Activists question murky deal to open Homestead air base for commercial use. Is Amazon involved?

Two environmental groups are asking Mayor Carlos Gimenez and county commissioners to delay a vote on a murky deal for a new commercial aviation operation at Homestead Air Reserve Base.

Little information has been released to the public for what has been described only as a “fixed base operator” that would provide storage, fuel and other general services. But a vote is still scheduled for tomorrow’s commission meeting. Because the base is close to a planned Amazon distribution center, there is speculation the deal is designed to benefit the online retail giant.

Attorney Paul Schwiep, representing the nonprofit Friends of the Everglades, sent Gimenez a letter on Monday requesting the deferral because the proposal “raises more questions than it answers.” The letter lists several questions about the project including what services would be provided and potential impacts to nearby Everglades and Biscayne national parks.

In the letter, Schwiep says that Friends was “ intimately involved” in the battle that blocked Miami-Dade County’s plan two decades ago to convert parts of the base into commercial cargo hub, citing noise and a slew of environmental impacts to the parks.

“The same concerns that drove the successful opposition to use of the air base for private purposes in the late 1990s and early 2000s apply with equal, if not greater, force today,” he wrote.

The Everglades Foundation, in a letter addressed to Commission Chairwoman Audrey Edmonson, also asked commissioners to postpone the vote, highlighting concerns about the county’s apparently “incremental approach that has had the effect of obscuring a much larger, longer-term objective” for the project.

“While, on its face, the county’s potential action tomorrow appears to be part of an effort to expand small-scale, general aviation activity, it has become impossible to ignore the paper trail that precedes it, pointing to a much more ambitious vision for commercial aviation at this facility,” CEO Eric Eikenberg wrote in the letter.

Environmentalists are concerned the proposed business could potentially turn into a large commercial operation that may threaten wildlife and water quality, and that there should be more details and public discussion before moving forward.

Last month, it took less than a minute for commissioners at a Public Safety and Rehabilitation Committee meeting to approve a resolution asking the county to finalize a deal for a fixed base operator at the base. Commissioners provided limited details on what exactly the project — first reported by WLRN News, The Herald’s news partner — is about.

The air of secrecy surrounding this item — from the unclear language of the draft resolution to the lack of public comment during the approval process so far — has environmentalists concerned.

“I found it disconcerting that a resolution was proposed without any kind of public input and failed to recognize the years of controversy over commercial aviation at the base,” said Alan Farago of Friends of the Everglades. “The fear is that this is not just a proposal for a fixed base operator, this is the camel’s nose under the tent.”

The battle to keep commercial aviation from coming to the area, so close to two of Florida’s most iconic ecosystems, isn’t new. After Hurricane Andrew ravaged Homestead in 1992, the idea of transforming the heavily damaged base into an airport was one of the options considered to support the area’s economic recovery. But after opposition from environmentalists — and influential residents of the Ocean Reef Club, a wealthy North Key Largo enclave in the flight path — the facility instead was rebuilt as a reserve air base.

But plans for a new fixed-base operator at the Homestead base resurfaced in 2014, when Gimenez began negotiating a joint use agreement with the Air Force for general aviation operations and services. In late 2015 county commissioners approved a resolution directing Gimenez to propose a deal for limited civilian use at the air base, with only small planes using the facility.

Two years ago, WLRN reported, the county auditor issued a report listing some revenue-generating benefits of expanded civilian use of the base.

“A joint-use Homestead Air Reserve Base would relieve congestion impacting cargo operations at Miami International Airport,” the report said. “This would also open MIA for additional, and more lucrative, passenger flights.”

Amazon is one company that could potentially put the airport to use.

Commissioners in July voted to sell a vacant lot at 13200 SW 272nd St. in South Dade to Amazon. The site, sold for $22 million, could be the e-commerce giant’s biggest warehouse in South Florida: Plans call for the construction of a distribution center of at least one million square feet. And it’s less than three miles from the base. FedEx is also already in the vicinity, with a distribution center that opened in 2018.

During the committee meeting on Sept. 9, Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz asked to co-sponsor the item with Commissioner Dennis Moss, saying the project to “have a dual-use airport at Homestead Air Base is getting close to reality.”

In emailed response to questions, Moss said a specific operator would be selected “in the future” to “provide basic aviation services and operations that are provided at our other general aviation airports such as private plane storage, fueling, landing and take off services, etc.”

He said it was important for the county’s economy to plan for a growing aviation demand.

“As the gateway to the Caribbean and South America, and because of expanded tourism and business growth in Miami-Dade, it is important to add additional aviation facilities when you can,“ he said. “Homestead offers a unique opportunity, because of the infrastructure that is already there.”

But activists fear the latest proposal could be the start of a project to create a massive cargo operation at the base that could require new roads and bring more traffic to the area.

“The thing to remember here is that we don’t know what’s going on,“ said Richard Grosso, a Nova Southeastern University law professor and an attorney who represented environmental organizations in prior litigation that halted plans for a major commercial airport at the air reserve base. “The potential uses this could lead to are a huge enough problem that the public deserves to know what’s going on.”