“Surprising vote kills Miami 21 zoning overhaul”
As predicted, a backlash has developed.
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Encouragement, Education & Advocacy for Bicycling in the Real World
Not so surprising defeat in Miami
8 Responses to Not so surprising defeat in Miami
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I didn’t see public backlash from that article, it looked like the status quo trying to prevent change.
I don’t know much about that particular plan, but any aggressive community-centric livability plan is going to come face to face with the armies of hyper-individualism.
At some point we have to recognize that the cumulative affect of what each individual wants is unsustainable in an over-populated system with limited resources.
Global warming will put Miami under water. Seems somewhat appropriate, given Miami’s history.
To quote G&S:
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time —
To let the punishment fit the crime —
The punishment fit the crime;
Sounded like a great plan for pedestrians, which we all are at some point. Of course, not being a local, I don’t know what role bicycling played in the discussion or the outcome, but I couldn’t help but notice that in the pictures accompanying the story, all 3 that contained bicyclists had them on the sidewalk. Merely photographer/editor bias? Or consistent with how the plan’s proponents viewed bicycling?
“all 3 that contained bicyclists had them on the sidewalk. Merely photographer/editor bias? ”
‘Course it wasn’t bias. Lanes, paths, sidewalks, what’s the diff? As long as cycists are out of the way the same as pedestrians..
But to complain to the “people in charge” about that would be the same as farting.
Keri said, “I didn’t see public backlash from that article, it looked like the status quo trying to prevent change.”
The reporter quoted several land use attorneys and developers that were evenly split over for or against. Not sure what the consensus was considering there were SIX hours of public comment.
It seemed those that were against were mostly concerned with their loss of density or intensity. It’s incredibly difficult to down zone and the general public is quite fearful of density so you had competing interests, those that feared the increase in density in some areas and those that worried about losing out on commercial intensity due to height restrictions.
They couldn’t amend the comprehensive plan and institute some other land use issues, so I suspect the zoning ordinance is in need of overhauling anyway. This was round one I believe. It’s surprising to me that such a mass overhaul would get shot down like that – you don’t get to that point, first reading of an ordinance, without a lot of time and effort expended.
Mostly, people are just afraid of change and Diaz has definitely been trying to make changes down there.
“It’s incredibly difficult to down zone” because developers don’t much care for making less money from their property.
“general public is quite fearful of density” and loss of privacy. It is hard to believe that in my lifetime we have gone from back yards that either had no fence or if there was a fence it was a low picket fence or low chain link to now everybody has a fence as tall as is allowed that can’t be seen through. It used to be that the only people that had fences like that were people that had something to hide.
We don’t hear the term “new urbanism” much around Winter Park anymore. The economy has killed the canyon type “vision” developers and planners had for Edgewater Drive. The over-sized behemoth that was built there scared the Winter Park people silly.
“It’s surprising to me that such a mass overhaul would get shot down like that – you don’t get to that point, first reading of an ordinance, without a lot of time and effort expended.”
Which is why I came to the conclusion of backlash.
Projects in Winter Park and College Park may have indeed exceeded community comfort levels, but there are already tens of thousands of households in medium-to-high density in Central Florida suburbia: all those two-, three- and four-story apartments scattered around the area like train wrecks.
Good design is the answer to the fear of density. I could show the average uninformed person low density that they’d hate and higher density that they’d like.
“Good design is the answer to the fear of density. I could show the average uninformed person low density that they’d hate and higher density that they’d like.”
I think you are right about that.