Judge Nixes Approval Of Miami-Dade UDB Expansion For Industrial Megaproject

A judge dealt a major blow to two developers’ plans for an industrial megaproject outside Miami-Dade County’s Urban Development Boundary.

Leon County Circuit Court Judge Lee Marsh ruled that the county missed a deadline to approve a Comprehensive Development Master Plan amendment, essentially nullifying the application. Miami-Dade commissioners took up the amendment, which would have allowed for the project, five times until they voted in favor on Nov. 1, 2022, after the legally mandated deadline of Oct. 27, 2022.

“The statute includes specific deadlines that must be enforced, and the department must have the authority to enforce them. Otherwise, the statutory deadlines would have no significance and would be rendered mere surplusage,” Marsh wrote in the order issued on Friday.

The decision marks the latest chapter in the controversial proposal for the 5.9 million-square-foot South Dade Logistics and Technology District on the southeast corner of the Florida Turnpike and Southwest 122nd Avenue in an unincorporated area of southeast Miami-Dade.

The Urban Development Boundary, or UDB, is a greenbelt separating the developed portion of the county from wetlands and farmland. It is meant to stop construction sprawl west toward the Everglades and east toward Biscayne National Park, including over land needed for Everglades preservation.

Coral Gables-based Coral Rock and Miami-based Aligned Real Estate have wanted to build the project since at least 2021, arguing it would be an economic boon for the largely residential south Miami-Dade area, and it would be environmentally beneficial by cleaning up farmland discharges before they run off into the bay.

Coral Rock is led by David and Victor Brown, Michael Wohl and Stephen Blumenthal. Aligned is led by Jose Hevia.

The developers and their attorneys didn’t immediately return a request for comment, including on if they plan to appeal the order or re-file their application to Miami-Dade.

Project opponents led by environmental groups have decried the expansion of the UDB, arguing a portion of South Dade Logistics would rise on a “coastal high hazard area” at risk of flooding and would foil plans to buffer the county from sea-level rise. The development site, which is two miles from Biscayne National Park and near the C-102 canal, includes land that could be used for a Biscayne Bay and Everglades rehabilitation initiative, or the Biscayne Bay Southeastern Everglades Ecosystem Restoration Plan.

Source: The Real Deal