Miami Beach tilts development balance from hotels to residences

Written by Janetssy Lugo on February 5, 2025

Miami Beach officials this week changed their rulebook in order to tip the city’s development balance toward affordable housing and away from more hotels.

Commissioners unanimously approved a city warrant process, adding a layer to the steps required to approve future hotels. The ordinance, sponsored by Joseph Magazine, exempts hotel developments on oceanfront properties, which would not need a commission warrant.

The ordinance requires approval of a warrant from the city commission before the review of any land use board application or the approval of any building permit for a hotel project.

Mr. Magazine spoke with Miami Today last week as he explained the intent of the legislation initially proposed in December.

“This is modeled after an ordinance that New York City actually put into place in part to deal with the overabundance of hotels in Airbnb similar to what we’re facing here in Miami Beach,” said Mr. Magazine. “This actually excludes waterfront development … because that’s really not where we’re going to facilitate our true residential housing, but anywhere that is an infill parcel of land that’s not waterfront, we will have to add an additional layer of coming to the commission for approval, and that just gives us another shot at the table where we’ve had some newly constructed hotels that have been somewhat problematic with noise issues, with just the strain on our infrastructure.”

The commission, said Mr. Magazine, has truly put residents’ focus first and has tried focusing more on residential priorities, as opposed to transient.

“Of course, Miami Beach is always going to be the epicenter of events and hospitality,” he said, “and this in no means diminishes that role. However, Miami Beach has been the only city in all of Florida that’s actually lost full-time residents census over census, and we have a finite amount of buildable land, so it’s really a zero-sum game.”

Mr. Magazine explained that a primary reason that the city has lost full-time residents is that much of the city’s older affordable housing stock has been converted to apartment hotels.

Every hotel that’s built precludes any type of residential housing from being built there, he said.

“We’ve lost some affordable housing and workforce housing options that have a multitude of effects on our city,” he said. “It strains our infrastructure because our hospitality and service workers are now unable to afford to live in our city. So really, we were looking at the overall ecosystem here, and in no means diminishing the role that hotels will play, but really just kind of shifting that pendulum in the balance away from the focus on hotels.”

Miami Beach has changed through the years, he said, and the ordinance seeks to help the city keep up with current trends and needs.

“We’re still operating under code and zoning that was really facilitated and put in place in the ’90s when we needed to encourage hotel usages,” said Mr. Magazine, “and now we’re just really updating a lot of that to reflect today’s trend where we are in a housing shortage, whether it be affordable, middle, missing middle market rate, and it’s really to kind of shift some of the focus and priority into developing residential housing, as opposed to doubling tripling down on hotels and transient usages.”

The ordinance sets the stage, said Mr. Magazine, “we don’t want to come in the last moment and sidetrack a project, but if we could essentially steer a project sponsor in a different direction, where we’re facilitating workforce or affordable housing in favor of infill hotel projects, that’s what this ordinance is intended to do.”

Following discussion Monday, two amendments by Laura Dominguez were approved.

One creates another exception as the ordinance will not apply to “properties fronting the west side of Collins Avenue between 77th Street and 79th Street that have applied for a joint pre-application meeting with transportation and planning staff before Nov. 26, 2024,” said Nick Kallergis, the city’s chief deputy city attorney. “This is intended to address an applicant who had initiated the process.”

Ms. Dominguez’s second amendment was also approved.

Mr. Kallergis said it “would read, ‘this ordinance shall not apply to properties fronting the west side of Collins, between 13th and 14th streets with a contributing building with less than 50 residential units. If the contributing structure was originally constructed as a hotel and then later converted to apartments, such structure is exempt from the scope of this ordinance and can be converted back to a hotel use.’”