MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — Miami-Dade County commissioners on Tuesday voted 12-1 to pursue eminent domain to acquire just under 10 acres of land on Fisher Island.
The land holds the fuel facility that supplies PortMiami.
Commissioner Raquel Regalado was the only dissenting vote.
Ahead of the vote, she expressed concern that with eminent domain, they would be inheriting a “dinosaur,” due to the aging facility.
Commissioner Oliver Gilbert, on the other hand, said he believes it will be less costly to upgrade the existing site than it would be to build a new one.
“Last fall, the board of county commission authorized the administration to enter into negotiations for this property and should those negotiations not be successful to enter into eminent domain proceedings,” Miami-Dade Deputy Mayor Roy Coley told Local 10 News after the vote. “Since that time, and the mayor has determined the negotiations to not be successful, it has been identified that the legal description of the property could be reduced to a slightly smaller footprint than our original resolution. And so, it’s really a cleanup item that reauthorizes what’s already been authorized with a more accurate legal description.”
The fuel bunker on the exclusive Fisher Island has been the subject of several lawsuits and a high-profile dispute over its future.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the county’s goal is to ensure a reliable fuel supply for PortMiami’s operations.
As for the next steps in the related federal case, Coley said the county will now pursue eminent domain and Florida law “requires negotiations.”
“There’s a 30-day statutory negotiation period where we hope we can sit down with the new property owners, the developers, and negotiate out a final deal that the mayor can support,” he said.
Coley said he wouldn’t be able to say whether the plaintiffs who have filed suit will have a seat at the negotiating table.
“Well, Fisher Island has sued us, as you know, and they’ve also sued the developers,” he said. “And so, any negotiations would be confidential in nature, just like all the negotiations up to now that we’re talking about are confidential by requirement. So whether or not everyone’s willing to sit down at the table together, we’ll find out after we file our eminent domain.”
Roberto Perez, the CEO of HRP Group, released the following statement to Local 10 News on behalf of HRP Fisher Island, LLC:
“Today’s action to pursue the seizure of private property is the direct and entirely avoidable consequence of Miami-Dade County’s decades-long failure to plan. The County knew this property existed and were approached repeatedly by the former owner before it ever went to market and during the public sale. They proactively passed on the opportunity to purchase it again and again.
“The former owner provided extensive notice to the County and Port that the property would ultimately be sold to a developer given the highest and best use of the land in one of the country’s most expensive zip codes and provided alternatives for fuel supply location and financing. Moreover, the property was marketed to real estate developers in the public sale.
“HRP ultimately acquired the property through a fully transparent, publicly advertised process and made our intentions to build a world-class residential development clear from day one.
“When the County first threatened eminent domain - just weeks before the closing of our two years of development efforts to unlock the value of a $2.5 billion project - we came to the table and spent eight months participating in a confidential mediation process requested by the County. According to the County’s own public statements, that process resulted in a mediated resolution that would have allowed the County to secure the property immediately at no cost or risk to the taxpayers.
“HRP will aggressively fight this unconstitutional seizure of our property and we will build One Fisher Island. The only question now is how much of the public’s time and money the Mayor is willing to waste to obscure the numerous poor decisions her administration and the County have made for decades.”
