Commission votes in favor of Mercy project
A few minutes ago, the Miami City Commission voted 3 to 2 in favor of changing the zoning on the Mercy Hospital-Related Group project., as smug Jorge Perez sat in the audience.
Commissioners Marc Sarnoff and Tomas Regalado were the only ones against changing the zoning to allow the monstrous project.
The other three Commissioners, Joe Sanchez, Michelle Spence-Jones and Angel Gonzalez voted in favor. Spence-Jones didn't have a clue what was going on, yet she voted as if she did.
Ex-Commissioner Johnny Winton showed up and talked in favor of the project, even though earlier in the evening, one speaker had a video of Winton speaking in favor of keeping G1 zoning in the wake of the Grovenor project, which would actually be against the zoning of the land.
It's business as usual in the City of Miami and Coconut Grove, folks.
Commissioners Marc Sarnoff and Tomas Regalado were the only ones against changing the zoning to allow the monstrous project.
The other three Commissioners, Joe Sanchez, Michelle Spence-Jones and Angel Gonzalez voted in favor. Spence-Jones didn't have a clue what was going on, yet she voted as if she did.
Ex-Commissioner Johnny Winton showed up and talked in favor of the project, even though earlier in the evening, one speaker had a video of Winton speaking in favor of keeping G1 zoning in the wake of the Grovenor project, which would actually be against the zoning of the land.
It's business as usual in the City of Miami and Coconut Grove, folks.
posted by Tom Falco at 11:11 PM
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22 Comments:
Very sad. Michelle Spence-Jones is an idiot. She has to keep leaving her seat to find out what she should say and how she should vote. Someday maybe a brick will fall on her heard and she will get some ethics.
Joe Sanchez is a putz. If he says "At the end of the day." one more time I will puke.
Angel Gonzalez was dozing. He only woke up to see Jorge Perez and bundled campaign contributions...
Commissioners Regalado and Sarnoff spoke honorably, and lost.
I attended the Mercy hearing at City Hall.
Citizens 0 Paid whores 1
What a disgrace. I hope someone files an appeal. Let a Judge show the City how to read its Code.
Wow! There goes the neighborhood in more ways than one. In between the monstrous construction that will paralyze traffic in the area, the overpricing effect that it will have on all adjacent properties (with the subsequent increases in real estate taxes) and the overpopulation this will bring, that part of Coconut Grove is plain lost.
Imagine 1,988 concrete trucks entering and exiting the Mercy site? Then imagine 1,000 out-of-town construction workers driving to Mercy and entering and exiting the Mercy site daily for 8 to 10 years? Then imagine 1,000's of sub-contractors putting in floors and renovating the luxury condos. 1,000 bedrooms and 700 bathrooms needing renovation...? Imagine the workers, the maids, the nannies, the electricians... all entering and exiting the Mercy site daily? Imagine students at LaSalle and patients at Mercy listening to the jack hammers daily? Noise that starts at 6:50 am daily? How much fun will that be for the neighbors? How much will that help their quality of life?
Blame Spence-Jones, Sanchez and Gonzalez for their tortured attempt at reasoning.
Thank Sarnoff and Regalado for their attempt to maintain the quality of life for the City of Miami.
Shame on Mercy Hospital & 3 Out of 5 Miami City Commissioners
How dare Mercy Hospital use guilt to try to sway the public and Miami City Commissioners in allowing them to sell their property for $100 million for their claim to help them service our community better? I went to a Catholic high school, and I thought that the Church's scandalous selling of so called “Indulgences” in the 1500's for blessing and entry to Heaven had already ended. How does that expression go about fooling some of the people some of the time?
How dare Mercy Hospital claim that they need more money even though they have always been a not-for-profit institution and should have been able to manage their funds much better since they are not required to pay taxes like other business? How do other hospitals manage to get new equipment and improve their facilities without selling out chucks of land to luxury condo developers?
How dare three out of five Miami City Commissioners vote in favor of rezoning Mercy Hospital property for the sake of building more luxury condos? The City of Miami already has a huge oversupply of luxury condo units that will take several years for the market to absorb. More housing inventory means lower values for all homeowners.
How dare the Assistant City Attorney inform the City Commissioners that they have the right to vote against official Zoning Laws and recommendations from our own City's planning and zoning boards - their own appointees? It is reasonable to conclude that the City Of Miami would not approve you selling your house to a developer that wishes to build an Exxon gasoline station even though the zoning didn't allow it, just because you needed the money. Needing the money is not a criterion for changing zoning and besides needing the money was not even the issue before the Commission last night.
And where was Jorge Fernandez, the City Attorney? Maybe he was not able to face the Grove again to make another decision against them?
How dare former Chief of Operations/Assistant City Manager Alicia Cuervo-Schrieber, have the nerve to take a job with this project's developer, The Related Group? Why does the City of Miami not have rules in place that prohibit former employees to take such a job? Let's bring that ordinance up before the Commission and prevent this travesty from taking place again.
How dare Lucia Dougherty (former City of Miami Attorney) who now is the "go to" zoning attorney at Greenberg Traurig that represents The Related Group think she is doing our community a big favor by offering to build just 300 more units when the builders could have built many more? I guess she feels that a punch in the stomach is more acceptable then one to the face! And she can tell us that from her ivory tower in the Grovenor. Which brings to mind, where is the $600,000 the Grovenor promised the community - in a trust account in some lawyer's office?
How dare various wealthy adjacent neighborhood associations agree with the Mercy Condo project? I doubt that they would have agreed if they had not been promised considerable financial compensation. There are a lot of people in this town, by their own admission, who stand to financially benefit greatly if this project goes through.
How dare City Commissioners Sanchez, Gonzalez, and Spence-Jones claim that they are voting for more luxury condos on the Mercy property for the benefit of all of the citizens of Miami and its future? I believe that less then 1% of our communities population can ill afford a condo that sells for $3-$15 million dollars.
Shame on them all! That penance should be worth at least 100 million Hail Mary’s.
It seems that only City Commissioners Regalado and Sarnoff truly understand the needs of our community and listen to our citizens! Miami could sure use more consciences elected officials like them!
Harry Emilio Gottlieb
Coconut Grove, FL.
Joe Sanchez was elected by a politcal machine in this City whose voters have no idea what the issues are; they vote how the radio and certain other community leaders tell them to. I can say it because I am married to one of them. Sheesh! Joe Sanchez and Manny Diaz are cut from the same cloth.
Splain it to me Lucy. Spence-Jones, after 5 hours of testimony and speakers, still didn't understand the GI zoning - why not stop one of the attorneys early on for an explanation. And why does she regularly leave the dais -- probably to call Mayor Diaz who she no doubt has on speed dial for answers. It was a sad day for Coconut Grove when the smell of money permeated the Chambers.
Got an article on Mercy on our blog.... http://eyeonmiami.blogspot.com/
What is the story with former highly paid City of Miami executive, Alicia Cuervo? She leaves the City of Miami after the City Planning Dept recommends a denial for the Related project. Then she gets hired by Related. Suddenly the City Planning Dept decides to give an approval recommendation. Yet the approval recommendation is based on weak facts and faulty law? Then Cuervo spends her time at her new job lobbying City officials, politicians and any community "leaders" who are willing to feed at the Related trough? Isn't there a period of two years where City staff cannot lobby and promote new schemes with the City?
Is anyone paying attention?
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? Do you remember when we went before the Commission and spoke about traffic on the HOME DEPOT issue Johnny Winton said I don't want to hear about traffic - we are always going to have traffic so learn to live with it. Then he got up and spoke at the Mercy hearing - YOU GOT IT - ABOUT TRAFFIC IN HIS NEIGHBORHOOD AND HOW IT WOULD AFFECT HIS QUALITY OF LIFE. Take it a step further, Jeff Bercow, attorney for HD, said if Home Depot went in WE WOULD HAVE LESS TRAFFIC and that is when the audience broke into laugher. It is captured on our dvd "Don't Box Me In." If you would like a copy email me with your name and address at mcconnell28@msn.com.
Sue McConnell
Snap out of it!
Coconut Grove CAN NOT and WILL NOT remain a bucolic village. It's time for all the foot-dragging moaners and whiners to pull up stakes and GO!
There's LOTS of empty space in Indian River County just waiting for you....
Traffic.
Sue McConnell is correct. Traffic is important. Traffic is one of the biggest factors affecting "quality of life". And even Johnny Winton (the hero of anonymous above) admitted it on January 25th when his neighborhood and his street are being affected.
Why did three Commissioners (Sanchez, Gonzalez and Spence-Jones) vote against Marc Sarnoff on this issue affecting such an important "quality of life" issue within Sarnoff's district? Isn't this a District 2 issue? More importantly, isn't the decision to approve a rezoning of Mercy highly technical? Shouldn't the majority of the Commission side with the local commissioner? Perhaps Sanchez, Gonzalez and Spence-Jones can re-play the public hearing? Listen to the technical opposition to the re-zoning? Or will other factors continue to dominate?
The night before the Mercy vote, the "standards" (limitations for building) for the proposed project at the Coconut Grove Metrorail Station were voted on at the County "RTDIC" committee.
The committee approved a maximum height of 200 feet along US-1 and a max height of 75 feet for the first 20' in from the sidewalk along 27th Terrace (to "protect" the single-family homes on the other side of the street). Structure can coverage up to 85% of the lot. There is a _minimum_ FAR of 1.5. There are _minimum_ sqft set for a market (30,000 sqft), for office space (157,000 sqft), and for businesses (34,000 sqft), but no maximum. There is a maximum 150 residences per acre, and the acreage is ~5.2 acres (ie 640+ residences max; no limits on size of residences). There is no maximum sqft-age for the whole development.
Residents were crying "What! No limits on the size of the thing?" and the county rep. said "oh, don't worry, we would never allow anything TOO big."
The next step is that the standards recommended by the committee will go to the Miami city commission for an up-or-down vote.
If the city approves, then the developer will draw up plans for approval by the county zoning department.
If the city disapproves, then it goes back to the county RTDIC committee to draw up something more acceptable.
--Milo Steger
Michelle Spence-Jones had no idea what she was voting for. I feel sorry for her district residents. She can't even understand 6th grade concepts. Her lack of understanding hurts the entire.
I agree. I just saw the replay of the Jan 25th Mercy hearing. Michelle Spence-Jones appeared to learn absolutely nothing from almost 6 hours of testimony. She appeared intellectually lost. It appeared she was told to vote yes and she needed some cover. Seems odd she would vote against the local commissioner. Very odd.
She has made many very dumb votes in her own district, Dist 5. Dist 5 people are very upset. Does seem odd she would disagree with the smart very well informed local commissioner, Marc Sarnoff?
Perhaps she will be better educated by the vote at Second reading?
The comments about Michelle Spence-Jones are naive. The District 2 piggy bank is what feeds the Dist. 5 boondoggles. As long as someone tells the Dist. 5 Commish that bigger development in Dist. 2 means more money for the liberal feeding trough, she will go along. She'd be voting against her interest not to.
A politically astute friend wrote me concerning my position to reject the Mercy Hospital/Related Group proposed luxury condo project.
She said...
“I have to disagree with you on this one. But do respect your right to opine. If you owned this very lucrative piece of property, I would imagine your tune would be different.
My responce was...
That is a most valuable property indeed because of its waterfront location.
It is even more valuable since it was gifted to them and cost $0.
The gift was made to help service the needs of our community it was never intended to be used for residential units.
They paid minimum property taxes for all these many years.
They are a not-for-profit and pay no income taxes.
They tried merging with other hospitals since they did such a poor job of management that they could not save much money for improvements.
They could borrow money or sell bonds and raise money but they don’t have very good credit and besides they don’t wish to pay any interest.
They now wish to sell some of the property to the highest bidder and they still wish to pay no taxes on the sale.
They wish to change our zoning and alter out neighborhood to do so.
Our community should not reward Mercy Hospital for being greedy and incompetent.
Our community should not reward the Related Group for building another super luxury condo that is totally out of scale in a market where there is a glut of thousands of units that will take years for the market to absorb.
Our community has paid for that property by subsiding their taxes and providing them with income.
Our community has a stake in that property.
Mercy should not have to alter our community in order to help them make improvements that thy should have made on their own a long time ago.
We should not be made to feel guilty for not agreeing with Mercy wishing to sell a portion of this land.
Will La Sal and the Church be sold in few years too?
Will the Planetarium be sold in few years?
Perhaps someday we can also get along without Viscaya and the Barnacle?
Do we really need more luxury condos on every inch of Biscayne Bay?
I wonder if the attorneys defending the sale of this property would be supporting them if they were not paid?
I wonder if Elena Carpenter the publisher of Miami Monthly Magazine would support this project if she was not going to profit as a lobbyist and recived and advertising budget.
I wonder if the neighborhood associations would have supported this project if they had not been paid off with an undisclosed sum.
Why can’t they reveal the sum if they are not ashamed of being paid off?
I doubt that those three Commissioners would not have supported this project were it not for all of the promises made for park money, walkways, affordable housing, personal perks and possible future jobs in the private sector.
Very few if any people would support this project if they did not have the potential for financial gains or a little too much Catholic Guilt.
Harry Emilio Gottlieb
To Harry Emilio Gottlieb et al,
Second Reading is coming up. Three Commissioners from other Districts voted against the majority will of Dist 2 residents and the will and Motion of the Dist 2 Commissioner, Marc Sarnoff.
Harry,
Do you have specific recommendations for how to get either Joe Sanchez, Angel Gonzalez or Michelle Spence-Jones to change their votes? To honor and respect the local Commissioner, Marc Sarnoff? To honor and respect the will of the voters on Nov 22nd, 2006?
People should bear in mind that Commissioner Marc Sarnoff was elected running on a "quality of life" platform. He won with 65% of the Dist 2 vote. Obviously, if Dist 2 voters wanted every park and every scrape of open space to be turned into high rises they could have voted for Marc Sarnoff's opponent. Let us prepare for Second Reading.
I am just a concerned Grovite like you.
It is totally unprecedented that City Commissioners vote against another Commissioner that is being affected in his district.
Even Winton was not that arrogant.
I believe that Michele Spence-Jones is the swing vote, since Sanchez and Gonzalez have seldom voted against any development project, variance or up zoning.
It is really up to Marc Sarnoff and Tomas Regalado to convince Michelle to vote against the Mercy Hospital project on the second reading.
It will be up to Attorney John Lucas and concerned Grovites like Sue McConnell, Ron Nelson, Gary Hecht, Felice Dubin and others to file a lawsuit if need be to mandate that the City Commissioners enforce the Zoning Code and not change it for Mercy, Related or the neighbors that have been paid off.
And by the way, why is the pay off amount secret?
And isn’t it illegal to except money for a vote?
When will the States Attorney or Ethics Board look into this matter?
All the very best,
Harry Emilio Gottlieb
Michelle Spence-Jones has a lot of trouble within her own District which is District 5. She should realize that voting against a popular Commissioner in another District could have "unintended consequences". Especially when it appeared she had absolutely no idea what she was voting on. After five hours of testimony she was still confused.
And we would be curious to learn how Spence-Jones plans to pay the $80,000 in fines from the Florida Election Commission for election law violations she is facing? Is it possible a developers law firm is now trying to defend Spence-Jones?
In December the following anonymous comment was sent to the Coconut Grove Grapevine and now the Sunpost has once again brought up the issue. I have asked Commissioner Sarnoff's Chief of Staff if there was in fact money funneled. The only reply I have received is the writer of the post has the incorrect Ms. Cuervo and many replies that Commissioner Haskins is not a pathetic unlikable idiot.
Brent Cutler
Marc is in a tough spot. He cut a deal to allow approval of the Mercy project and has already been rewarded by Related and Ocean Land, the organization that actually owns the land. They funneled money to Marc through innocent looking fronts. Marc's a smart guy. He knows where the money came from. And what’s expected of him. And he knows he can't go back on his word to them without jeopardizing his next election in only 10 months! He knows he will need their money again because this time his opponent won’t be a pathetic unlikable idiot like Haskins but someone who is smart, credible and independent from City Hall. He also knows that his neighbors will turn on him if they see evidence that Joe Arriola and Related deal-maker Christina Cuervo are making deals on his behalf. The plan is to let Marc give speeches and say he’s against this or that while Joe and Christine whisper to the other commissioners that it’s OK to ignore the district commissioner and ram projects down his throat with a series of 3 to 2 votes. Sarnoff will then go back to the Grove residents and say that the other big meanies on the commission just won’t listen to him.
Good plan. Will it work? Depends on whether Grove leaders are gutless patsies.
From Marc Sarnoff
I have occasionally viewed the Coconut Grove Grapevine Blog. I am often impressed with the level of discourse. Obviously, blogs have become a factor in American politics. Apparently, some bloggers think they know things that they could not possibly know and some use blogs as a way to voice their opinions as if their opinions were fact. Apparently, bloggers do not have to be careful with the facts and many voice their opinions, couched as fact with the apparent goal to hurt others.
We all have the right of free speech, thus we can equally enjoy the benefit of an opinion and a right to voice that opinion. Please do not mistake opinions for facts.
I have no ulterior motives in the Mercy rezoning issue. Of course, my goal is to make the best decision possible for the neighboring residents in the N. Grove, for the residents of Dist 2 and for the residents of the City of Miami. As I stated at the Commission meeting on January 25th, I just do not see a need to change the GI zoning to R4. I do not think that is good for the Grove. I equally have grave concern for the interpretation of the GI ordinance. My biggest concern is the proposed zoning change to an R4 designation. This is the "camel's nose in the tent" analogy. This designation could spread the development throughout the Mercy site and the LaSalle campus. If a precedent is set here, it could negatively affect every District within the City of Miami.
I love my job and representing the interests of all the residents of District 2. I get up every morning excited to be the Commissioner of this great District.
When I see a specific bloggers' comments, I understand everyone has a right to say what they want, and I realize that not every blogger has supported my candidacy. No problem. What does trouble me and my family is when a blogger states things that are untrue as fact. That is wrong -- just plain wrong!
I know that there are others out there that will not support me and that is okay; we are all entitled to our opinions. I will keep working to earn everyone’s trust and respect. I just do not want to see bloggers state as facts items that are not facts. Please state them as your opinion.
Let me close by saying just because you make an accusation in an email or on a blog that does not get a response, do not treat that accusation as fact. Maybe it is not worth a response or maybe the person making the observation is just throwing up something to see what sticks. Maybe the accused is just too busy attempting to solve substantive issues. Some people have a great deal of time on their hands -- they should use it productively.
I will resist responses like this in the future. I have no agenda other than looking out for what is good for all the residents of the City of Miami. I won election in 2006 spending very little money and I may not need much money to run for re-election in 2007. I owe no one. Let me repeat, I owe no one (except my volunteers for their support and they do not want anything in return except for good government). That is one reason why I enjoy this job so much. I realize many developers might be considering raising money for someone to oppose me in 2007. At least I know how that feels as I was outspent in 2006 by 4 to 1.
I have never been a supporter of conspiracies, but they do sell papers and they look fun in print. I am sorry - there is no conspiracy here.
Thank you for listening and enduring my comments. Please keep up the intelligent dialogue.
Sincerely,
Marc Sarnoff
District 2 Commissioner
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