FULL STORY: WeWork founder wants to build a Miami project. Why neighbors are fighting it<\/a><\/p>\nHere are key takeaways:<\/p>\n
\u2022 The school, called SOLFL (pronounced \u201csoulful\u201d), would serve up to 350 kindergarten through 12th grade students on the site of the former Rader Memorial United Methodist Church. It\u2019s a rebranding of WeGrow, a school Rebekah Neumann founded that closed about two years after opening.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Demolition of the 70-year-old church \u2014 which was being considered for historic preservation \u2014 began Feb. 10, days before the first public meeting on the project. El Portal Mayor Omarr Nickerson called it a \u201cblind-sided, sneak attack.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 When residents rejected the school proposal at a February meeting, developer representative Jeffrey Davis raised the possibility of building affordable housing under Florida\u2019s Live Local Act, which lets developers bypass local zoning. A land-use attorney hired by residents called that tactic a \u201cthreat to neighbors and local governments to basically strong-arm approval.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Residents have raised concerns about an eight-foot wall around the school, added traffic, tuition listed at up to $45,000 per year and the fact that a nonprofit school wouldn\u2019t generate tax revenue for the town.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The project still needs approval from both El Portal\u2019s planning and zoning committee and the village council. Councilperson Charles Winters said it had not yet been rescheduled, and Village Attorney Joe Geller said the process will likely take at least a few months.<\/p>\n
This report was produced with the assistance of a proprietary tool powered by artificial intelligence and using our own originally reported, written and published content. It was reviewed and edited by our journalists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In February, the 70-year-old Rader Memorial United Methodist Church under demolition in El Portal. Developers have plans for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[89284,93698,93696,123,125,124,93697,93695],"class_list":["post-203797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-adam-neumann","tag-church-demolition","tag-el-portal-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-private-school-controversy","tag-solfl-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203797","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=203797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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