Storage facilities get separation orders

Written by Miami Today on March 30, 2017

Working to avoid a grouping of massive, windowless self storage buildings, the Miami City Commission has given final approval to a zoning ordinance setting distance requirements for public storage facilities.

The legislation requires storage facilities to be a minimum of a 2,500-foot radius from another such facility.
The ordinance notes the demand for public storage has continued to increase due to additional density in the urban core. These storage buildings are typically designed with a lack of architectural diversity and with inactive ground floors.
The city’s zoning code, Miami 21, had no distance rules and allowed the close proximity of storage facilities, adversely impacting the surrounding community, the ordinance says. Design of a public storage facility “should be in a manner that is in keeping with the character and scale of the surrounding area” and should have ground floor retail along principal frontages with a minimum of 50% of the proposed ground floor retail use within the structure unrelated to the public storage facility, in order to promote activity on a site.