Urge the Commission for Fair and Independent Review
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Former club owners and private equity firms
dismantling neighborhoods
Concerned residents fights back against city administration
Sep 17 Commission Meeting Highlights
Our Children’s Safety Is At Risk
Imagine having 600 transients in our neighborhood every day. These new apartment hotels our city officials have approved will have over 60 units to house 400-600 people at any given time. Our residential community was not built for tourists. A resident has a vested interest in our community – but, as we already know, these transient renters do not. There are two elementary schools here that children walk and ride their bikes to everyday. We have several parks with playgrounds. Our children’s once-safe neighborhood is soon to become full of strangers they need to be protected from. A full-time resident goes through background checks before moving into a building -It’s impossible to monitor what kind of individual is renting a short-term unit. There’s no way to know if they’re on a predator list. Our children will no longer be safe in SoFi if we allow these apartment hotels to open.
Why is the city allowing this to happen?
Short-term rentals are prohibited in SoFi, so why did our city officials grant permits to open several of these properties in SoFi? The City of Miami Beach wrongfully waived the Certificate of Appropriateness required and granted permit BC1704920 for the property on 310 Meridian Ave.
Short Term Rental / “Airbnb style” hotels
Ever since the creation of "Casa Sofi", an "airbnb style" hotel 735 2nd St, there has been a noticeable change to the chemistry of our neighborhood. A constant smell of drugs in the air, speeding cars slingshot-ing down Meridian - going at least 60 mph from one stop sign to the next, often ignoring the stop signs altogether, increased graffiti on our cherished historic buildings and trash littering our landscaping. Our neighborhood has experienced violent gang-related shootings at restaurants, constant theft, and tourists stopping traffic to twerk on main roads. We have skid marks at every intersection from transients doing wheelies and donuts in the middle of intersections. These issues directly stem from cheap, unsupervised and unmanageable short-term rentals.
Three new projects already been “Permitted”
Three projects currently have permits for opening up "airbnb/hotels." 310 Meridian, 226 and 333 Jefferson. Furthermore, there are at least 2-3 others contemplated/publicized that are also in the pipeline. At 15 units each that is 75 new “airbnb” units with 6-8 persons per unit; that will be 450-600 transient renters in our neighborhood on a daily basis. These airbnb/ hotel units will certainly be at a lower cost than any nearby full-service hotels, which is going to attract more of the careless tourists we already witness on Washington/Collins ave. The previous owner of "Club Space" is planning to open up an airbnb hotel in our neighborhood at 333 Jefferson.
More projects are underway
Additional Short Term Rental (STR) / “Airbnb style hotels” have projects being reviewed by the building department right now:
-320 Euclid Ave
-918 4th street
Our only Synagogue Would Be Forced Out
The Property at 310 Meridian is directly adjacent to our local synagogue/Chabad Rabbi Mann has stated that he and his family would have to leave our neighborhood if the development at 310 Meridian was allowed to proceed.
Why is this being allowed to happen
Poor leadership by our city Commision+Mayor and a complete lack of accountability and due-diligence from the Building Department, the Planning Department, and the City Administration as a whole. As a Prime example, the 310 Meridian Developer somehow managed to bypass the historic board, and 3 critical zoning requirements when they originally applied for their building permit. This is why no one received that familiar perforated “zoning notice” about these developments.This is why we never saw the familiar “red sign” posted out front of the building notifying the neighboring residents of the proposed changes.
Click below and read details on how the building department missed three critical zoning requirements for 310 Meridian.These same kind of “mistakes” by the building and planning departments are apparent at the other developments.
What you can do
The voice of our community can stop this, but everyone must speak out. Simply enter your name and email to send either the pre-written message, -- or personalize you own demanding that the city REVOKE these illegally issued permits and direct each and every developer to resubmit an application that carefully passes through the proper, legal channels, including Historic Preservation Board approval and of course, issue public notice of any and all developments in our neighborhood. Sign the petition
Community complaints
Michael DeFilippi
mikedyourrealtor@gmail.com
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
Anonymous
Building Dept, Official Directly responsible for these “mistakes”
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Tom Mooney
Planning Director Tom Mooney is digging in, defending his illegal decision to permit 3 developers to convert apartments to hotels, in our residential neighborhood, where short term rentals are banned.
South of Fifth is an historic district. The code clearly states, no work may be done without required notice to neighbors, apartment hotels will not be permitted without required lobbies, without required density, without Historic Preservation Board approval.
Yet, 310 Meridian, 333 Jefferson, and 226 Jefferson, were approved by Mooney’s department, without notice to us, without lobbies, without density, and without any approvals by the Historic Preservation Board.
Mooney defends this illogical, illegal decision, by misquoting and misinterpreting parts of the code. No one will challenge him. We are.
Tom Mooney is not allowed to rewrite the zoning laws of our city, and streamline the public out of the process, in favor of developers, putting cheap hotels next to our homes.His direct email: thomasmooney@miamibeachfl.gov and he can be reached at 305-673-7610
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Alina Hudak
Alina Hudak is a 5 month new hire to the City of Miami Beach.
Alina is blindly supporting her newly-inherited city staff, saying residents' demands to investigate Mooney’s decision to put hotels next to our homes is “disgraceful.” And that she “believes in facts and truth and defending professional staff, because if they weren’t that, I’d fire them.” Unfortunately, once Alina realizes that her staff has made serious mistakes, she will be held to her word.
The SoFi Community had to force Hudak to hire an outside professional to determine if the Planning Director (Tom Mooney) was wrong in the issuances of three building permits from apartments to "apartment hotels" in a residential neighborhood.
A great manager admits when they are wrong, and corrects course. We need city staff that admits and corrects their mistakes; not city staff that doubles-down on and defends mistakes that risk our neighborhoods. -
Rafael Paz
Interim city attorney Rafael Paz sent a letter to the commissioners advising them that Tom Mooney is autonomous, unquestionable by anyone. That is ridiculous. Why is Rafael Paz looking for ways to help the developers rather than help the residents? Tell your city commissioners not to hire a city attorney that gives them bad advice.
His direct email: rafaelpaz@miamibeachfl.gov and he can be reached at 305-673-7470
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Deborah Tackett
As the director of the Historic Preservation Board, Deborah has the enforcement authority to stop work in the Historic District, that does not have a certificate of appropriateness, or the board staffs approval to do work. Deborah has been aware of the hotel contractors work since June, and confirmed these addresses have never been referred to her by the building department, yet has taken no action to stop it.
Her direct email: deborahtacket@miamibeachfl.gov
MIAMI BEACH, FL
+13057078001
david@save-sofi.com
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