Miami Wilds batted back to December as legal issues swirl

Miami Wilds reared its tumultuous head at last week’s Miami-Dade County Commission meeting when Commissioner Kionne McGhee offered a surprise motion that the county provide a status report on the decades-long water park effort.

Ultimately, the commission passed the motion after 16-plus minutes of confusion and uncertainty about the litigation-ridden plans to build the park on county-owned land next to Zoo Miami. The item was not on the agenda. Commissioner McGhee offered it at the end of the 2½-hour meeting.

“In between the last time we had a commission meeting and now there have been updates as relates to lawsuits, counter lawsuits, all kinds of different things have happened. So … I’m … making a motion to direct (the) administration to issue a status report and recommendations by Dec. 12 so that we can all understand where we are with this issue,” Mr. McGhee offered.

That pending litigation presented a Gordian knot to commissioners, who were uncertain about what they could talk about at the public meeting.

Chairman Oliver G. Gilbert III warned them, “We’re not going to go in-depth into the county’s opinion position on this item … today.”

“This may be moving a lot faster towards litigation,” Mr. Gilbert said, “a new litigation … So just make sure you curate your comments.”

“The last two times that I’ve tried to speak on this topic,” Commissioner Raquel Regalado complained, “I’ve been told that I have to limit my comment because there is a pending litigation.

“And now we’re requesting the administration to put something in writing about the pending litigation…. So, I don’t understand if the reason we can’t speak to it is because there is a litigation, how are we now contemplating providing a report on a potential litigation? There’s an inherent conflict in that…

“I understand that we’ve got a letter from Miami Wilds,” she said “but I’ve … spoken to our attorneys… I believe that there are at least four different reasons why we should terminate this contract.”

Rumblings of killing the deal rose up from other commissioners. “I mean, there’s only three things that can happen here,” said Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez, “either it gets killed or … there’s no extension granted … or we vote to extend for a reason.”

Ms. Regalado continued her implicit questioning. “I don’t understand why we are not allowed to talk about this … especially if now the request is to put all the issues in writing… I believe that they have not met with their contractual obligation. I do not think that we should provide them with an extension.

“I believe that there are at least four different reasons why we should terminate this contract… I think that there are myriad of legal options available to us to terminate this contract.”

The eight-page letter from Miami Wilds developers that both Ms. Regalado and Mr. Bermudez referred to was emailed to Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and Chairman Gilbert on Oct 1. The letter didn’t pull punches.

“It is difficult to conceive,” it began, “that after 27 years of planning, a series of nearly always unanimous votes by the Miami-Dade County Commission furthering the water park project at Zoo Miami, a voter referendum which overwhelming supported a mixed-use entertainment project … and an already approved long-term ground lease … that the county has taken the unprecedented step of suing Miami Wilds as a way to exit the ground lease through the federal courts…”

“Accordingly,” it continued, “we are unable meet our obligations under the lease, not by any action of Miami Wilds, but as a result of errors and oversights by the county and federal agencies.

“We believe the county is now making a monumental generational mistake in not embracing its own long-term plan to develop the Zoo Miami Entertainment Area … given the strong evidence which indicates that the project will have a minimal to no impact on the surrounding habitats and significantly benefit the community.

“To abandon the plan will be giving in to the loudest voices in the room,” the letter asserted, “which are neither providing valid information or representing the majority of residents in our community.”

One of those voices is that of Elise Bennett, director of the Center for Biological Diversity.

“Our groups stand by Bat Conservation International’s (BCI) expertise and longstanding research of the Florida bonneted bat population in this area.

But even putting BCI’s data aside,” she told Miami Today, the results of the developer’s own survey report support a finding that there is high Florida bonneted bat activity in this area based on US Fish and Wildlife Service criteria.”

“It’s a shame that the National Park Service did not consult with the US Fish and Wildlife Service under the Endangered Species Act like it was supposed to,” Ms. Bennett said.

“This review with the federal expert wildlife agency would have analyzed and made clear the anticipated impacts on endangered species early in the process, before the park service, county, and developer had committed to the project.”

Commissioner McGhee, who initiated the tense commission discussion, explained that the only “purpose of this status report is to help me and help other commissioners and the community understand exactly where we are as it relates to compliance and negotiations. Litigation will not be disclosed in this report.” He added, “this is simply about compliance: Where we are … who’s doing what, how much money is outstanding, are there any other issues related to this issue so that we can arrive at a conclusion … That’s all it is. Nothing else.”

“Unbelievably,” the Miami Wilds letter stated, “after 27 years of planning … the commission and the administration are now questioning the suitability of the zoo parking lot to accommodate the water park. This is all being done without any credible evidence that the project would harm endangered species. Indeed, the credible evidence indicates the contrary.”

Ms. Bennett told Miami Today that “available scientific information and US Fish and Wildlife Service records … show that the effects of a significant new development in this area risks harm to Florida bonneted bats, Miami tiger beetles, rare butterflies and plants, and their habitat.”

Commissioner Regalado persisted in the commission meeting: “My understanding is they have to have shovels in the ground by Dec. 22…. But once they say we are in default … then what we are doing is … providing a roadmap for a potential litigation.”

“We very much want to build this long planned and important project for the community and zoo,” the Miami Wilds letter asserted in bold type.

“Based upon our most recent analysis, the project will generate more than $2.25 million for the zoo in the first year alone, growing as the project performs and gains traction.

“On the day it opens, it will create more than 300 full-time jobs, and many multiples of that number… (in) part-time employment, making it one of the top 10 single-site private employers in South Dade.”

Miami architect Bernard Zyscovich, one of three partners in the Miami Wilds project, told Miami Today “We just need to have the National Park Service review the data that’s been provided by the consultant who did the monitoring and have them distribute the results.

“There was a mistake made … and the easiest thing to do is to just complete the process and let the data speak for itself.”

The other two partners pursuing the water park are Miami attorney Michael Diaz Jr., founder of Diaz, Reus & Targ LLP, and Paul Lambert, founder of Lambert Advisory, a Miami-based real estate and economic advisory firm.

Among the data Mr. Zyscovich and partners seek are those in a study of the area by Bat Conservancy International.

“We’re very confident that the data will show that there’s really no impact to the Florida bonneted bat,” Mr. Zyscovich told Miami Today, “and it’s very disturbing that people are trying to kill the project in order to avoid providing the data.”

Ms. Bennett demurs: “Bat Conservation International is under no obligation to release its data to a private company planning a project that would destroy key Florida bonneted bat foraging habitat.

“This bad-faith inquiry is a red herring because the report completed by the developer’s own consultant supports a finding that there is high Florida bonneted bat activity in the area, based on US Fish and Wildlife Service criteria.”

Looking ahead, attorney Mitchell Jagodinski, with Diaz, Reus & Targ, told Miami Today that “Miami Wilds stands ready and able to perform its obligations under the lease as long as the county proceeds with the steps that are required of them.”

Messrs. Zyscovich, Lambert and Diaz continue their pursuit of a water park on about 27 acres of parking lots north of Zoo Miami, claiming no flora or fauna will be disturbed.

Ms. Bennett, however, told Miami Today that “focusing only on the Florida bonneted bat gives short shrift to dozens of other rare and endangered species that this proposed development would put at risk.

“While impacts to the bat are some of the more obvious ones,” Ms. Bennett said, “there’s no question that building a commercial water park and retail development in this environmentally sensitive area would have cascading negative effects on surrounding pine rocklands and species like the Miami tiger beetle, Bartram’s scrub hairstreak, and Carter’s small-flowered flax, to name a few.”

Former Miami-Dade Commissioner Dennis Moss threw his support to the water park that he had long sought in a letter to the commission.

“As a county commissioner at the time,” Mr. Moss wrote, “I believed that having complementary facilities adjacent to Zoo Miami would be beneficial to the long-term sustainability of the zoo.

“My colleagues over the years,” he continued, “supported that contention and voted unanimously to approve this lease in 2020.”

In any event, the commission approved Mr. McGhee’s motion to prepare a status report by Dec. 12. What that report might contain remains uncertain, as does the future of Miami Wilds.