MIAMI — On Tuesday, Miami-Dade County commissioners once again deferred a vote on a controversial proposal by family-owned Kelly Tractor to expand its operations beyond the county’s Urban Development Boundary.
This followed another round of vigorous debate.
During the discussion, a company representative told commissioners they have outgrown their existing space and need to accommodate for future growth.
After the vote, Kelly Tractor owner Chris Kelly told Local 10 News they have made a lot of effort “to give them what they want and hopefully we can get there.”
“Unfortunately, every environmental decision is temporary,” said Florida International University biologist and science director for the advocacy group Hold the Line Coalition Laura Reynolds. “And so a deferral is to survive another day, those wetlands are still there.”
According to Hold the Line, the project will remove, “247 acres of land available for agriculture,” located, “within the North Trail Basin and contains Wetlands of Regional Significance,” and within, “the core foraging area of the federally Threatened wood stork, within consultation area for the Endangered Florida bonneted bat as well as just east of the USFWS Florida Panther Focus Area.”
‘It protects us, the taxpayer’
Reynolds said this one item could have immense implications for the county’s residents from their drinking water to insurance rates.
“The UDB in place because it protects us, the taxpayer,” she said.
Reynolds explained the wetlands help mitigate against property-damaging flood risks.
“It allows the water to go somewhere,” she said. “If we don’t have those wetlands out there, where are we going to pump the water?”
She said the wetlands also clean the water that eventually makes its way to Biscayne Bay, a huge ecological benefit for marine life and preserving the water quality which underpins the county’s multi-million-dollar real estate, trade, and tourism economy.
A frustrated Commissioner J.C. Bermudez, sensing the item was on the cusp of another deferral, felt like the county was not telegraphing it is pro-business.
Setting a precedent: Is the future of UDB, wetlands on the line?
“We want jobs for Miami-Dade County and we’re glad the Kelly Tractor company has been here for 93 years,” said Reynolds. “But is it worth destroying these wetlands for this particular said purpose?”
For Reynolds, a key factor at the heart of this contentious public debate is the manner by which the company proposed its plans to the county.
Previously, Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins expressed concern about the process this application used to make its way to county hall, in the form of a text amendment, which has lower thresholds than the more rigorous application typically required to request building outside the UDB.
“We need to put a stop to this,” said Cohen Higgins. “And my concern regarding precedent is that if we continue to have applications that come in the form of text amendments, as opposed to applications to move the Urban Development Boundary, we’re going to get a plethora of them. And our Urban Development Boundary is going to cease to exist.”
“This would set precedent,” Reynolds said. “What it does is it makes the UDB irrelevant. Any private company could now come in with just a text amendment and rewrite the rules just for themselves. It would almost be like if House Bill 399 passed, and then there was no UDB.”
Added Kelly: “We’ve owned the land since 1984. We filed this application three years ago, we would have happily filed a UDB application back then. Hopefully we can get this approved because there’s been a lot of time and resources dedicated, it’s been three years, I would hate to have to start from scratch and wait until May of 2027 to file the UDB application. It’s just very duplicitous.”
Who worked with Kelly Tractor? Owner won’t say
At this hour it remains unclear who at the county advised a private company seeking to expand beyond the UDB to bypass the county’s routine oversight process.
Local 10 News asked the company’s owner for the name and title of the county employee who advised them to approach their expansion plans in a text amendment form.
Kelly declined to provide a specific name.
“Honestly, I don’t want to ruin anyone’s career,” he said. “I’m not here to throw shade on anyone, I don’t want to ruin a public servant’s career, but I was in a couple meetings and they were multiple county planning staff that pretty much, my interpretation is, they were fine with it.”
Some of the commissioners did express support for the company in terms of honoring the money it already invested in pursuing this path.
Local 10 News has reached out to each commissioner’s office, the mayor’s office, and the Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources asking them on how they verified the company’s claim that a planning official suggested this course of action.
“We have land inside the urban development boundary for industrial uses like the one they’re proposing,” argued Reynolds. “So if they went through the process in the normal way, we would not have a need to push into wetlands.”
Reynolds said advocates for the environment and the county’s master plan would like to see the commissioners “protect the wetlands” and require that every private company follow the same rules, “and make it clear that if you’re going to try to move the UDB, you need to follow the rules that we have had since the early ‘80s on the books in Miami-Dade County.”
The new date for a vote is set for June 2.
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