Doral wants to absorb two square miles on its southwestern corner that contain big-name commercial and industrial tenants.
Miami-Dade is now reviewing the annexation request. If the county approves Doral’s application, business additions to the city will include tenants at 436-acre Beacon Lakes Industrial Park, which hosts distribution centers for Amazon, Goya Foods, UPS and John Deere. The area also contains Interport Logistics, Telemundo and Topgolf, among other businesses.
The land, now county unincorporated area, is bounded north and south by Northwest 25th and 12th streets and east and west by Northwest 117th and 137th avenues. More than half the area targeted for annexation is now used for industrial, transportation, communication and utility purposes, according to a city annexation report that the county filed Dec. 23.
Twenty percent of the area is waterways. Another 17%, 219 acres, are undeveloped. The remainder is zoned for commercial, office, agriculture, park, institutional and hotel use. The area contains no voters, Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Christina White confirmed in a Dec. 1 letter to Doral City Clerk Connie Diaz. The county has a 250-voter threshold – or 50% residential mix of an area – needed to require a public vote.
As required, Doral formally notified property owners within 600 feet of the area of a Dec. 21 hearing on the proposal. That same day, the city commission formally requested that the county change the boundaries. All but 11 of nearly 1,000 property owners who were notified of the hearing own residential properties.
Based on Doral’s tax rate, the city expects to receive $768,967 more in property taxes in the first post-annexation year after providing an estimated $564,513 in services to the area.
The issue next goes to Miami-Dade’s Planning Advisory Board, which is to meet June 14.
