A polarizing proposal for a 2.2 million-square-foot industrial campus outside the Urban Development Boundary is still in limbo.
Heavy machinery supplier Kelly Tractor, which provides Caterpillar and other construction and mining equipment, wants to develop a headquarters on the northwest corner of Northwest Sixth Street and a Dolphin Expressway on- and off-ramp in unincorporated Miami-Dade County. The 246-acre site, which Kelly Tractor owns, is outside the Urban Development Boundary, a greenbelt meant to restrict development toward the Everglades.
County commissioners, sitting as the comprehensive development master plan and zoning board, were scheduled to vote on the item on Thursday. But after roughly two hours of public comment, presentations and deliberations, it was clear Kelly Tractor didn’t have the supermajority nine votes needed for approval and to override the mayor’s veto, prompting the firm to withdraw its proposal. The application will be brought back to the board on May 5.
Kelly Tractor, founded in Clewiston in the 1930s, wants to move its headquarters to its site outside the UDB, where development plans include offices and outdoor equipment storage. The firm says it has outgrown its base near Doral, and a new headquarters would aid Kelly Tractor in supporting county and other government projects that need heavy equipment, as well as help ease Miami-Dade’s affordability crisis by providing additional well-paying jobs.
The headquarters would create 1,300 jobs, with Kelly Tractor pay averaging about $30 per hour, Chris Kelly, company president, told commissioners. The firm has about 600 employees in South Florida, about half of whom are in Miami-Dade.
Opponents raised two main issues: The project is planned for a site outside the UDB and will pave over about 160 acres of wetlands, an ecosystem that’s vital for water quality, wildlife and flood mitigation, with the latter especially needed for this area near Sweetwater. They also raised concerns with the process, as Kelly Tractor’s application is for a text amendment and isn’t going through the traditional UDB expansion process that requires layers of governmental reviews.
In Miami-Dade, where development is booming and real estate is a major tax base and economic driver, building outside the UDB is one of the most controversial proposals a developer can make.
Roughly a dozen people, including Florida International University students, as well as members of Tropical Audubon and other environmental groups, spoke against the project.
“If it doesn’t stop here, then where does it stop,” one FIU student said of the UDB expansion.
Although Kelly Tractor scored approval in January, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava vetoed the approval in February. Since then, Kelly Tractor and the county have worked on fine-tuning the project.
In its latest application, Kelly Tractor vowed to preserve 63.1 acres of wetlands on the site and an additional 20 acres of wetlands mitigation offsite.
That wasn’t enough to sway county officials, who maintain Kelly Tractor has failed to show a need to build this facility outside the UDB, which is a required threshold for projects outside the boundary. Miami-Dade staff members say there’s enough industrial land within the UDB for the headquarters. Kelly Tractor has pushed back on this notion, with the firm’s attorney saying the county’s analysis of available land within the UDB isn’t correct.
Levine Cava conceded Kelly Tractor has largely addressed the wetlands issue but maintained her opposition.
“The Urban Development Boundary exists for a reason. It’s there to protect our environment, our residents and our economy from the consequences of overdevelopment,” she said.
An outstanding issue remained: Kelly Tractor failed to show data-backed analysis on why the expansion outside the UDB is necessary.
“The burden was on you to really express the need. I cannot say that I am satisfied with the arguments presented for your need, though I understand your want,” Commissioner Marleine Bastien said.
Kelly Tractor’s attorney said the firm would withdraw its application and come back with more data and statistics on why it needs to have its headquarters on its site outside the UDB.
The item prompted heated exchanges on the dais, with commissioners who support the project arguing that the site is within the “urban expansion area,” or tracts outside the UDB but still designated as sites for potential future expansion.
Complicating matters is an April 9 letter from the Greater Miami Expressway Authority saying the project “directly overlaps with” and is “incompatible with” the already approved 14-mile Kendall Parkway expansion of the Dolphin Expressway from Northwest 137th Avenue to Southwest 136th Street.
Commissioners expressed their frustration with the expressway authority.
“I find it irritating that GMX will send this letter to the administration opining now on this application when they have been sitting idling by, they have stalled the progression of the parkway,” said commission Chair Anthony Rodriguez, adding GMX has been granted hundreds of millions of dollars for its projects. “They have done nothing with that money. … That [letter] does not move me at all.”
A couple of commissioners said they doubted additional data from Kelly Tractor would change the mind of county administrators or even some on the dais, and called out what they view as “hypocrisy” by county staff, who previously proposed a text amendment for a trash incinerator facility outside the UDB.
“We are going to say, ‘do as I say, not as I would have done,’” Oliver G. Gilbert III said.