Res No 032-11-13346RESOLUTION NO. 32-11-13346
A Resolution of the Mayor and City Commission of the City of South Miami,
Florida approving the Sustainable South Miami Research Grant Pre -
Application; providing for an effective date.
WHEREAS, the City Commission adopted Ordinance No. 26 -07 -1927 on September 4,
2007 creating the Green Task Force; and
WHEREAS, the City Commission adopted Resolution No. 23 -09 -12832 on February 3,
2009 committing to a Carbon Neutral Initiative, which included a Carbon Neutral Initiative Work
Plan; and
WHEREAS, Florida International University (FIU) has prepared at draft Pre - Application for
submittal to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for Sustainable
Community research and wishes to use South Miami as a site and template for such research; and
WHEREAS, HUD has agreed to pursue a Sustainable Communities initiative pursuant to its
agreement with the U.S. Department of Transportation and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
that spells out what Sustainable Communities activities will be undertaken (see:
http : / /www.epa.gov /smartgrowth /pdf/ dot- hud -epa- partnership- agreement.pdD; and
WHEREAS, the City Commission wishes to support the Pre - Application and if FIU is
shortlisted will want to review the full application with FIU before it is filed with HUD in order to
consider supporting that full application.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE MAYOR AND THE CITY
COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF SOUTH MIAMI, FLORIDA:
Section 1. That the attached draft Pre - Application (dated January 28, 2011) has the full
support of the City of South Miami and the City Manager is instructed to cooperate in further drafts
of the Pre - application consistent with the current draft and any development of a full application for
such research grant funds should FIU be shortlisted to submit a full application and he is further
instructed cooperate with FIU and bring back to the City Commission information regarding the
status of this grant as it becomes available insofar as funds, voluntary efforts or other resources
become available.
Section 2. The City Commission will review the full application of the proposed research
funds when it becomes available.
Section 3. This resolution shall be effective immediately upon being adopted.
PASSED AND ADOPTED this 1 St, day of February, 2011.
ATTEST: AP(P�ROVE' /D:
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IT CLERK —MAYO
Pg. 2 of Res. Nod 32 -11 -13346
COMMISSION VOTE: 5 -0
Mayor Stoddard: yea
Vice Mayor Newman: Yea
Commissioner Palmer: Yea
READ AND APPROVED AS TO FORM Commissioner Beasley: Yea
AND SU CIENCY: Commissioner Harris: Yea
CITY ATTORNEY
WAMy Documents\resolutions \Resolution Sustainable SM Researe hGrant PreApplciation.doe
Pre - Application for HUD NOPI for Fiscal Year 2010 Docket Number: FR- 5415 -N- 24/01282011
Towards A Sustainable South Miami in Miami -Dade County, Florida
Transformation Initiative: Sustainable Communities Research and Grant Program
Much has been written and much is known regarding transit oriented developments (TODs).
FIU proposes to undertake an original investigation of transit oriented development (TOD)
implementation strategies and develop a case study design for the City of South Miami. This
initiative will advance the current body of knowledge on TOD development in several ways:
1. Through development of a phasing approach that allows TOD improvements to begin
with small improvements and to expand improvements over time through a system of
positive reinforcements;
2. Through an examination of how public space can be created to serve multiple purposes
throughout the day that reinforce conditions that support equitable economic
development, urban mobility, and the arts;
3. Through the formulation of a partnership between FIU, The City of South Miami, and
local professionals that supports job growth, stability or growth in residential and
commercial property values over the long term;
4. Through the expansion of partnerships and collaborations between FIU and University of
Miami to provide enhanced educational, park, street/infrastructure, and housing
opportunities for the neighborhoods and residents of South Miami and students at the
University of Miami. A focus will be on properties and programs within the South
Miami Community Redevelopment Agency area (i.e., affordable housing purchase
assistance; business start -up assistance; housing rehabilitation; annual scholarship award;
business fagade rehabilitation; youth job training, and other programs; ).
The City of South Miami is located in Miami -Dade County, Florida. Its total area is 2.4
square miles of mostly suburban developed land with a downtown area that is bifurcated by the
busy US 1 corridor. US 1 at this location is congested with traffic much of the day and results in
cleaving the City in two. A Metrorail line with elevated track follows the US I corridor through
the City of South Miami and participates in further bifurcation of the city fabric. However, a
Metrorail station exists at US 1 and Sunset Drive and represents an important transportation and
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Pre - Application for HUD NOPI for Fiscal Year 2010 Docket Number: FR-5415-N-24/01282011
civic node that can be used as a nucleus for a new TOD project that can re -unify the extant split
condition. . The medium income for South Miami is $42,488, the medium age is 37.488, and
families (non - single residents) make up 60.3% of the population. South Miami has over 10,000
residents and 40% are Caucasian, 34% are Latino, and 25% are of African decent, and 1.4% are
of Asian decent. In many respects, South Miami is a very typical community in Miami -Dade
County and they wish to maintain their very comfortable life style. The research is to. examine
how South Miami could do that and improve upon their sustainable community characteristics
over the next 100 years.
Miami over the next 100 years will experience a number of fundamental and transformative
changes to its physical character as it responds to the need to mitigate climate change, adapt to
raising sea levels and other climate change impacts, and as it implements programs for the
creation of more reliable and greener transportation systems, creates equitable and affordable
housing and a network of public civic spaces. The results of this research will help the City to
develop the roadmap for navigating these transformations and provide HUD with original and
innovative sustainable communities strategies and methodologies that will have application
elsewhere and will result in contri butions to existing scholarship on sustainability. This roadmap
will support a city plan that ensures the long -term preservation of the unique community
character of South Miami, provides better access to affordable housing, more transportation
options, and lower transportation costs while simultaneously protecting the environment,
promoting equitable development, and helping to address the challenges of climate change.
Research arising from this effort will provide support and new ways to: invest in healthy,
safe, and walkable neighborhoods; leverage federal investments (coordinate efforts with the
HUD funded 2050 Southeast Florida Regional Plan for Sustainable Development efforts and
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Pre - Application for HUD NOPI for Fiscal Year 2010 Docket Number: FR- 5415 -N- 24/01282011
.similar Sustainable Communities and related initiatives and research such as FlU led ULTRA
EX Project funded by NSF); and, support existing communities (build sustainable, small, mixed -
use, mixed - income urban centers that increase transit use, produce locally generated renewable
energy, water, food, and other necessities of like, affordable housing, economic competitiveness,
and reliable, cost efficient, multimodal zero - carbon systems of transport).
Much of the work has been previously theorized and new efforts to apply scientific rigor to
investigate these innovative urban forms would be useful (see Growing the New American
Economy at: htta: / /dl.dropbox. cam /u /11437843 /GTNP) .Compiete.ndf).
Deliverables
The funding request is $500,000 spent over a two year term. The deliverables are as follows:
1) Use and development of new Models of Urban Design and Transportation Analysis -
Through meta - disciplinary research and through the development of design principles
applied to TODs in hot & humid cities that over the next 100 years will be impacted by
climate change, this project will combine ecological, architectural, landscape
architectural, transportation, infrastructure and urban design solutions to address
emerging urban challenges in South Miami. Phase one of our research will map the
economic, political, and cultural processes that have shaped the City of South Miami and
will continue to do so. Our work will address the new challenges and opportunities to: i)
create better pedestrian- oriented shared public spaces and corridors and superior low cost
and reliable transportation choices that have thoughtfully conceived intermodal
connectivity; 2) improve meta - environmental planning and infrastructure evolution: and;
expand upon the effective strategies for resisting urban sprawl, mitigating and adapting to
likely sea level rise impacts, integrating into urban designs various innovative energy and water
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Pre - Application for HUD NOPI for Fiscal Year 2010 Docket Number: FR-5415-N-24/01282011
conservation technologies and the production of locally generated renewable energy, fresh water
supplies, food, and other necessities of life, and the development of a very high quality and
walkable and vital urban downtown center,
2) Applied Research in Urbanism - A fundamental aspect of the South Miami TOD Case
Study Research Project will be its ability to apply faculty expertise from various
disciplines within the environmental design professions at FIU to South Miami, but
always with broad applicability to other cities in South Florida. With expertise in
Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Interior Design, Community and Regional
Planning, Preservation, Urban Design and Sustainable Design the team brings diverse
range of specialization to the creation of a case study urban design proposal for a cutting
TOD in South Miami. The South Miami TOD Case Study Research Project will develop
tactics and methodologies for South Miami's sustainable urban future and be grounded in
research. It will involve an integrated approach to the urban environment that will
include: the creation of new patterns of mixed use sustainable urban living, the
safeguarding of South Miami's landscape ecology systems in order to better provide an
enhanced quality of life, the implementation of diverse and sustainable transit and
infrastructure systems that are better connected to regional modes of transportation and
provide for necessary utility services. Additionally, the research and applied design
project will ensure the safeguarding of an appropriate mixture of programs and
economies necessary to support a range of lifestyle choices in South Miami. The design
phase will focus on the development of a TOD model for tropical and sub tropical
climates and new urban morphologies that create systems of open space for civic activity,
recreation and health, as well as allow for infrastructural improvements that enhance
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Pre - Application for HUD NOPI for Fiscal Year 2010 Docket Number: FR- 5415 -N- 24/01282011
connectivity within the urban environment.
Methodology: Priority will be placed on analysis and design strategies for the creation of a
cutting edge case study TOD to be proposed around the existing Metrorail stop at US 1 and
Sunset. The South Miami TOD Case Study Research Project will deploy the following analysis
and design tactics:
Transit Oriented Development Planning for the Tropical and Subtropical Contexts: The
quality of life in our region is increasingly determined by its transportation systems. Pressing
beyond the monoculture of the automobile, The South Miami TOD Case Study Project will
develop intermodal transit planning to advance new cultures of mobility, urbanism, commerce,
and environmentalism.
Sustainable Communities Design for the Tropical and Subtropical Contexts: Since
humankind moves more material around than atmospheric, geological, and oceanic forces
combined, land use and transportation are pressing sustainability issues. Each city pattern type
generates distinct planning and economic opportunities. Developing the right patterns for the
tropical and subtropical contexts over a 100 year term of expected sea level rise is critically
important and central to this study.
Sustainable Street & Road Ecologies: Roads have become the single largest classification
of public space shaping our South Florida communities. The creation of Street & Road Ecology
Matrices for South Miami will present an index of the generic components found in the
transportation corridors and facilitate opportunities for creating new types and new combinations
of existing types to achieve context- sensitive street and road design.
Tropical Aqua - Urbanism: Healthy bays, canals, streams and a nourishing everglades
ecosystem deliver critical ecological services whose value can no longer remain outside human
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Pre - Application for HUD NOPI for Fiscal Year 2010 Docket Number: FR- 5415 -N- 24/01282011
systems of development. Watershed Urbanism for South Miami will be central to both the
analysis and design phases of this project. An ecologically -based development model for
integrating land development with fluvial, riparian and tidal systems will be developed with an
overlay of various sea level rise assumptions.
Low Impact Tropical Urbanism: The first hour of urban storm water runoff in South
Miami has a pollution index far greater than that of raw sewage. Low impact urbanism will
substitute an ecological storm water management system for costly civil engineering
technologies by replacing pipes with parks.
Deliverables:
Analysis: South Miami's existing and historical conditions will be catalogued and analyzed;
historical development over time, historical and current land use patterns, historical and current
ownership patterns, demographic analysis, traffic pattern analysis and formal analysis will be
completed.
South Miami TOD Case Study Design: Using the data and analysis gathered in the first
phase, a case study urban design proposal will be developed using building information
modeling systems (BIM). The design proposal will follow and be informed by the analysis
phase. The case study design will propose how to integrate better transportation choices for
South Miami, how to create more diverse typologies of housing, how to enhance the economic
and cultural vibrancy of South Miami through a TOD, how the citizens of South Miami can have
access to beauty, in the form of good design and nature, how the citizens of South Miami can
meet their daily needs without owning a car and finally how the citizens of South Miami can
engage in a more robust public life.
0
HUD, DOT and EPA Partnership: Sustainable Communities
June 16, 2009
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan, U.S.
Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Ray LaHood, and U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson today announced a new partnership to help American
families in all communities — rural, suburban and urban — gain better access to affordable
housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs.
Earlier this year, HUD and DOT announced an unprecedented agreement to implement joint
housing and transportation initiatives. With EPA joining the partnership, the three agencies will
work together to ensure that these housing and transportation goals are met while
simultaneously protecting the environment, promoting equitable development, and helping to
address the challenges of climate change.
DOT, HUD and EPA have created a high -level interagency partnership to better coordinate
federal transportation, environmental protection, and housing investments and to identify
strategies that:
• Provide more transportation choices. Develop safe, reliable and economical
transportation choices in order to decrease household transportation costs, reduce our
nations' dependence on foreign oil, improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas
emissions and promote public health.
• Promote equitable, affordable housing. Expand location and energy efficient housing
choices for people of all ages, incomes, races and ethnicities to increase mobility and
lower the combined cost of housing and transportation.
• Increase economic competitiveness. Enhance economic competitiveness through
reliable and timely access to employment centers, educational opportunities, services
and other basic needs by workers as well as expanded business access to markets.
• Support existing communities. Target federal funding toward existing communities to
increase community revitalization, the efficiency of public works investments and
safeguard rural landscapes.
• Leverage federal investment. Cooperatively align federal policies and funding to
remove barriers, leverage funding and increase the accountability and effectiveness of
all levels of government to plan for future growth.
• Value communities and neighborhoods. Enhance the unique characteristics of all
communities by investing in healthy, safe and walkable neighborhoods— rural, urban or
suburban.
The HUD/DOT/EPA partnership wilt:
Enhance integrated planning and investment. The partnership will seek to integrate
housing, transportation, water infrastructure, and land use planning and investment.
HUD, EPA and DOT propose to make planning grants available to metropolitan areas,
and create mechanisms to ensure those plans are carried through to localities.
• Provide a vision for sustainable growth. This effort will help communities set a vision
for sustainable growth and apply federal transportation, water infrastructure, housing and
other investments in an integrated approach that reduces the nation's dependence on
foreign oil, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, protects America's air and water and
improves quality of life. Coordinating planning efforts in housing, transportation, air
quality and water -- including planning cycles, processes and geographic coverage — will
make more effective use of federal housing and transportation dollars.
Redefine housing affordability and make it transparent. The partnership will develop
federal housing affordability measures that include housing and transportation costs and
other expenses that are affected by location choices. Although transportation costs now
approach or exceed housing costs for many working families, federal definitions of
housing affordability do not recognize the strain of soaring transportation costs on
homeowners and renters who live in areas isolated from work opportunities and
transportation choices. The partnership will redefine affordability to reflect those costs,
improve the consideration of the cost of utilities and provide consumers with enhanced
information to help them make housing decisions.
Redevelop underutilized sites. The partnership will work to achieve critical
environmental justice goals and other environmental goals by targeting development to
locations that already have infrastructure and offer transportation choices. Environmental
justice is a particular concern in areas where disinvestment and past industrial use
caused pollution and a legacy of contaminated or abandoned sites. This partnership will
help return such sites to productive use.
Develop livability measures and tools. The partnership will research, evaluate and
recommend measures that indicate the livability of communities, neighborhoods and
metropolitan areas. These measures could be adopted in subsequent integrated
planning efforts to benchmark existing conditions, measure progress toward achieving
community visions and increase accountability. HUD, DOT and EPA will help
communities attain livability goals by developing and providing analytical tools to
evaluate progress as well as state and local technical assistance programs to remove
barriers to coordinated housing, transportation and environmental protection
Investments. The partnership will develop incentives to encourage communities to
implement, use and publicize the measures.
Align HUD, DOT and EPA programs. HUD, DOT and EPA will work to assure that
their programs maximize the benefits of their combined investments in our communities
for livability, affordability, environmental excellence, and the promotion of green jobs of
the future. HUD and DOT will work together to identify opportunities to better coordinate
their programs and encourage location efficiency in housing and transportation choices.
HUD, DOT and EPA will also share information and review processes to facilitate better -
informed decisions and coordinate investments.
• Undertake joint research, data collection and outreach. HUD, DOT and EPA will
engage in joint research, data collection, and outreach efforts with stakeholders, to
develop information platforms and analytic tools to track housing and transportation
options and expenditures, establish standardized and efficient performance measures,
and identify best practices.