Miami-Dade could dedicate hundreds of millions in future property taxes to South Miami’s redevelopment through a measure up for a preliminary vote next week.
County Commissioners are set to consider an ordinance on Tuesday that would create a trust fund for a recently created city community redevelopment agency (CRA), projected to receive about $438.3 million over 30 years.
If approved at the meeting, the measure would go to a Subcommittee for further deliberation before returning to the full Commission for a final vote.
The measure is separate from an item the Commission unanimously OK’d last month to create a special district to finance redevelopment of the city’s landmark mall, Sunset Place.
Commissioner Raquel Regalado sponsored both measures. Her new ordinance would fund the South Miami CRA by directing 95% of the applicable county and city property tax revenue above an established baseline into the trust fund.
Those captured dollars — an estimated $235.2 million from the county and $203.1 million from the city — would instead go toward redeveloping a 238-acre area bounded by Southwest 62nd Street on the north, Southwest 76th Street on the south, Southwest 57th Avenue (Red Road) on the east and Southwest 62nd Avenue on the west.
That area encompasses Sunset Place, but extends beyond the mall footprint. The special taxing district for the mall, dubbed the Downtown SoMi Community Development District (CDD), covers just 10.16 acres and will utilize tax-exempt bonds for infrastructure, with the debt paid through assessments levied on property owners inside the district, rather than from the county or city’s general funds.
County documents say the CDD carries no county fiscal impact and that its debt won’t become a county obligation. By contrast, the CRA would commit county and city tax revenues to the larger area over a three-decade span.
Spending from the CRA trust fund could pay for property acquisitions, redevelopment planning, debt repayment, affordable and workforce housing, and community policing.
Miami-Dade would retain approval powers over borrowing backed by the fund’s tax revenue, and the CRA would undergo an independent audit each year.
In March, Miami-Dade Commissioners approved a resolution Regalado sponsored that declared the CRA area a “slum or blighted area” and authorized South Miami to create a CRA to improve its conditions.
The city approved it unanimously on April 7.