Russell Galbut, Lefferts’ Miami Beach Live Local Condo OK’d

A Miami Beach board greenlit a Live Local Act project’s mechanical car elevator, despite neighbors’ push to delay the vote.

An entity tied to Russell Galbut of Miami-based Crescent Heights and Mendy Chudaitov of Lefferts, with offices in Miami and New York, plans a 15-story apartment building with 29 units and some office space at 1826 Collins Avenue. The project will include 12 apartments at workforce rents in compliance with Florida’s Live Local Act’s mandate that at least 40 percent of units are at below-market rates.

Although a major perk of the state law for developers is that they can obtain administrative approval, bypassing public hearings and votes, this project came before a city board for a conditional use approval for a mechanical car elevator.

This type of garage is necessitated by the lot’s small size, at just over 9,600 square feet and 50 feet wide at its narrowest, according developers’ attorney Graham Penn’s presentation to the board.

The Miami Beach Planning Board on Wednesday approved the car elevator.

The project sits at the intersection of some of Miami Beach’s biggest issues: the lack of affordable housing for those who work in the city, and the difficulty of adding more housing amid opposition by existing residents over overdevelopment.

The property, previously a parking lot, was developed with a three-story commercial building in 2012, which also has robotic parking, though it never worked properly, Penn told the board.

Prior to the vote, he reminded the board that its scope is restricted to the mechanical parking item and no other aspects of the project.

“I am sure you have received a lot of emails from our neighbors to the south suggesting we set back the building 10 feet,” Penn said, adding this will neither work nor is this issue within the board’s purview.

Residents at Tower 1800, a 19-story, 87-unit condominium on the south side of the development site, sent letters and emails to the planning board, urging it mandates a setback of at least 10 feet between their building’s property line and the project.

That would protect Tower 1800 residents from “adverse impacts, including loss of openness, reduced light and air, diminished privacy, and an overpowering wall effect immediately adjacent to existing units,” Wilfredo Rosado, a Tower 1800 unit owner, wrote in his letter.

At the meeting, a Tower 1800 property manager urged the board to defer its decision, saying even though the vote is strictly on the parking item, it would be a “snowball effect” allowing the project to proceed, while negotiations still are needed between the neighboring condo building and the developers.

Galbut pushed back at the meeting. “We will not agree to any extensions. There is no basis for any extension,” he said.

Some of the residents who spoke during the meeting also expressed concerns with construction so close to their building, referencing the deadly 2021 Surfside condo collapse that came years after residents had complained of reverberations during construction of an adjacent condominium.

Penn told the board the developers’ team and Tower 1800 are working on an agreement regarding the construction process, including easements.

Board members’ purview over setbacks under the Live Local Act is somewhat vague, restricting them from imposing setback requirements if this would affect a project’s height, Miami Beach staff members told the board. In addition, development regulations for this city district also impose no minimum setback regulations.

Board member Jonathan Freidin suggested delaying a vote by about two months, but none of his colleagues on the dais supported him. As the board voted in favor, some members reiterated that their purview was restricted.