<\/p>\n
A rendering of the revised proposal by the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel to build a water park and renovate the pool area.<\/p>\n
City of Miami Beach<\/p>\n
Fontainebleau Hotel on Miami Beach will likely get the go ahead to build a controversial water park on its deck under a bill state lawmakers passed on Friday, even though locals and the state representative for the area don\u2019t want it.<\/p>\n
Rep. Fabi\u00e1n Basabe told the Herald\/Times after the bill passed that he was \u201cvery disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMiami Beach has experienced decades of overdevelopment while critical infrastructure has struggled to keep up,\u201d Basabe, a Miami Beach Republican, said. \u201cWhat our community is asking for is responsible redevelopment that fixes what we already have before placing even more pressure on traffic, water, and stormwater systems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Basabe added: \u201cThe provision in this legislation effectively addresses a single property in Miami Beach, and decisions like that are typically best handled locally under home rule.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doral Rep. David Borrero added the Fontainebleau amendment to HB 399 in February after representatives with the hotel faced opposition<\/a> from local residents who packed a Miami Beach Historic Preservation Board meeting that month. Borrero told<\/a> the Herald\/Times that he had worked with a lobbyist representing the hotel on the amendment.<\/p>\n Borrero didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday but told the Herald\/Times last month that he didn\u2019t understand why the Historic Preservation Board was \u201cstalling progress.\u201d<\/p>\n Under the bill, the city must \u201cadministratively approve\u201d the change request to Fontainebleau\u2019s structure that will allow it to build the water slides on its deck. The provision will sunset after five years \u2014 but that is unlikely to affect the changes the Fontainebleau is seeking given it only applies to the application process, not the construction.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the sunset provision is in there, that still means that we\u2019re usurping the process, and we are about to do something that the residents of the area do not want,\u201d Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Miami Democrat, said before voting against the bill in the Senate on Friday. Jones narrowly lost his bid, 20-17, to remove the Fontainebleau provision from the bill before his chamber passed it.<\/p>\n Gov. Ron DeSantis can still veto the bill, but that is less likely given that the Senate president said he had input on the final product.<\/p>\n Silencing resident opposition<\/p>\n Alex Fernandez, a Miami Beach commissioner, said the legislation\u2019s passage \u201callows the Fontainebleau Hotel to silence resident opposition and effectively force a massive water park attraction right next to where people live.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe overwhelming amount of residents who passionately opposed this project have been silenced by people in Tallahassee who want to act as the Miami Beach zoning board \u2014 dictating irresponsible land-use decisions for a community they neither live in nor understand,\u201d Fernandez said.<\/p>\n Mark Weiss, a Miami Beach resident and attorney who has spearheaded activism against the water slide project, told the Herald\/Times that \u201ctoday is a very sad day for our city and state.<\/p>\n \u201dOur elected representatives don\u2019t control our city, billionaire Jeffrey Soffer does.\u201d<\/p>\n Soffer is the owner of the Fontainebleau. He could not be reached directly for comment.<\/p>\n \u201cSeparate from the legislation, Fontainebleau\u2019s Miami Beach proposal involves thoughtful upgrades to existing outdoor amenities, consistent with the City\u2019s current zoning code, permitted uses, and established application process,\u201d Fontainebleau Development said in a statement.<\/p>\n Urban Developement Boundary item removed<\/p>\n After the legislative session wrapped on Friday, Senate President Ben Albritton acknowledged the bill \u201chad its ups and downs all the way through the process.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Florida Senate worked together to figure out how to get a product that this body could be supportive of,\u201d Albritton, a Wauchula Republican, told reporters. \u201cDid the governor have input? Yes. So did the Florida House.\u201d<\/p>\n Another change to the bill driven by the Senate was the removal of a separate controversial provision that would have allowed development in protected areas like the Everglades by allowing the Miami-Dade County Commission to move the Urban Development Boundary line with a simple majority vote. Currently, two-thirds of the 13-member commission board must agree to move the boundary line and greenlight those developments.<\/p>\n Before the vote on that specific change, Sen. Alexis Calatayud, the Miami Republican who sponsored it, asked her colleagues to \u201csupport these efforts to maintain the status quo\u201d on moving the boundary line.<\/p>\n \u201cMiami-Dade County\u2019s Urban Development Boundary (UDB) is more than a local planning tool, it is a promise to protect our drinking water, reduce flooding risk, preserve farmland, and safeguard the Everglades that define South Florida,\u201d Calatayud told the Herald\/Times in a statement after the bill\u2019s passage with her proposed change.<\/p>\n She added: \u201cI am proud the Florida Senate unanimously voted in opposition to HB 399\u2019s attempt to lower the Miami Dade County Commission\u2019s vote threshold required to push the line outward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rendering of the revised proposal by the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel to build a water park and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[100,87658,89258,89257,123,89256,125,124],"class_list":["post-191220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-florida-legislature","tag-fontainebleau-water-park","tag-hb399","tag-jeffrey-soffer","tag-miami","tag-miami-beach-development","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}