The announcement of a Landuse and Zoning Workshop held by the City of North Miami Beach on March 11, 2014 elicited a big yawn from me.  As such I did not attend.

After years of participating in various and sundry “workshops” in my city, including proposed development projects that never made the leap from an architect’s drawing board to brick and mortar, I wasn’t about to waste another ninety minutes that I’ll never get back on listening to what I figured was yet another pie in the sky plan for North Miami Beach’s Big Future.

As far as I was concerned, we missed that train as far back as 2005 when former Mayor Ray Marin first attempted to bring much needed development to NMB, starting with a series of Smart Growth workshops (or charrettes).  A group of community activists formed a non-profit organization, Smart Growth NMB, Inc., in order to help facilitate development in our city.  (Note: I was a member of the Board of Directors from 2007 through 2010, after which I resigned around the time I started writing this blog.)

These workshops culminated in a Final Report of the “Visioning Process” as prepared by the Community Planning company Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin Lopez and Rinehart.  The “Glatting Jackson Preliminary Urban Design Plan” published in 2007, reviewed the findings of the 2005 Smart Growth Plan based on follow-up interviews and meetings with “stakeholders, community activists, land developer lawyers and sports league coordinators.”  The Plan spelled out in detail the opportunities and challenges we faced in order to bring North Miami Beach into the future, and it became the gold standard on which we pinned all our hopes for a vital and vibrant community.

It was an epic fail.

The first roadblock was the bursting of the real estate bubble in 2008, when almost all development came to a dramatic halt.  On top of that, certain anti-development factions in North Miami Beach banded together to oust Ray Marin from his seat in 2009 in order to install Myron Rosner, whose only goal for development in our city was to turn his personal homestead into a concrete jungle.

In the two short years that Myron sat at the head of the dais, he put the kibosh on all growth in NMB until we voted his ass out in the 2011 election.

The current City Council is now trying to jump back on the development bandwagon by hiring the planning company, Redevelopment Management Associates, (RMA) to provide them with a “vision” for our city’s future.

Excuse me for having a déjà vu moment.  But after spending the last nine fruitless years as a community activist attempting to kick start development in North Miami Beach, I’m sure you can understand my wary skepticism at this point.

So, no, I decided to sit out the city’s most recent “visioning workshop” for development.  The way I look at it, I can “envision” all I want that I’m the Queen of freaking England, but in the end, if I don’t cross the pond and figure out a way to marry the King, it ain’t never gonna happen.

After too much talk and not enough action, I’m one of those people who simply lose interest.  I just cut my losses and move on.

A few days after the Landuse and Zoning Workshop, I received an email from Kevin Crowder, the Director of Development of RMA, asking to meet with me so he could show and discuss with me the Strategic Planning Workshop presentation.  I took him up on his offer, and I have to admit that I was impressed by the group’s ideas and implementation plans.  Of particular interest to me was the proposal for the West Dixie South area (see page 19), which Mr. Crowder believes could be developed into a much needed thriving cultural arts center for North Miami Beach.

As most of you have recently noted (and criticized me for), I have been unfavorably comparing North Miami Beach to North Miami for our lack of cultural facilities – museums and art galleries in particular.  RMA’s idea of utilizing the historic TECO building and the surrounding warehouse buildings as a center for the arts intrigued me immensely.

An article just posted in the Miami Herald, New retail complex is a sign of change in Wynwood, whetted my appetite for what could be possible here in our city if our city’s leaders could somehow turn all this “visioning” into a real, live plan of action.  The area known as Wynwood was almost exactly the type of aging, tired and seedy neighborhood that I see North Miami Beach quickly becoming due to our lack of development.  Wynwood has somehow attracted creative and responsible developers with true vision to work with the community in order to create the cultural center for which it has become famous.

The reason for the successful development of this City of Miami neighborhood is that the Mayor and Commission have “seemed to embrace a laissez faire attitude toward Wynwood’s redevelopment.”  Miami Mayor Tomás Regolado was quoted as telling community members, “The role of the government should be one of help and get out of the way, because we don’t create jobs.  We don’t create economic development. … You do that.”

Amen!

Commissioner Marc Sarnoff also nailed it when he spoke of Wynwood to the Herald, “It’s not a place that looks back at its history.  It looks forward … to its possibilities.  It has no anchor on what it was.  It only has the possibility of what it can be.”

Boy, did he really hit home with that remark!  The anti-development naysayers in North Miami Beach seem to live in the past, nostalgically hoping for a return to the sleepy little bedroom town and to remain stuck in a 1960s and 1970s time warp.  What we once were is no longer relevant, nor is it a reality.  We are not Mayberry RFD.  It’s time to pull up the anchor and set sail into the future!

The North Miami Beach City Council’s latest “vision” has potential.  Lots and lots of it.  If only they can figure out a viable way to turn that “vision” into a reality, there might be hope for our city after all.

I will, however, not hold my breath.  Never far from my thoughts is a saying I heard a long time ago:  “Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.”

Right now all I’m hearing is a lot of noise.

And I’m not seeing a damn thing.

If the Mayor and Council of North Miami Beach want me to get excited about growth and development in our city, I really need a little less talk and a lot more action.

Shut up and kiss me already.

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”