Strong language for an amendment to the zoning code? Yes—unless you realize how hard a reform-minded group of architects, planners and developers have tried to encourage walkable urban development in the city. In 2015, Miami decided to exempt developers of small buildings from onerous parking mandates. Townhouses and small apartment buildings cropped up on vacant lots across the city.
as well. The vision that was coming in to focus, one planner told me, was “less Houston, more Paris.”Local lawmakers have picked the Houston route. In March, the city commission voted to end Miami’s experiment in old-school urban development, and they did so in peculiar fashion: There was no study, no official rationale, and no sponsor who wanted to take credit.
Back then, Frey was trying to figure out why development in Miami seemed divided between either residential towers or suburban sprawl. “I was thinking about neighborhoods I liked, and wondering why we didn’t have more of those neighborhoods. [Boston’s] Back Bay. Little Havana. [New York City’s] Greenwich Village. Requiring parking seemed to be the big obstacle.”Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, then a city commissioner, pushed for a parking exemption for buildings under 10,000 square feet.
snapthennap The streets of Miami will be underwater soon enough... AtlanticOcean