City will decide retailer's fate in tiny community

Posted on Sunday, June 25, 2006

MIAMI BEACH/SUNSET HARBOUR

City will decide retailer's fate in tiny community

A controversial project planned for Miami Beach's Sunset Harbour neighborhood is set to go before the city's Planning Board Tuesday at City Hall.

BY SUSAN ANASAGASTI
sanasagasti@MiamiHerald.com

The fate of the much debated and controversial development project in Miami Beach's Sunset Harbour neighborhood will be decided by the Planning Board this week.

To build a large retailer in the neighborhood, Zalman and Solomon Fellig first need the ''conditional use'' approval by the city's Planning Board, which is scheduled to meet at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.

The brothers, who own two lots in Sunset Harbour, want to build a home improvement store -- possibly a Home Depot -- on the lot between Bay Road and West Avenue, and a supermarket on the lot between West Avenue and Alton Road.

Only the home improvement store is set to go before the Planning Board on Tuesday. The Felligs recognize it will be an uphill battle. For several months, their quest has met resistance from residents and city officials.

In January, residents first raised concerns about the development of a big-box retailer in their small neighborhood, located just east of Biscayne Bay and north of 17th Street. The neighborhood is mostly zoned for industrial and commercial uses, and includes a Publix.

When rumors started circulating about their plans to negotiate a land swap with the city that would have resulted in a Home Depot, residents packed a City Commission meeting to protest the deal.

The commission voted unanimously to halt the proposed land swap of three city parcels at 18th Street on Bay Road for four nearby lots owned by the Fellig brothers on West Avenue.

Residents claimed victory. But that didn't stop the Fellig brothers from moving forward with their plans to bring a home improvement store to the neighborhood.

The residents vowed to keep fighting and in April, they garnered support -- again -- from commissioners who approved a zoning ordinance that set a more strict set of rules for proposed projects 50,000-square feet or greater in the small neighborhood.

Under the new ordinance, approved at the City Commission's June 7 meeting, applicants seeking to build large-scale developments in the Sunset Harbour district, which is zoned for light industrial use, need a ''conditional use'' permit from the city's Planning Board. The ordinance does not affect proposed projects outside the district.

Before the ordinance was approved, projects were only reviewed by the Design Review Board or the Historic Preservation Board.

Solomon and Zalman Fellig argue they have unfairly been singled out by city leaders. They contend they have the right to build on their land, and cited a pair of large-scale projects in other neighborhoods that were recently approved by the city's Design Review Board -- without having to first get conditional use approval.

''That's when I knew it was personal, not business,'' Zalman Fellig said, who noted he and his brother are the only property owners in the neighborhood with lots larger than 50,000 square feet.

The Felligs are also fighting the city's interpretation of the word ''structure.'' The question is whether the total square-footage of a building should include parking.

Zalman Fellig said the city should not require that his supermarket project -- possibly a Whole Foods Market -- in the 1800 block of West Avenue go through the conditional use process because a large portion of the lot sits on land zoned for commercial use, not light industrial.

Copyright 2006 Knight Ridder

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