New law will devastate South Florida communities in the name of ‘affordable housing’ | Opinion
Misguided thinking
The June 23 front page story “The End of Wynwood?” showed the downside of Florida’s new “Live Local Act” legislation, which will devastate our neighborhoods while purporting to solve our housing crisis.
Just as “one size fits all” doesn’t work for shoes, neither does it work for housing. Not everyone, especially families with children, wants to live in high-rise apartments, even if they are relatively cheap. And they are cheap only due to economies of scale and also more profitable for big developers who have sold a bogus tale to our local and state elected officials that this the only answer when it’s not.
While Miami needs more housing units — or density — much of that can be achieved by encouraging small developers to produce three- and four-story apartment buildings. Cities throughout the nation are taking that route because it’s less intrusive and destructive of neighborhoods.
Why can’t we?
All it requires is for our elected officials to do the hard work of looking at the necessary incentives, which could include zoning changes, impact fee abatement, permit expediting and off-street parking requirement reductions. All of that and more are what the Live Local Act has already provided to big developers and their lobbyists in the name of “affordable housing.” We can and must do better. Insist that we do — at the voting booth.
Anthony R. Parrish, Jr.,
Coconut Grove
Depth of fields
Now that the Florida Panthers have done their part and finally brought home Lord Stanley’s piece of hardware, it would be a great idea for our four major sports teams to arrange to have a professional photo taken of the World Series trophy, the Vince Lombardi trophy, the Larry O’Brien trophy and the Stanley Cup, all sitting on a beach of glistening white sand and swaying palm trees in the background.
Time to show the world that South Florida is the home of champions.
Bryan Nemeroff,
West Kendall
Live Local works
As a lifelong resident, I was appalled at the framing of the June 23 front page story, “The End of Wynwood?” Reports from Miami Homes For All and the UF Shimberg Center indicate that Miami is thousands of units short on homes, at virtually any rung of the income ladder. Home prices are the gravest crisis facing every young adult looking to start a family and every entrepreneur trying to open a business.
As a consequence, Miami-Dade County is losing residents to the sprawling exurbs of Orlando, where homes are plentiful and affordable. On the other hand, trendy cities with the largest recent housing price cuts — like Austin, Texas or Minneapolis, Minnesota — have built through their demand-driven shortages. They have even seen that market-rate units ease up demand for lower-priced homes, filtering benefits to everyone in the neighborhood.
Our zoning code may preserve “historic character or scale,” whatever that means in a neighborhood that was mainly clothing import warehouses. However, it has not kept pace with the obvious demand. We should be glad developments are coming online at a scale to meet the challenge.
William Quinlan,
Miami Beach
In the limelight
Re: the June 21 story, “Rap star Travis Scott is arrested in South Beach yachting incident, police say.” Scott’s agent must be so grateful to the Herald for running, free of charge, the news of his arrest and his accomplishments in the “305.” This took a good third of a page.
What artists hate most is when nobody talks or writes about them.
Valeria Mastelli,
Key Biscayne
At-risk corner
While the focus of Miami Herald reporter Andres Viglucci’s excellent June 23 cover story was the possible “End of Wynwood,” I couldn’t have written a better epitaph for Bal Harbour. Like my three neighboring towns and villages, I fear “there is no understanding of planning, character or place.”
With the ill-conceived Live Local Act, cited by Bal Harbour Shops as an excuse for construction atop construction, bastardization of neighborhoods in this northeast corner of Miami-Dade County will have a catastrophic ripple effect.
In addition to increased traffic, which has few conduits due to our barrier island configuration, can anyone envision evacuating the population of these four municipalities across the Shepard Broad Causeway in advance of a major hurricane?
The adage that there are just two seasons in South Florida — summer and under construction — will only get repeated again and again.
Norma A. Orovitz,
Bay Harbor Islands
Gun safety
As June is Gun Violence Awareness month, I was glad to see two letters, “Bad bump” and “Address gun crisis,” in the June 23 Miami Herald address the issue, which also included a photo highlighting the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse the ban on bump stocks on semi-automatic rifles.
As one who was held at gunpoint in front of my house 13 years ago, I am a gun violence survivor and still here to fight this good fight. For concerned gun owners and non-gun owners alike, the fight for gun safety never ends.
Connie Goodman-Milone,
Miami
Billboard trauma
I don’t disagree with those who take issue with the recent “No to dictators, no to Trump” roadside billboard. Using trauma to make someone vote against a candidate is in poor taste. However, when this tactic is used to attack this specific candidate (Donald Trump), this seems to be only a “problem” for our Miami-Dade community.
How often has this same trauma tactic been used to scare voters about progressive candidates? How many times was former President Barack Obama called a communist? Or President Biden?
No matter who it’s being used against, trauma is insulting and a cheap tactic to motivate voters against a candidate. We should be promoting our candidates based on their stances and policies. If we want to attack a candidate, it should also be based on their stances and policies.
As a Venezuelan whose family was directly affected by the Chavez and Maduro regimes, I’m not a stranger to trauma. While our community is angered because of this exploitative ad, we’re really just mad because it’s being used against our preferred candidate this time.
How about we just choose to never insult voters’ intelligence?
Helen Roldan,
Miami Lakes
Shore power
Re the June 17 online story, “Why cruise ships docked at the Miami port will plug into giant electrical outlets:” A big thank you to Miami-Dade for finally achieving this and to the Miami Herald for encouraging the cruise industry to reduce its carbon emissions, especially while at port.
Two years ago, we boarded a Viking cruise ship in Bergen, Norway and noticed that it was already using shore power.
Now, each cruise ship visiting Miami must install appropriate switches to hook-up to shore power. Let’s hope the cruise industry will allow journalists to keep track of how many ships have been converted.
Juan A. Galan, Jr.,
Coral Gables
Cruelty redefined
Citizens Property Insurance is expected to seek a 14% overall rate hike for its nearly 1.2 million Florida customers.
Translation: Not President Biden-related inflation, but clearly, a Gov. Ron DeSantis escalation.
Joanne Tomarchio,
Miami
Flora and fauna
Re the June 17 story, “As if gators and iguanas weren’t enough, should you fear banana spiders?” Readers might also be interested to know that a microcosm of life spins around these spiders. They share their webs with other small spiders, some of which are males of the species but others of which are a separate species which has evolved to imitate the males. The large female tolerates them. These spiders are essentially parasitic on the female’s prey.
Even more incredibly, a genus of orchids, Brassia, has evolved to imitate the female spiders. Wasps which prey upon the spiders pollinate the Brassias. The process is called pseudo-antagonism. Brassia, like Golden Orb spiders, is widespread in the New World tropics. One species, Brassia caudata is native to South Florida.
Golden Orbs are emblematic of the rich biological diversity of South Florida and are to be cherished, not feared.
Martin Motes,
president,
Motes Orchids,
Redland
