Behind closed doors, and in violation of Florida Sunshine Law, North Miami Beach City Manager Arthur “Duke” Sorey conspired with the only four Commissioners that matter to him, Michael Joseph, McKenzie Fleurimond, Paule Villard, and Daniela Jean, to sell off 10.06 acres of public property, the Daniel D. Diefenbach Bicentennial Park, home of the Arthur J. Snyder Tennis Center.

The main co-conspirator in this Machiavellian scheme is McKenzie Fleurimond, whose latest non-comestible obsession is “affordable housing” since he’s probably in danger of getting himself evicted again and has run out of reasons to tap the City’s General Fund.

In order to fulfill his fantasy, McKenzie is demanding that the City destroy its already sparse green space to build an “affordable housing” complex consisting of five 30+ stories right next door to the historic Ancient Spanish Monastery.

In case you’re wondering how tall a 30-story building is, here’s an example of the Biltmore Plaza in New York City.

Now imagine five of these concrete monstrosities clustered together on ten acres.

Right in your backyard.

Won’t that be serene and picturesque?

In case you’re wondering just how big 10 acres of land actually is, according to Project Perfect Home, “The average Walmart supercenter is roughly 178,000 square feet. Therefore you can fit ~2.4 Walmart supercenters on 10 acres of land!”

In order to visualize the actual size of a 10-acre parcel, the article goes on to explain, “A common house size for a 4-5 member family is around 2,500 square feet. Now imagine 174 of those houses closely grouped together and you’d have roughly 10 acres of land!”

Or, the size of 8 regulation football fields.

Now imagine five 30-story buildings and a “stand alone garage with ground level retail” all jammed into that space, which doesn’t look so big after all.

Then imagine the traffic jam after 1,500 families move in.

According to the City’s own website, “The North Miami Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) public purpose is to eliminate and prevent the development or spread of blighted areas, improve property values, improve the public infrastructure, and prevent or reduce incidents of crime.”

Building five towers of what is essentially the modern version of tenement housing will hardly accomplish that goal.

According to the Brookings Institution, there is very little upside for cities to get involved in affordable housing projects.

In a January 14, 2021 article, Four reasons why more public housing isn’t the solution to affordability concerns, Brookings suggests that “building more public housing is not a cure-all for the nation’s housing woes…”

The article continues, “As any homeowner knows, maintaining a home in good condition requires ongoing investments of time and money. In that sense, most existing public housing properties have been slowly deteriorating for decades, plagued by water damage, mold, vermin infestations, and aging mechanical systems. In 2017, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson was famously trapped in a malfunctioning elevator while visiting a Miami high-rise project. With that in mind, why would housing authorities sign up to build more apartments when they already face enormous maintenance backlogs and insufficient capital funds?”

Furthermore, “Constructing new housing is expensive, especially in coastal metro areas where affordability problems are most acute. Developing subsidized housing is—paradoxically— more expensive than market rate housing, because of the complexity of assembling financing. New construction is also slow: It can take a decade or longer to complete subsidized apartments in tightly regulated markets.”

In an affordable housing study conducted by two Stanford Graduate School of Business professors “found that new projects in poorer neighborhoods increased surrounding home prices and reduced crime, while new projects in wealthier neighborhoods drove down home prices and decreased racial diversity.”

More specifically, “In low-income neighborhoods, where median incomes fell below $26,000, the researchers saw home values appreciate 6.5% within a tenth of a mile of an LIHTC [Low Income Housing Tax Credit] project. Crime rates also fell, and more non-minorities moved into the area, increasing diversity. In higher-income neighborhoods, those with median incomes above $54,000, housing prices declined approximately 2.5% within a tenth of a mile of a project, and segregation increased (the researchers noticed no crime impact).”

The area where Daniel D. Diefenbach Park is located, Miami-Dade County Census Tract BG 3 1.28, has a median household income of $92,813, according to CensusReporter.org.  An affordable housing project in this particular area of North Miami Beach would be detrimental to the housing market in the long run.

In fact, Commissioner McKenzie Fleurimond’s hare-brained scheme will do just the opposite of the declared objective of the North Miami Beach CRA, which is to “improve property values.”

You’d think that Duke and the rest of the geniuses at City Hall would have done their homework, like we here at VotersOpinion always do, before blowing $67,942.52 on an ostentatious cocktail party Pre-Solicitation Launch Event for the Dieffenbach [sic] Preserve, to entice “developers, financiers, and investors” to place their bids on this pie in the sky venture.

Nevertheless, McKenzie is intent to destroy the 10+ acres of public land that literally belongs to the residents of North Miami Beach, and developing it without their approval and consent.

Which is most likely illegal.

But we’ll let him be surprised.

Meanwhile, North Miami Beach residents can actually do something to stop the clown show at City Hall.

JUST SAY “NO” TO A CRIMINAL GOVERNMENT!

ELECT JAY CHERNOFF AND PHYLLIS SMITH ON NOVEMBER 8, 2022!

Stephanie