Brian Bandell
Nov 20, 2023
Lennar Corp. wants to rezone an agricultural site across the street from a nature preserve near Florida City in order to build townhouses.
The Miami-based homebuilder (NYSE: LEN) filed a pre-application with Miami-Dade County officials concerning the 9.9-acre site on the south side of Southwest 355th Street, between Southwest 192nd Avenue and Southwest 189th Avenue. Lennar has the property under contract from Diego Daniel Rodriguez in Miami.
The site is located on the east side of the Navy Wells Pineland Preserve, a 353-acre, county-owned protected natural area that’s located along the main road to Everglades National Park.
The property Lennar wants to develop is just inside the Urban Development Boundary and it’s 10 blocks west of where U.S. 1 splits from Card Sound Road at the gateway to the Florida Keys.
Lennar wants to file a comprehensive development master plan (CDMP) amendment and rezone the land from “agricultural district” to “Limited Apartment House District” to allow 137 townhouses.
Pascual, Perez, Kiliddjian, Starr & Associates in Doral designed the site plan, which includes a park in the middle of the project but no clubhouse or pool. It would not be a gated community.
Lennar and its attorney, Alberto J. Torres, weren’t able to provide comment on the plans.
Developers file pre-applications to receive feedback from county staff before submitting official CDMP amendment and zoning applications. A CDMP amendment would require County Commission approval.
In a preliminary review by the county’s Department of Environmental Resource Management (DERM), officials recommended the developer avoid adverse environmental impacts to the “natural forest community” at the preserve across the street. DERM also noted that the county sometimes need to conduct a “controlled burn” to maintain the forest across the street, so the new community may be impacted by that smoke. Officials recommended the developer consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about the impacts on the forest across the street and smoke.
“This increase in residential density may limit the ability to perform prescribed burns and reduce the ability to control wildfires if development is close to the preserve,” DERM stated in its preliminary review.
In addition, DERM noted the county preserve is critical habitat for two protected butterfly species and two protected plants.