Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board

Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board — May 20, 2026 - 6:23 PM

good evening everyone. Welcome to the planning zoning and appeals board. Please silence all cell phones and other noise making devices. This meeting can be viewed live on miami tv at miamigov.Com/tv and on comcast channel 77 within the city of miami. The broadcast will have closed captioning. Any person who is a lobbyist pursuant to chapter two article six of the city code must register with the city clerk and comply with related city requirements for lobbyists before appearing before the planning, zoning and appeals board. A person MAY not lobby a city official, board member or staff member until registering a copy of the code section about lobbyists is available in the city clerk's office and online@municode.Com. Any person making a presentation, formal request or petition to the board concerning real property must make the disclosures required by the city code in writing a copy of the city code section is available at the office of the city clerk and online@municode.Com. The city requires that anyone requesting action by the board to disclose before the hearing any consideration provided or committed to anyone for agreement to support or withhold objection to the requested action pursuant to city code section 2-8, any person MAY be heard by the board through the chair for not more than two minutes on any proposition before the board unless modified by the chair. Any person with a disability requiring assistance, auxiliary aids or services for this meeting MAY notify the hearing board's liaison when addressing the board. The member of the public must first state their name, address and what item will be spoken about if the item is being continued or rescheduled, the opportunity to be heard MAY be at such later date before the board takes action on such item. A member of the public MAY also submit comments via the city's online comment forum. The comments submitted through the comment form if any have been and will be distributed to the board members and city administration so that the board can consider the comments prior to take any action. Additionally, the online comment form will remain open during the meeting to accept comments and distribute to the board members up until the chair closes public comment all comments received will be included in the public record and will be considered by the board prior to taking any action item shall proceed according to section 7.1.1.4 of the miami 21 zoning ordinance, the members of the board shall disclose any ex parte communications to remove the presumption of prejudice pursuant to florida section. Florida statute section 26.0115 and section 7.1.4.5 of the miami 21 zoning ordinance staff will briefly present each item to be heard for applications requiring board approval, the applicant will present its application a request to the board if the applicant agrees with the staff recommendation, the board MAY proceed to its deliberation and decision. The applicant MAY also waive the right to an evidentiary hearing on the record. The order of presentation shall be set forth in miami 21 and the city code. Anyone wishing to appeal any decision made by this board for any matter considered at this meeting MAY need a verbatim record of the item. A video of this meeting MAY be requested at the office of communications or viewed online@miamigov.Com. The city published an agenda as well as included in the notice to the public the items and topics that will be discussed at this meeting. The public has been given the opportunity to provide the public comment during the meeting and within reasonable proximity in time before the meeting. The public comment options established and provided for this meeting comply with section 286.0114 of the florida statutes. The city has provided different public comment options for the members of the public to indicate their support, opposition or neutrality on the items and topics to be discussed. Board members are you comfortable with all. >> of these notice. >> provisions set forth in these. >> uniforms, rules and procedures we've had for this meeting? Yes thank you, thank you. Okay, let's rise for a moment of silence and the pledge of allegiance please. I pledge allegiance. States of america. Under GOD. Thanks. >> um, before we do the roll call with their attendance. Is there any, uh did anyone submit a waiver request? Yes. Um, we have MR. Edward. I'm going to do the attendance first and then whatever you can do. Thank you. >> chair MR.. >> eduardo j fernandez here. MR. Ellen. Metzger yes. MR.. >> paul main here. MR. Christopher chris. Collins present. MRS. Paula decarlos. Present MR.. Mario j bailey. >> present MR. Joshua. Patterson. >> MR. Manuel. >> videla, MR. Andres lopez. MR.. >> adam. >> gersten present, MISS Lynette cardoso present we do have chrome and we have two um . >> absent. >> waivers for joshua patterson and manuel vadillo. Okay is there a motion. Make a motion. Those collins. >> and metoyer collins or second or whatever paul and then MR.. >> chris collins second thank you and MR. Andre. >> lopez is present. Oh yeah. Do you want to. Thank you. Okay. >> do we have. >> any minutes. No okay. No minutes to approve chair. Great. Um and are there any deferrals? There are. >> no requests for deferrals or withdrawals. Great. >> and. Are there any online. >> public comments so far no current online public comments chair we'll leave those open just for a few more minutes. Close them after the first item. Um [Laughter] MADAM Mayor, you're here. Did you have something you. >> wanted [Laughter] To come on down. I'll go over well, I can talk here with the presentation. Um, yeah. It's great to be here again. Uh, I was here last time and you were very helpful in allowing us to. Basically fill in some infill lots in a way in our t4, t5 zoning but to allow smaller lots to have item housing built on them that was more in line with what housing should look like and rather than just being like commercial properties. And so that has really been helpful. It means we're not going to have tons of parking and pavement. We'll have more trees. And so tonight you are going to be so. Impressed. >> uh, by our team here when you look at the cottage housing item and it is another one of our. Innovations in how we look at. Changing what we can build so that single. Family neighborhoods. >> look more like single family home neighborhoods. Um, I don't know a single human being that lives in the city of miami that hasn't driven through whether it's coconut grove or silver bluff or shenandoah just name a neighborhood that looks at these white box. Duplexes and goes, why does everybody build a white box with you've got the two you sign it two units side by side. They have to share a wall. When you own each of those units it's complicated permitting you want to make any changes. You've got to consult everything with your neighbors. So it's complicated ownership it's also ugly right? You're seeing these white boxes and beautiful historic. Neighborhoods the grove. Shenandoah so many more. And so this team has been working very, very. Diligently on what can be done with these small lots to implement what we call. Cottage homes. And you will see an amazing. Presentation about why that will benefit our city, why it will give better homeownership choices. And the thing that matters. Incredibly to me is that we will be able to build things that look. Appropriate for the. Neighborhood that they're built in, right? If you own one of these small lots in these neighborhoods, you get to build a duplex. But miami 21 forces them to build these. Boxes and we will now be able to build in a different way that gives us more housing options at more choices. It gives us. Neighborhood character options .It gets rid of this out of scale. Massing of these boxes. It also allows you to do things that are more environmental. You might have a porch, you might have a portico so you could sit. Outside in the shade which currently is prohibited. You also get rid of this front frontage which is nothing but. Impervious surfaces. And it gives our team the ability to require more trees. So I think you're going to be. Excited to see uh, what this looks like. Uh, the team has worked with the commissioners so we have lots of input onto this and look forward to hearing your questions and your comments. So if we need to make it. Better. Before it goes to the commission, we can. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Okay. Well with that we do. >> start with number one. Chair mike go ahead and swear everyone in before we go with the first item for all those who will be testifying, please raise your right hand. Do you solemnly affirm the. Testimony that you will give today? Is the. >> truth the whole truth and. >> nothing but the truth? Thank you. >> please be seated. Thanks. >> file id number. 119278 a resolution of the miami planning zoning and appeals board recommending to the city commission approval of an ordinance. Amending ordinance number. 13114 the zoning ordinance of the city of miami, florida as amended by amending article one title definitions to introduce a definition for cottage housing and to update the. Definition of lot coverage and by amending article five section. 5.3 titled. Suburban transect. Zone t three to allow a new housing to theology within. 23-0 transect zones and two three. Nonconforming lots and to update the. Protocols and porches. Regulations making findings. Containing a. >> severability clause and. Providing for an effective date. Great. >> ready to go. Good evening everybody. My name is andrea sandoval. I am the project lead of the cottage housing initiative and me and team sitting here have been working on this project for a little bit over a year now. We're very excited to show you this program that we have put together with a lot of feedback and input from commissioners. Offices. >> the mayor's team design. Development. >> um local. Architects and more. Before we dive into the. Presentation. >> I just wanted to make a. Statement that the purpose behind cottage housing is to create more housing options and. Provide housing variety for multi-generations. So setting that up, I'm going to start just talking about the project and how you know the purpose of how we're going to describe it through the presentation. But the the essence of cottage housing is to is to introduce a new housing typology for city of miami for small lots and it's feasible through design. Flexibilities within certain areas of the city. >> for example. >> we are taking into. Consideration t3o. Transactions within tods and transit corridors and also t three. Nonconforming lots that are existing and could benefit from this. From this development we will go into more details throughout the presentation, but I just. >> wanted you. >> to have like an overall idea of the purpose behind it. Uh, also by allowing the programing. Nonconforming sites ,it establishes a right. Path for these developments to to happen without the need of an. Entitlement. >> overall the the amendment aims to reinforce the character of the. Neighborhood to establish neighborhoods by encouraging context sensitive design and also to support. >> a broader range of. Housing types at different price points. Um the planning department recommends approval of this text amendment which is. >> going to. >> be presented to you in two parts. Part one is cottage housing and when we talk about cottage housing we wanted to start by giving you um a detailed look into how we started this program and how it has taken us to where we are today. So number one, we're going to be talking about missed. Opportunities. >> analyzing our own current zoning code and what is the zoning code currently allowing like how are we seeing as a product of that? We're going to show you some pictures and you're going to see some examples. Then we're going to talk about historical. Precedents because this is a this is not a new housing typology. It's actually something that exists not only here in miami but in many states across the united states. So we're going to show you some examples in other places. Then we're going to dive into cottage housing, the zoning, the the. >> zoning ordinance that we're creating for this particular program and. >> where does it apply? Okay, so we're going to start with the missed opportunities and as I mentioned we're trying to analyze what is going on today. What does existing single. family home regulations look like? What is the result of our current zoning code? So here you can see some pictures of t3o in different. Neighborhoods uh coconut grove, silver bluff. Shenandoah and you can see like this is actually what the mayor was speaking about a few minutes ago that this is what the zoning code is pushing for these developments to occur. So the first thing that we noticed is that there is a complication in the permitting process because uh as you MAY be aware, once you have a duplex you are tied to each other because you are you belong to the same folio number. Correct. So if I say if I want to have a pool on my duplex then I need the other the my neighbor, my immediate neighbor to be to come with me to the permitting to the permitting process. And if this person is not up to date with their with their exterior renovations, then it's going to be an issue for me. So it. Works even though you have two separate units they're always attached together. Uh it also another missed opportunity is the lack of housing options at different price points because as you can as as you might be aware, these houses sell for a lot of money and it's not affordable for everybody. There is also a repetitive building form that lacks contextual sensitivity which results in those square boxes and you know, like white plain boxes that we see everywhere throughout the city there is out of scale massing and lack of building. Articulation. >> repetitive building form and it results in a in a front yard dominated by impervious. >> surfaces, poor climate. Responses, responsiveness. So. >> every non-conforming. And one of the last missed opportunities they wanted to highlight is the existing. Non-conforming vacant lots. So every non-conforming lot that wants to develop has to come has to come to the city to ask for either a waiver, a variance or or some sort of entitlement to allow that development to happen. Not too long ago you saw a west grove development come up for a variance so that the the applicant was able to develop his single. >> family housing that lot. So this will allow a buy write process. Local historical precedents. So traditionally the city of miami has had these types of housing types we wanted for this piece of history to be highlighted to be taken as an inspiration. And we're not creating a new type of. Architecture. >> a new type of typology. We're taking inspiration from prior communities and their architectural features. For example, there was shot shotgun housing in coconut grove and. Overtown where we can see the historical pictures that we have on the screen and also the plat of the narrow lots. >> in overtown on the top on the. >> bottom right corner. And looking into nationwide. Precedents we looked for different. Examples uh outside in the united the united states like in fayetteville. Arkansas um not so far away south miami and also in rosemary beach in florida. So we see how this development exists and how they function. >> so we're just taking. Inspiration from these establishments. So now we're getting a little bit more into what are we proposing under this text amendment. What are the. Characteristics of cottage housing. So in what is cottage housing. So by. Definition it's a compact detached single family residence on a small lot designed to be compatible with lower density neighborhoods. That's the essence of the program. It's also it's also supposed to be a functional detached single family home designed for narrow lots. It's calibrated with a variety of massing architectural styles and neighborhood patterns. So on the pictures on the on the right you can see that there is a range of. Architectural styles from something more. Historical to something more modern. But those architectural features at the front facade. Really give you a different look from the. >> typical. >> duplexes that you see in our in our current situation, uh cottage housing will also allow for the development of non-conforming lots. It will simplify the. Ownership while keeping the. >> same density. >> and this is something important that we wanted to highlight because the permitting process is as I explained earlier today, take a take a while for our applicants and also the property. Taxes that are attached to them as one value. So this will allow them to. Separate the two properties under one under one lot. Simplifying their lives basically. And another benefit is the accommodation of cars in a narrow lot through tandem parking by respecting. Pedestrians and reducing the impact of curb cuts and. Facilitating front loaded parking enrichment and avoiding the loss of overall green space. So we've made we're I'm just going over the the the basics, but we're going to then jump into the zoning code and then you're going to see how we've made some. Calibrations to allow for all of these benefits to occur and finally promote active frontages by excluding front porches and porticos within the first and second layer from lot. >> coverage. Calculations as an incentive to activate that front facade. Okay, so in here we're going to go a little bit more technical with the details, but we also wanted to make it as as easy as possible to understand. So we're going to dive into the zoning. Configuration of the program. And we created this table to showcase existing miami. 21 zoning code. 430 and cottage housing zoning. So we're going to go line by line to explain the differences or if it remains the same. So for example for a minimum lot width under t three zoning we have a 50 foot. Frontage under under cottage law it will be. 25ft. >> the maximum lot width for t three is. Nonexistent and for cottage lots will be 35ft. The minimum lot area is. 5000ft2 for t3o and it will be. 2500ft2 for cottage a maximum lot area goes from. Non-applicable to. 5000ft2. >> so these are the requirements to be part of the program. So if you want to develop your house under the cottage housing initiative you have to be able to demonstrate that you are that your lot complies with the minimum lot with maximum load area like that's like part of how the program will will work. The maximum lot coverage will remain the same at 50%. The minimum front setback will remain at. 20ft from the. >> front. >> edge and the minimum size setbacks will be um reduced from 5ft to 3ft to allow for the the cottages to to function. So if you see on the and I think. >> the. >> graphic will help me explain that better. So on the I'm trying to highlight under the t3o zoning you see this graphic that shows a plan view and a perspective. This is a. >> typical. 5000 square foot lot that shows one duplex right and on your on your right you have the cottage lot zoning where. Dropping a. Subdivision in. >> the through the middle of. >> the lot and now you have two. Cottages. With that minimum size setback of three feet. >> the density. Remains unchanged because under a duplex you're allowed to have two units and under cottage lots you're going to have one unit per lot. So if you subdivide it from 5000 to 2500 each you still remain the same density remains. The parking will will also be the same two parking spaces required per single family home. The lot coverage will be the definition will modify to allow for porches and porticos to exist in the first and second layer without without taking into consideration for low coverage. Calculations and the planning. So the planning was going to be. Required if the existing lot. Exceeds the 35 maximum lot width and or more than. 5000ft2 in lot area. So let's say you have a bigger lot that would like to participate on this initiative. It will need to be. Replanted to be able to conform to the standards of cottage housing. And lastly the applicability. We are looking for this program to be. Available in a t three zone within a tod network or transit corridor or located on an existing. 3d3r0 infill. That meets cottage lot standards meaning the second doesn't need to get a lot because those are already. Existing grandfathered lots that automatically qualify to the program. Other considerations. >> to take into account the density as I mentioned before it's one residential unit per lot that remains unchanged. The wastewater is going to need is going to be handled via sewer connection because due to the physical. Limitations we cannot accommodate a drainage field. So it has to be by sewer connection and the parking and driveway. We are proposing some. Modifications to the covered parking. Garages for the principal frontage to have a maximum width of 12ft and the secondary frontage to have a maximum width of. 24ft and then also for the driveways and. Frontages to have a minimum driveway of. 12ft. >> and the principal frontage and of 20ft on the. >> secondary frontage. The paving shall be limited to. 60% of the front setback and might be a combination of pervious and impervious paving. However, the impervious portion shall not exceed. 40% of the front setback, so we have to make these modifications to make sure that the parking works. You know. >> like with our in tandem. Configuration and then the trees which is something like one of my favorite parts of the of of the program is that we're actually proposing an increase in tree canopy because under a regular. T3ot3 lot you're required to have three tree lots per. 5000ft2 under cottage housing you're required to have two per per lot meaning that in a typical. 5000ft2 you're getting four trees. >> instead of two. And we have a graphic here to. >> show you how will that work? So. >> as you can see on the left side existing trees on site and one on on the street on the street tree every 30ft of frontage that remains on the proposed you have two streets, two side trees on. >> site and then one. >> street tree for every 30ft of frontage. So there is a. 33% increase in trees per 5000ft2. Here's a concept rendering of cottage housing highlighting a variety of architectural styles porches, porticos and front facade activation. Like all the elements that we added to the. >> zoning code, it's to provide to incentivize a design that's going to look like like this. What we're showing on our renderings and to help facilitate where will this apply? We have a couple maps of where of applicability. So we started this legislation thinking of t3 zones because of the duplexes and how you know like what was the best location for this throughout the city. So we we thought about dod networks and transit corridors which are highlighted on this map and then also the location of existing t3 infill lots that meet cottage lot standards. So in here we try to do a breakdown of the different categories. So in red you can see the t3 parcels that are city wide that are non-conforming meaning that they go from 20 20,500ft2 to 5000ft2. That's in red and then in yellow we have t3 parcels within tod and transit corridors that are 2500ft2 to 5000ft2. And lastly the bigger group the t3 parcels over 5000ft2 that if they decided to participate on this program will need to replat are more than 7000 potential eligible sites and then we have the same map with more overlay information in here so that you can see what are those transit corridors? Where are the two these where is in cd1 and cd2 and cd3 in reference to the overall scope of the project. So this was the the end of of part one when and we're going to go into the second part of the amendment which is from facades which is an amendment to the to the to the to