MIAMI – As high-rise towers go up across several Miami neighborhoods, the Miami-Dade school district is working to ensure developers pay for the school expansions needed to serve the students who will be living in the new developments.
Phillis Wheatley Elementary School in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood is a recent example of how newly-proposed high-rise development projects impact school seats.
Bringing hundreds of more residential units to the area — like a developer is seeking permission from the city to do — likely means needing a classroom desk, Raul Perez, Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ chief facilities, design and construction officer, explains.
“As developments get planned in Miami-Dade County, they have to go through school concurrency and basically this development, then, is reviewed by the number of units being generated and the number of kids (who) actually will be going to elementary, middle and in high school,” Perez said.
He said in Overtown, the capacity is there at the middle and high school levels, but not at the elementary school level.
In this instance, the developer will need to pay the district $600,000 so it can construct a new classroom to accommodate 22 new students, according to an agreement authorized by the Miami-Dade school board Wednesday.
“We need to provide the resources and, as we go through this change in this area, I think they call it the ‘Arts District’ now, there is a lot of development going on, a lot of residential high-rise development going on, so that is different from what was in place 20 to 30 years ago, so our elementary schools, our middle schools and our high schools are being impacted,” Perez said. “This is a way for us to get the capital we need to build out either new facilities or renovate and expand the existing faculties to meet the need going forward.”
MDCPS is also working on a large-scale redevelopment project at Phillis Wheatley Elementary School that will include workforce housing for district employees.
It’s part of the district’s long-term strategy for addressing both teacher shortages and South Florida’s affordable housing shortage.
A similar project is under construction in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood.
Regarding the Phillis Wheatley project, Perez said the district “should have something coming to the board hopefully within the next few months.”