A Miami-Dade court ruling has put the brakes on a controversial high-rise project of Miami condos set to tower over Vizcaya Museum's gardens in Coconut Grove.
A Miami-Dade Circuit Court panel reversed the city’s zoning change that allowed the Related Companies to build three high-rise condominium towers on what is now Mercy Hospital land.
Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, one of two city commissioners who has opposed the projects from the beginning, said that these neighborhoods can’t have 40 story buildings towering over them.
Coconut Grove residents concerned about overcrowding in their neighborhood, and the Vizcayans, afraid the development would ruin the view at Miami’s historic Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, brought on this lawsuit.
Coconut Grove has never embraced a neighborhood with R-4 zoning, the highest density residential zoning that exists.
A panel of judges decided the final ruling against the spot zoning, where one project is out of scale with the surrounding neighborhood. They also found some improper changes took place outside of the public process that should not have been. Supposedly, here was a square footage change in the plans between Miami mayor Manny Diaz and the developer.
Investigators with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office are now looking into whether, Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones she sold her decisive ‘yes’ vote in return for the hiring of two colleagues by the developer.
Spence-Jones has denied the allegations.
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