouse and low rise apartment type;
higher density building types providing wider sidewalks and pedestrian passages in overly long blocks;
building liners to conceal garages;
a new use type allowing live-work – including in industrial areas.
Miami 21 also includes a Public Benefit Program designed to assist the City with its growing needs in terms of affordable housing, parks and open spaces, green buildings, civic infrastructure and brownfield redevelopments.
The overall Miami 21 project includes as well the Parks and Public Spaces Master Plan (by Goody Clancy), the Climate Action Plan, the Bicycle Action Plan, designation of new historic districts – all very much coordinated with the proposed zoning code.
Miami 21 cannot satisfy all its critics. However, it represents tremendous improvement over current regulations. I hope you can join us at the City Commission meeting and/or write a letter to City Commissioners. We need voices to give our City Commissioners the confidence to support the code. Please join us this Thursday at City Hall.
-Manny
MiamiMayor@miamigov.com
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The worst Zoning Code I have ever read, and I have read quite a few in my days… I hope it dies an unglorious death at the hand of the Commission this week.. No need to extend this to Second Reading, it should die now! We aren’t a po-dunk town that doesn’t exist like celebration. The DPZ model does not work well in existing Cities. Just ask West Palm Beach, who hired DPZ 5 years ago to revamp their code, and has to hire Bernard Zyscovich to fix it 3 years later…
James, what makes this a bad code? It’s a great code, and it’s one that will add more density to Miami, and make it a more liveable one, that is more pedestrian-friendly and less car-oriented.
I threw his comments out the window as soon as he said “the worst Zoning Code ever.” Feel free to criticize, but please James, provide some substantive reasons.
If you actually did read the code, you would recognize that the complexity, scale, and comprehensive nature extends vastly beyond those codes that regulate the design and construction of new communities like Celebration.
James, if this is the worse code, which is your favorite?
(PS. You haven’t commented in a while, where’ve you been?)
Isn’t the Miami 21 plan available free on the internet? Called Smart Code? Anyone can download it for free. Why is Miami getting a “one size fits all plan”?
Ali,
This is a good question, and one that points to one of the many misconceptions about Miami.
The SmartCode is a model form-based code. It was conceived and is distributed as open source freeware. It is wholly meant to be calibrated to local political, social, historic, economic, and climate conditions. Thus, the SmartCode provides the base operating system for what has been adapted to Miami’s particular context.
DPZ could have calibrated the SmartCode outright to Miami existing urbanism quite quickly–if the city existed in a vacuum. We all know it doesn’t, so architects, politicians, citizen activist groups, developers, and such all had their hand in formulating the code. It is by no means a one size fits all code, as one could not bring Miami’s code and apply to any other context.
Is that clear?
In the first line above sentence above, I meant to say Miami 21, not just Miami.
Mike Lydon,
I think you might have missed the Planning Advisory Board Hearings on Miami 21 or many of the so-called public hearings. 95% of the speakers were opposed. Many for very serious reasons.
Why is it that only one group in the City likes Miami 21? That is the group being paid to promote it. Land use attorneys hate it. Miami Neighborhoods United recommends a deferral. Builders and developers find serious flaws. Single family neighborhoods do not like it. People in older condo buildings do not like it. The man on the street probably has no idea it exists.
Clearly the promoters of Miami 21 do not realize people will not use public transportation. This is Miami. There are no subways. Buses do not go where people want to go. A zoning code that attempts to eliminate parking? Be serious.
Perhaps someone should have done a Master Plan before the City paid for a reviled proposed zoning code?
Ali
As if cities are ever static!
PAB recommended Miami 21 to the City Commission, which is how we got where we are now.
Excuse me, being paid to promote?! If that’s the case I am sure hundreds of people are still waiting for their checks on the mail. Your statements are reductive and simplistic. I know attorneys who favor it. I know developers and many a landowner who are in favor of it.
We may not have more than one mass transit line, but if you think that this is the end state of the city, then you need to consider how urbanism, time, and history work. If we don’t plan now to have the walkable urbanity, the needed density around the stations we do have, then of course Miami remains a very limited city. Do you think NYC was originally built with transit? No, it took almost 200 years before they got their first line.
As for parking requirements, do you think we should just keep on promoting excessive driving? How about a city that leads? One that expects its citizens to get off their ass once and a while to get around? I think that is perfectly reasonable. Your health insurance bill may go down because of it too.
Perhaps everyones wish list can be met with Monopoly money?
Budgets are tight, yets, but perhaps we could re-prioritize and stop spending a half-billion dollars on widening a single highway interchange, and instead build out a world-class transportation system. It could have been done 10 years ago if the state, county, and city’s priorities were in line with those of other North American cities.
We have a choice. Miami 21 presents a similar choice.
Ali, perhaps you should leave Miami along with all of your suburbanite, ignorant friends. You have not given a substantive criticism of the code. You choose to simply believe that it is bad (perhaps because you are being paid to) without actually offering suggestions or alternatives. Based on your sarcastic responses to Mike’s reasoned comments we see that you don’t have any alternative (except to propose the moronic idea of a master plan for a built out city (James what do you think of that idea??)
Not only do you provide no substance to your criticism (a reflection of what’s in that empty cavity behind your eyes), but you have the balls to suggest we are getting paid to be advocates?? No sir, those are called lobbyists, we do this because we know what sort of future we have to look forward to if people like you are at the helm. We choose to be proactive in creating the type of city we want to live in. (ps. It’s pretty telling of your motives that in the same breadth you call for a lofty citywide master plan, while brushing aside the possibilty of transit serving our city. Sounds like you don’t know what you’re talking about.)
I would love to live in a transit friendly, bicycle friendly, pedestrian friendly city. Viva Miami 21.
I’D LIKE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ZONING ATLAS AND HOW IT WAS DEVELOPED. REGARDING VIRGINIA KEY, THE ZONING ATLAS LISTS THE ISLAND’S ENVIRONMENTALLY SIGNIFICANT NORTH POINT AS “URBAN CORE.” IS THIS A MISPRINT, OR JUST PART OF THE NOT “100 PERCENT PERFECT” AND “CAN’T SATISFY ALL CRITICS” MAYOR DIAZ IS REFERRING TO.THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS, FOR THOSE WHO DARE LOOK.
Miami 21 is not the “fountain of youth- DeLuna was looking for”, but the State of Florida still became a popular place to live. MIAMI 21 IS A FOUNDATION FROM WHICH TO BUILD THE FUTURE; It is not the end. I hope just as many critics and residents come out to the County’s currently scheduled Comprehensive Plan meetings to help impact the larger social issues of the region such as transit, UDB, new expressways, affordable housing outside the city, bicycle lanes, energy efficiency and clustering development.
I hope Transit Miami will post the County Comp Plan meetings and follow these as well. Regionally is where we must make a bigger difference.
You still have to have parking under Miami 21. You just also have to have bicycle parking. You can still build – even build big – but bigger buildings are encouraged near transit.
My neighborhood (Edgewater) is zoned high density under 21 – and so it is zoned now, too. Historic buildings like mine will be saved and the designation of other buildings will be encouraged, as well.
And SmartCode is online but so is the text of Miami 21: http://miami21.org/final_draft_code_January2009.asp
Read it, search for terms that are important to you, imagine Miami’s development as sustainable and people-friendly.
I remember how Miami used to be – and Miami 21 is going to restore Miami as a city of neighborhoods, families, visitors, arts & culture.
It can happen.
Support Miami 21!
Blanca, I think that is a valid point. You should definitely bring that up to commissioners as a correction to make, as the current zoning on the property is governmental/institution. This should be mostly T1-Natural with Civic Institution (CI) and limited Civic Space/Parks(CI)(which describes the large recreational fields the city proposed in the Virginia Key Master Plan.) Obviously, there shouldn’t be a T-6 designation here.
Here is a video from the Miami Herald of an interview with Manny about Miami 21:
The full video is just over an hour long and the condensed version that follows it is just under 3 minutes long…
Sorry, apparently it didn’t work. The links are as follows:
http://www.miamiherald.com/video/index.html?media_id=5429493
http://www.miamiherald.com/video/index.html?media_id=5429351
Juan Felipe, you forgot the link!
Mike,
I put the embedding, but it was published without it. I then tried to correct this by posting a follow-up comment giving the links instead, and it is being moderated (it may be published later).
That being said, you can see the condensed version at the bottom of the Miami Herald’s main page (the videos section of course). You can see the full 64 minute version on the opinion page (at the top of the main page, click on “OPINION” on the blue bar) at the bottom in the video section.
[...] this week, Urban Environment League member Blanca Mesa posted an comment on Transit Miami regarding Virginia Key and its zoning category under Miami 21. The proposed Miami 21 atlas calls [...]