Mayor Carlos Gimenez is like a hungry dog on a bone with his plan to extend SR 836 into the last remaining farmland in Southwest Miami-Dade.
This holy grail of developer insiders at County Hall -- many of whom have fallow investments for a decade, since the financial crash -- is being sold as a "cure" for traffic congestion that should have been fixed generations ago on the county commission. Like for instance, when Gimenez was a county commissioner.
In the late 1990's, money from a transportation bond was frittered away plugging budget holes elsewhere. Developers -- mainly interested in keeping infrastructure costs low -- and county hall insiders opposed every measure where transit planning could pre-empt cookie-cutter subdivisions in low-cost wetlands or farmland.
This week, the Planning Advisory Board recommended to transmit to the full county commission the highway expansion project which will, naturally, lead to more pressure to transform lands beyond the UDB to suburban sprawl. Because that is who we are. Because that is what we do.
No journalism entity in Miami has written and published as much on the Urban Development Boundary, transit and environmental issues as Eye On Miami. (Click this link, for an archive.)
Our interest in the UDB is on several levels, but in general this artificial line -- created by politicians -- separates the areas that receive urban services (fire, police, water and sewer) subsidized by taxpayers from those that don't. The UDB, moreover, is a point of conflict. And points of conflict always highlight the values of a society. To me, that is what holds my interest in the UDB. It tells the story of South Florida better than any other.
That explains, too, the interest of Miami Herald, award-winning political cartoonist Jim Morin. We've collected a number of Morin cartoons on the UDB over the years. Many years. He is our fellow chronicler and, after all we've published on the UDB, a picture is still worth a thousand words.
This holy grail of developer insiders at County Hall -- many of whom have fallow investments for a decade, since the financial crash -- is being sold as a "cure" for traffic congestion that should have been fixed generations ago on the county commission. Like for instance, when Gimenez was a county commissioner.
In the late 1990's, money from a transportation bond was frittered away plugging budget holes elsewhere. Developers -- mainly interested in keeping infrastructure costs low -- and county hall insiders opposed every measure where transit planning could pre-empt cookie-cutter subdivisions in low-cost wetlands or farmland.
This week, the Planning Advisory Board recommended to transmit to the full county commission the highway expansion project which will, naturally, lead to more pressure to transform lands beyond the UDB to suburban sprawl. Because that is who we are. Because that is what we do.
No journalism entity in Miami has written and published as much on the Urban Development Boundary, transit and environmental issues as Eye On Miami. (Click this link, for an archive.)
Our interest in the UDB is on several levels, but in general this artificial line -- created by politicians -- separates the areas that receive urban services (fire, police, water and sewer) subsidized by taxpayers from those that don't. The UDB, moreover, is a point of conflict. And points of conflict always highlight the values of a society. To me, that is what holds my interest in the UDB. It tells the story of South Florida better than any other.
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| Jim Morin's most recent UDB cartoon |
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