CRA Newsletter June 2019

From Our Mayor
Dean Trantalis
From the barrier island to downtown,
Fort Lauderdale’s skyline is dotted
with construction cranes where new
housing, new hotels and new business
space is being built.
It is a dizzying transformation. For
some, it’s a statement of our prosperity
and a sign of Fort Lauderdale gaining
international renown as a great place
to live and visit. For others, it raises
concern of traffic and infrastructure
and whether we are losing our sense
of place as a community. Both myself
and other members of this City
Commission campaigned last year on
finding a balance.
Let’s face it: we are in the midst of
runaway growth and are witnessing
the fulfillment of the policies of the
last 10 years. And believe it or not,
there’s more to come. But I want to
create a middle ground of smart
growth — growth that doesn’t overwhelm
our neighborhoods, growth in which
we’ve assured the proper infrastructure
is in place, growth that is in keeping
with our shared values and vision as
a community.
Almost all of the construction underway
predates the current commission.
And, this commission is committed
to learning from the lessons of the
past to see how we can work to
improve the development process.
Such change does not occur overnight,
but several fundamental changes are
being formulated so that we can we
can now deal with growth in a better
way.
City staff is working on an update
to the downtown master plan that
will put into law important principles
that previously were mere suggestions.
Developers and past commissions
often ignored these guidelines. The
City Commission is scheduled to
vote on these reforms in the fall.
The most important reform is
something called transition zones.
Right now, a 30-story building can
be built at the edge of downtown
next to single-family home neighborhoods.
That would no longer be the case.
The proposal coming forward creates
a transition area around downtown’s
borders. New construction in the
transition area would need to be
smaller than if at the center of downtown,
creating more of a buffer for
surrounding neighborhoods.
Other items being codified include
the separation between towers on a
site, the size of a building’s base, the
maximum length of buildings, the
need for projects to include open
space and the need for adjacent
streetscapes with trees and lighting.
The City Commission also wants
to change a key rule regarding what
developments automatically come to
us for a vote.
Under the current land development
code, many downtown projects are
approved with only a review by city
staff. The commission can only intervene
if it finds substantial evidence that
staff made a grievous error in judgment.
Legally, it’s a difficult challenge. It
also frustrates the very mission we
were all elected to fulfill.
As your elected officials, we want
the power to approve or reject more
projects without such an impediment.
When we make that change, residents
will be guaranteed more of a voice in
what is built.
On the beach, a different set of
circumstances is playing out. A deal
was struck between the county and
city in the late 1980s that is about to
have major consequences.
In 1989, the city and county were
attempting to redevelop the beach —
moving away from the heyday of
college Spring Break that left much
of the central beach blighted and
decaying. The city had a vision to
turn the beach into something special
with high-class hotels and better
amenities. They saw it as improving
the beach for local residents while
also attracting a better mix of tourists.
But officials back then were also
concerned about how redevelopment
of that scale would affect travel on
A1A. As a result, they established a
system of evaluating how much additional
traffic each new development would
bring. They assigned a trip count
through some algorithm based on the
number of dwelling units and the
type of use, be it hotel or residential.
In doing so, they set a cap on the
number of new peak-hour trips
permitted on the barrier island.
That number was a 3,220 additional
“trips.” I’m not sure how they
arrived at that number back then, but
it was supposed to ensure A1A
remained drivable. Well, 30 years
later, the Florida Department of
Transportation says A1A is a failed
road even though there are still trips
available for additional development
projects. However, we are about to
hit that magical limit. Once it’s
reached, there can be no more building
on the beach.
There are just 334 trips left to be
allocated, and projects currently
under review would take away all but
58.
Where did the trips go over the last
30 years? Beach Place, the W, the
Conrad, the Ritz Carlton, Jackson
Tower, Las Olas Beach Club, the
Hilton are among the projects. In
addition, some developers are sitting
on large blocks of trips for projects
that have been approved but they
have not built — like Bahia Mar and
El Ad.
The question is what now?
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