Miami Wilds water park hits setback as county delays vote after environment warnings

The Miami Wilds water park failed to win a key vote Wednesday as county commissioners delayed picking a side between developers and environmental groups calling the project a disaster for critical habitat that surrounds Zoo Miami.

Sponsor Kionne McGhee requested the delay on revising the stalled project’s original 2020 lease on 28 acres of county land on zoo parking lots for a cluster of water slides, wave pools, restaurants and shops outside the attraction. The zoo, a county park, would receive an estimated $3 million a year from the project, with about half of the income coming from ending free parking and allowing Miami Wilds to charge $9 per vehicle for a new parking facility it would run.

READ MORE: There’s a water park planned for Zoo Miami. Environmentalists say it’s a disaster

Environmental groups helped pack the chambers with a string of speakers wearing bat stickers who urged commissioners to reject the new agreement developers need to keep the project alive as it fends off lawsuits that have blocked construction. Critics, including zoo spokesperson Ron Magill, say Miami Wilds will take away nighttime feeding grounds for the endangered Florida bonneted bat that lives in the pine rocklands forest at the edge of the development site.

“All creatures great and small have a right to be on this Earth,” Jean Field, a Coral Gables resident, told commissioners. “We can help them, or we can destroy them.”

In court filings, county lawyers have rejected the argument that environmental issues should bar construction on land that’s already used daily for parking in a habitat area that already includes commercial and residential development. Developer Paul Lambert and partners agreed to move a hotel proposed near the entrance of the zoo to a different site nearby where former U.S. Coast Guard barracks are now.

He told commissioners the project won’t hurt the surrounding environment at the zoo.

“This is not a binary choice between the water park and conservation,” Lambert said. “You can do both.”

The deal first won county approval in 2020. Litigation by Bat Conservation International and other groups has stalled the construction timeline and exposed flaws in the federal approval for some of the construction site once under the control of the National Parks Service.

With developers needing modifications to keep the county lease alive, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava recommended commissioners approve an amended deal. That put the issue before a 13-seat commission with six members who were not in office when Miami Wilds won an earlier lease modification in 2022.

Even with administration backing, Levine Cava suggested she’s open to changes in the agreement before the issue comes back to the commission. “I also want to take a deeper dive,” she said. “I think everyone knows it’s always been my position to do everything we can to protect our environment.”

McGhee didn’t give a reason for the deferral beyond an expectation that some of the issues related to the Miami Wilds litigation could get resolved before the lease comes back to the board on Sept. 19. On social media later, McGhee noted county voters approved an entertainment complex outside the zoo in a 2006 referendum.

“Those with concerns, you were heard loud and clear,” McGhee wrote. All parties “will work together to solve these issues and concerns.”

This article was updated to reflect a county analysis that predicted parking revenues would make up about half of the rent Miami Wilds would pay Miami-Dade County.