It's been over a month since I last posted. Most of the activity is happening on the Facebook page: North Bay Village Residents Speak and this is seeming less useful, other than for complicated issues. For tonight's commission meeting we have two such issues, Access to the Bay and Harbor Island Parking, so it seems like it's worth the trouble. Let's start with Bay Access.
The following buildings are required by the terms of their approvals to provide a bayfront walkway open to the public:
Bayview at 1625 JFK Causeway
Bridgewater at 1881 JFK Causeway
360 at 7900 Harbor Island Drive
Eloquence at 7928 East Drive
Cielo at 7935 East Drive
The Adagio at 7939 East Drive
Blue Bay at 7927 West Drive
Space 01 at 7934 West Drive
And of course the new projects:
Moda at the end of West Drive.
The new projects on Treasure Island.
Each of these buildings (with the exception of Blue Bay) had their certificates of occupancy approved by the village without recording the easements and none have opened the required baywalks.
In fact, the 360 briefly opened and then closed the access, with Vice Mayor Jorge Gonzalez quoted in the Miami Herald:
“Gonzalez’s building faces the water, but in violation of the village code it does not provide public access to the water. He says that although it was in the original plan, right now there are security concerns.
The practicality of opening up a secure area is an issue,” Gonzalez said. “What impact would that have to the security of the property needs to be assessed. At this point, I don’t really have solutions.”
Gonzalez was of course lying. There was a clear path to a solution - establish the rules and regulations from the commission and actually do the assessment.
This issue was first brought up to the village in 2012, many times. In February 2013, a memo detailing the problem was prepared by the village clerk, distributed to the administration and it was brought to the commission's attention in March 2013, brought up again during the campaign, and our commission have ignored it until tonight.
It's not that unusual in North Bay Village that Certificates of Occupancy are granted without anyone checking to see if they were right. A large condo on Treasure Island was issued a CO without inspections of the units. If you want to ignore the law in North Bay Village, you slip campaign donations and party favors around generously and the village will overlook anything that you find inconvenient. Remember when it turned out that nobody had inspected the deck at Shuckers for 40 (Forty) years? And there were no repercussions? And the owner gave generously to the mayoral and Gonzalez campaign? Connections, anyone?
Anyway, tonight the issue is back on the agenda. In spite of this being known by the commission and recorded in memos for over two years, I am certain that Rootin' Tootin' Straight Shootin' Son of A Gun Village Manager Frank Rollason will blame the previous managers and Mayor Dazed and Confused will act like it's the first time she's heard this. And the issue will die unless we demand that it get fixed.
Regarding parking, Rootin' Tootin' Straight Shootin' Son of A Gun Village Manager Frank Rollason will present the decal program. It is simple. If you have no parking, 2 decals. If you have 1 space, 1 decal. If you are supposed to have adequate parking in your building, no decals. Guest parking by application at the PD. It's the usual half assed approach and he's taken two years to even get that far. It will pass and it will fail.
Kevin Vericker
April 14, 2015
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