Update: Will the 22 acres of the Palmetto Bay Village Center be saved? Seeing red. The current owners demand village protection for this land.

Warning to Palmetto Bay residents: the owners of the Palmetto Bay Village Center (PBVC) has drawn the line in regard to the continual gamesmanship of Palmetto Bay officials:

If the Council or you are not willing to except the free land as part of the site plan approval, then my client intends to evaluate its options with respect to the entirety of its 80 acres. 

What are the options of Palmetto Bay Village Center?

How long can the current Palmetto Bay officials act like they want save endangered lands, while really intending no such thing?  It is amazing. You really have to hunt for clues, crumbs and tidbits to cobble together in order to separate fact from fiction regarding the intent of the current Palmetto Bay elected officials. This is why transparency is so important. This is why failure to provide actual substantive updates in staff reports; failing to post items such as resolutions and minutes from meetings is so detrimental to the public’s right to know. The current mayor and council want people to give up. I won’t. So I am providing an update in regard to the Palmetto Bay Village Center (PBVC):

The Owners of the PBVC have grown tired of the monkey business of some of the elected officials here in Palmetto Bay.  See the full letter 3 page letter of October 6, 2020, by Eileen Ball Mehta, Esq., Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod, LLP. of October 6, 2020 (CLICK HERE). See an excerpt below:

We are completely confused by the conflicting messages that we have received. For years the residents and public officials of Palmetto Bay have entreated my client to help save this precious land for future generations. The Village adopted a resolution to achieve that goal. In your e-mail of April 16, 2020, however, you said that the land was "worthless." One might think that that mixed-message is confusing enough, but the Village has now reached out to us about spending taxpayer dollars to buy this so-called "worthless" land. I cannot comprehend why the Village would want to buy the land rather than accept a donation for free with only modest restrictions to protect it from despoliation.

(They, the owners of the PBVC) will not accept your re-written version of the Declaration (that written by the current Village attorney under direction of the current mayor and council) as it provides absolutely no protection of the land. If the Village is still interested in the donation, then we insist that, as part of the site plan approval by the Council, the Declaration be in substantially the form sent to you and the Council on September 1, 2020. If the Council or you are not willing to except the free land as part of the site plan approval, then my client intends to evaluate its options with respect to the entirety of its 80 acres. (Emphasis added)

CLICK HERE to view the "red lined" version of the proposed declaration. It must be read carefully to be believed. The proposed charges are enough to turn any true environmentalist 'red in the face'!

CLICK HERE to view an original unaltered version of the covenants prepared by Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod, LLP. 

One opinion from a confidant who review these same materials prior to this post: "(The) letter is straight to the point and shows the lack of interest from the village."

Is this land worthless? Are some current Palmetto Bay officials in over their heads? Some recent insight by noted environmentalists:

October 18, 2018, What’s So Special about a 22 Acre Forest on Old Cutler Road, by Eduardo Varona, Guest Post  and,

April 26, 2018, "Twenty-two acres of preserved pine rockland, protected from future development, is extremely significant for endangered animals that are being pushed out of their primary habitat." - Al Sunshine, President of the Miami Pine Rocklands Coalition, Inc.

Also see the October 2014 Palmetto Bay Op Ed concerning (Then) Mayor Shelley Stanczyk's attempt to zone the 22 acres for development. Mayor Stanczyk: Using the promise of a fire station as bait to develop protected native areas.

Is calling the property worthless, a purchase strategy? Perhaps we can start to see through the Strategy of the Current Mayor and Council. Call the land worthless and offer them $10 (ten dollars) to take this worthless land off their hands.  Nice try, but won’t fly. Why? Because in 2014 a prior mayor, Mayor Stanczyk nearly granted developmental rights for 40 units and a fire station for this same property. That has substantial value. See the 7/22/2014 article, Palmetto Bay council defers old Burger King property zoning; approves Palmer Trinity’s site-plan changes, by Lola Duffort. 

We had a prior appraisal of the 22 acre portion of this property completed prior to 2009.  EELs would have participated and paid 50% of the purchase price. Real estate prices change. That and government doesn’t set value. Purchase prices must conform to appraised values.  Do Palmetto Bay officials have an appraisal that demonstrates that these 22 acres are “worthless”? Cutler Bay recently negotiated to purchase 8.45 Acres of land along Old Cutler Road, located from 184th Street to Cutler Bay subdivision. The developer previously attempted to build 29 units on those 8.45 acres. The negotiated price is $8.45 million or $1 million an acre. The property is currently under a "Letter of Intent" and is not binding on the Town of Cutler Bay if the appraisals come in below that amount. I believe that the appraisals did come back and were in the range of 411.25 or $11.5 million for those 8.4 acres, or over $1.3 million an acre.

Based upon Cutler Bay’s recent action, you can bet that the current (2020) appraised value for the 22 acres of the PBVC will come back somewhere between $8.45 Million to $22 Million.

CLICK HERE to review the backstory, most recently in a post of September 23, 2020, Save, don’t pave the 22 acres! Residents, the original village council and I agree with the representatives of the Palmetto Bay Village Center – we all want the 22 acres to be permanently preserved. Protection needs to be by covenant, for 50 years plus, not a mere development order. An important read for anyone concerned with protecting the environment. I make that case that it takes a full, enforceable covenant. Why a covenant? Because a development order could be modified by a simple majority vote of this or any future mayor and council.  We need real environmental protection of 22 acres at the Palmetto Bay Village Center (PBVC).

This one time when the applicant is right and the current Palmetto Bay Mayor and Council are WRONG.

Please take the time to review the concerns outlined by Sara Barli Herald, Esq., Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod, LLP. In the 4 page letter of September 16, 2020 (CLICK HERE) as well as the updated 3 page letter of October 6, 2020, by of Eileen Ball Mehta, Esq., also of Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod, LLP. (CLICK HERE).