Fearing a big box store, residents help kill land swap

Posted on Thursday, January 12, 2006

MIAMI BEACH

Fearing a big box store, residents help kill land swap

A group of Miami Beach residents halted a proposed plan for a land swap that they feared would have resulted in a Home Depot.

BY SUSAN ANASAGASTI
sanasagasti@MiamiHerald.com

They came ready to fight. They waved signs that read ''No Home Depot'' and promised a long bitter battle to keep the big box store out of their city.

And they won -- for now.

The Miami Beach City Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to halt a proposed land swap that residents worried would ultimately bring a Home Depot to the Mid-Beach's Sunset Harbour neighborhood.

More than 100 residents from the recently formed group STOP the SWAP packed the city's commission meeting to protest the swap of three city parcels at 18th Street on Bay Road for four nearby lots on West Avenue.

''Miami Beach did it. We avoided the swap,'' said Nancy Liebman, a resident of Belle Isle. ``I knew that if we packed the audience with people we would get their attention.''

Miami Beach officials were hoping to move the city's property management facility from Flamingo Park to West Avenue, once the sale had been finalized.

But when residents learned that the owner of the land, Solomon Fellig, was in negotiations with Home Depot, they began their fight. A big box retailer, they argued, would increase traffic and ruin the area's quality of life.

Sunset Harbour, which runs along Biscayne Bay just north of 17th Street, is home to luxury high-rises, popular restaurants and a swanky Publix. But it is also home to tow company lots and a city parking maintenance facility.

Unlike residents of North Miami and Coconut Grove, who couldn't keep the big box store out of their neighborhoods, Miami Beach homeowners claimed victory.

Commissioners, who were scheduled to decide whether to set a public hearing on the issue, voted instead to kill the proposal completely.

''Obviously the people who showed up here today don't want this to continue at all,'' said Miami Beach Mayor David Dermer. ``If people come to city hall and they sit and pack a room, they wind up winning.''

Residents got support from Commissioner Saul Gross, who is not in favor of a big box retailer and who urged the city's Planning Board to consider setting a more strict set of rules for proposed projects on lots greater than 50,000 square feet.

''I think that particular size store in that neighborhood would be too disruptive,'' urged Gross.

The crowd, mostly from the Venetian Islands, Sunset Harbour, Bay Road and the Sunset Islands neighborhoods, erupted in applause.

But Fellig said he owns the land, 1833 Bay Rd., now zoned for light industrial use, and has a right to build on it and the adjacent parcels. With or without the swap, he said, it is only a matter of time before a retailer is built in the Bay Road neighborhood. Fellig said he has been negotiating with other retailers, too.

''The area I am in can be developed without a public hearing. This wasn't about a Home Depot. This was about the land swap, '' Fellig said. ``It wasn't a fair playing field.''

Commissioner Matti Bower, who lives near the Flamingo Park neighborhood, said she has long been in favor of moving the city's property management facility out of Flamingo Park. By voting to kill the project, she argued, the residents of Flamingo Park lose out.

''I understand nobody wants this,'' Bower said. ``What I feel sad about is that Flamingo Park people today don't have a voice.''

Still, residents at the meeting basked in the glory.

''I was so impressed,'' Liebman said. ``I think that we're steps ahead because we stopped this process. If they still want to put a Home Depot on that land, we'll deal with that and the crowds will be much bigger.''

Copyright 2006 Knight Ridder 

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