MIAMI — From the moment he was assigned the heart-wrenching Surfside condo collapse case, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman has repeatedly said he wants to sell the oceanfront property to the highest bidder so that survivors of the deadly tragedy and the estates of dozens of victims can be compensated as much as possible.
So when he learned Wednesday that the town of Surfside was proposing to limit the redevelopment of the nearly 1.9-acre Champlain Towers South property as part of a townwide zoning overhaul, Hanzman was beside himself.
The judge said he was “beyond shocked” that town officials were considering a zoning change in Surfside that would effectively reduce the size of the lot by one-third to nearly 1.3 acres by changing the way the property is measured for density purposes.
In doing so, Hanzman said, it would drastically decrease the site’s value in a planned sale to a private developer for a luxury high-rise project.
Hanzman said he expected Surfside’s leaders to scrap the proposed zoning change.
“I would be shocked if the town of Surfside would take any action to diminish the value of that property,” Hanzman said during a court hearing on a class-action lawsuit over the condo building’s collapse. “I’m very confident that when they sit down they will come to the conclusion that it is best not to do that. It’s not the appropriate thing to do in response to this event.”
Not so fast, Surfside leaders said Thursday.
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett, who has praised Hanzman for his work on the case, said he respectfully disagreed with the judge’s assessment. Developing a luxury condo with fewer units would not necessarily devalue the project if the units are bigger and more expensive, said Burkett, who owns a real estate company.
“A reduction in density just means higher quality units as opposed to more lower quality units,” Burkett told the Miami Herald.
The proposed down-zoning of the town’s oceanfront corridor has been in the works for more than a year, as the Surfside Commission considers a wholesale rewrite of its zoning code.
Since the tower’s partial collapse on June 24 and the subsequent demolition of a section that remained standing, there has been an initial offer of $120 million to buy the land. That offer was based on current zoning that allows up to 205 condos on the site. Under proposed changes, however, the number of allowable units would drop to 139.
The former 12-story Champlain South condo tower, erected 40 years ago, had 136 units.
The current zoning code allows developers to calculate the density of an oceanfront property along Collins Avenue by measuring the lot going all the way east toward the “erosion control line” near the beach dunes.
The proposed revision calls for the measurement to stop at a different marker closer to the property, called the “bulkhead line.” The bulkhead standard was part of the town’s zoning code as recently as 2004 but was later replaced with the more permissive erosion standard.
The more restrictive standard was used as far back as 1981, when the Champlain Towers South building was developed, according to Surfside’s Consultant Planner Walter Keller. Burkett said under the revised code a developer likely could build “substantially the same building that was there.”
“I think right now, I’m happy that it sounds like what we’re doing would not materially negatively effect what they’re doing,” he said.
Still, the Commission will consider further reducing density in the oceanfront corridor.
At Wednesday’s court hearing, the son of an elderly woman who died in the collapse said he could not believe that the town of Surfside would intentionally reduce the value of the 8777 Collins Ave. property in a zoning change.
“I am appalled that the town of Surfside would do anything to adversely impact the families and victims by reducing the value of that property with rezoning ,” said Carlos Noriega, the police chief of North Bay Village and son of Hilda Noriega, who died at the age of 92. “I’m shocked that this matter has not been resolved” by town officials.
The proposed zoning changes, ironed out over several commission workshops, will be discussed again on Sept. 9. The rewrite cannot be adopted until it goes before the town’s Planning and Zoning Board and then the full Surfside Commission,which would need to vote favorably twice for the changes to pass.
The zoning rewrite, which touches every corner of the town, also includes proposals to require that a property owner obtain a permit to construct a new building before demolishing an existing building, restrict roof decks in single-family homes and require that building heights be measured from the road instead of the building’s ground floor.
As the town weighs a revised code, a Zoning in Progress rule is currently in place for at least three more months, requiring development applications to follow the stricter of either the current code or the proposed revision.
Burkett said limiting “hyper-development” in town was a pillar of his 2020 campaign to return as Surfside’s mayor, a role he previously served from 2006 to 2010.
“I intend to keep my promises,” he said.
Commissioner Eliana Salzhauer said Hanzman’s criticism of the zoning proposal would not derail the commission’s work. She leveled criticism of her own against the judge, asking that he call for an immediate investigation of the condo tower’s collapse.
A receiver for the building’s condo association, which is being sued in the class-action case and in other individual lawsuits, said that Miami-Dade County, which is conducting a criminal investigation, plans to turn over control of the property in September so that other parties can perform their own structural analysis of the tower’s collapse.
The town of Surfside, which is likely to become a defendant in the litigation, has been pushing for access to the Collins Avenue property.
“We were elected to serve the needs of the community, not deliver the fattest paycheck to a situation where we don’t know what caused it,” Salzhauer said. “We ran against over-development. And that’s what we’re going to do.”
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