Hundreds of Fort Lauderdale residents tuned in to a special town hall meeting last month, outraged about a planned development of nine 30-story towers on the surface parking lots of the Galleria at Fort Lauderdale, an 800K SF mall from the 1980s.
The project, proposed by a team led by GFO Investments‘ Russell Galbut and WeWork’s former CEO, would tower over the single-family homes just across the street. In the meeting, one resident described the 3,000-plus-unit proposal as “a nuclear bomb.”
Locals had fought and won campaigns before to block development plans around the Galleria. But this time, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis told them, will be different.
There is nothing the city can do to stop the project.
Developers plan to build 30-story towers at 2414 E. Sunrise Blvd. in Fort Lauderdale, a few blocks from a single-family neighborhood.
“The neighbors did not want any of the previous proposals. They were intensive,” Trantalis said at the Oct. 28 meeting. “That was with regard to almost each proposal that came before us. And then Live Local materialized, and now the rules of the game have changed.”
Trantalis was referring to the landmark Live Local Act, which was passed by the Florida Legislature in 2023. The state law allows developers to circumvent local zoning regulations as long as they dedicate a portion of their projects to workforce housing.
Amendments passed this summer have effectively tied the hands of local governments and the neighborhoods they represent when it comes to height and density of multifamily towers, attorneys, developers and city officials say.
State legislators amended the law in 2024 and again this year, each time closing loopholes that cities and towns used to limit the scope of proposals coming in.
“This was a complete handout to the development community,” Trantalis told Bisnow in a phone call last week. “Their lobbyists went to Tallahassee, stripped the existing statute of all the reassurances that a local community would have in trying to address new development, and this gave carte blanche to developers under the ruse that, ‘Oh, you’re building affordable housing.’”
The Live Local Act incentivizes developers to build affordable and workforce housing by providing tax exemptions and allowing them to override local control as long as they dedicate 40% of a project’s units as affordable for households that make between 80% and 120% of the area median income.
The law allows developers to build to the maximum height of any building within a 1-mile radius and to 150% of the maximum floor area ratio currently allowed or allowed on July 1, 2023, blocking cities that may have reduced their allowable density after the law was passed. Municipalities must administratively approve projects that meet those requirements and local design and infrastructure mandates.
The legislation was created to attack the affordable housing crisis that has become a dark cloud looming over the Sunshine State and to prevent NIMBYism from stifling development.
Average multifamily rent had increased 39% from $1,238 in 2019 to $1,719 in 2023, according to a University of Florida Shimberg Center for Housing Studies 2025 Rental Market Study.
In Miami-Dade County alone, there is a shortage of 90,181 units for households earning less than $75K annually — about 80% of the area median income, according to Miami Homes For All. Miami’s median rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $2,250, according to an October Zumper report, and even though that is a 6% decrease from last year, it is significantly above the $1,511 national average.
But despite the immediate need for more housing, the law has been criticized for going too far to solve the problem.
The mile-radius rule means developers can build 50-story towers in Wynwood, which has a 12-story height limit, because of its proximity to high-density neighborhoods like Edgewater. It also means skyscrapers can rise above the historic Art Deco District in South Beach.
“If you want to destroy Miami Beach, you want to destroy our tourism-based economy, you want to stop Miami Beach being a destination to the wealthiest people in the world, line up Alton Road with 400-foot towers,” Miami Beach Commissioner Alex Fernandez said at a September Bisnow event.
Roughly 200 residents attended the meeting in person and about 300 tuned in online to watch the mayor address the Galleria at Fort Lauderdale plans.
After its initial passage, some municipalities imposed obstacles on Live Local projects, including adding extra fees and leveraging restrictions on residential zoning, Bilzin Sumberg attorney Anthony De Yurre told Bisnow in March.
Others simply slow-walked the approval process.
In January, GFO Investments had eight Live Local project applications filed with Miami Beach, yet none had been approved, the South Florida Business Journal reported. The city said the proposals, two of which are taller than 380 feet, didn’t comply with the law and that it was working with the developers. Galbut accused the city of “finding ways to stop any Live Local Act project.”
The amendments passed in June included rules forcing cities to issue administrative approvals within 90 days of an application, barring them from shrinking projects and mandating approvals of affordable and mixed-income housing on commercial, industrial and religious land.
Cymbal DLT Cos. CEO Hector Delatorres said at Bisnow’s Multifamily Summit last week that all of the company’s projects this year have utilized Live Local.
“It is probably one of the best legislations ever passed,” Delatorres said. “It’s not easy to qualify … but if you’re a developer and you’re not looking to Live Local, you’re missing out.”
Few South Florida Live Local projects have broken ground thus far, but that hasn’t stopped developers from proposing massive projects.
The Calta Group proposed a 30-story tower in Allapattah that would combine 210 workforce apartments with 289 market-rate condos, which was approved in September. Livwrk proposed three 45-story towers in Wynwood in May, offering three times the number of units from its original, 12-story proposal.
The developer of the largest Live Local project to receive approval said the extra density the law gave his project is critical to the affordability he plans to deliver.
Spanish developer Pablo Castro and his development partner, Laura Taurber, are planning an $880M project in Miami’s West Little River neighborhood.
Dubbed The HueHub, the plan calls for six 35-story towers that would hold 4,032 units on a 12-acre site. The duo signed an agreement with Miami-Dade County in August that would dedicate 3,000 of those units to essential workers.
Units are planned to be fully furnished with rents fixed for 10 years starting at $1,300 for studios, $1,600 for one-bedroom units and $1,900 for two-bedroom units.
He wouldn’t have been able to do it without the legislation, Castro said.
“Live Local is like the proof that if the politicians give us the right tools, the private sector can develop affordable and attainable housing,” Castro said. “This is a big issue in the U.S. [and] in most parts of the world.”
Courtesy of The HueHub
The HueHub, set to rise at 8395 NW 27th Ave., is the largest South Florida project using density bonuses through the Live Local Act to be approved.
Most cities agree that affordable housing is needed, especially since 60% of Miamians spend 30% or more of their monthly income on housing, according to a Miami Homes For All analysis of Census Bureau data.
But the law’s effect of allowing developers to bypass city councils or county commissions removes a key lever of a community to influence the identity of its built environment.
“We understand the intent behind the Live Local Act and share the goal of creating more opportunities for residents to live closer to where they work,” Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago said in a statement to Bisnow. “However, the Live Local Act, now in its third year and amended several times significantly limits local authority over key aspects of planning, including height, density, and land use.”
But Coral Gables, which has received one Live Local development application, is still applying its design standards, Mediterranean architectural guidelines, landscaping requirements and historic preservation protections, Lago said.
“As we implement the Live Local Act, our responsibility is to find balance complying with state law while upholding the beauty, integrity, and distinctive character that have defined the City Beautiful for a century,” he said.
For Fort Lauderdale, which received two more Live Local applications at the beginning of November, feelings about the law are far more heated.
Galbut told Bisnow in a phone call on Oct. 8 that he believed residents and small businesses would be supportive of the Galleria project. He said leveraging the act allows his team to fast-track permits, address affordability and increase foot traffic at the mall, which has struggled with occupancy in recent years.
“We just have to go through an education process,” Galbut said at the time.
But, he added, that would happen “at the same time using Live Local so that we can get permits as fast as humanly possible, so we can actually start to create the magic at this mall.”
Three weeks later, the mayor hosted a special town meeting at a local yacht club for residents to learn more about how the project would work under Live Local.
Galbut and his representatives declined multiple interview requests following the meeting.
This week, after the city requested a review of whether Live Local had been properly applied to the Galleria project, the Florida Office of the Attorney General ruled that Galbut and his development team are allowed to build it as is.
City Commissioner Steve Glassman told the Sun Sentinel following the decision that he is nevertheless “cautiously optimistic that the developer will scale back.” The developers’ attorney told the newspaper they have no intention of doing so.
“When a big development such as the Galleria comes before us, to take away the public participation, I think, denies the public the right to have a voice in what goes on in their own city,” Trantalis told Bisnow. “The Live Local Act, as it’s now been amended, pulls the rug out from under people.”