Coconut Grove Chamber Of Commerce: How Will The New CRA Change The West Grove?

Press release from Coconut Grove Chamber of Commerce:

September 24, 2021

Shotgun houses in Village West. A relic of the past? Part of the future? The answer may rest with the new Coconut Grove CRA. (Pictured Above)

At its Sept. 23 meeting, the Miami City Commission gave its final approval to establish the Coconut Grove Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). A few steps remain before the CRA is official and up and running, but this long-held vision of positive change for the West Grove, advocated by District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell since he took office, appears to be headed for some version of reality. “The CRA and its corresponding redevelopment plan will work to repay the debt of the promises of the past,” says Russell. “I remain committed to revitalizing the community through the creation of affordable housing and economic development.”

Russell emphasizes that the West Grove “Is a founding neighborhood of the City of Miami, with a vibrant history that still exists in the people who live here today. The Coconut Grove CRA is a tool to capture the tax dollars they pay and reinvest them in building a sustainable, affordable community for the next generation that preserves the legacy of the past.” When the vision is realized, the CRA will create a legacy not just for the community but for Russell himself.

How will it happen, and what are the remaining steps before the CRA is operational? The CRA has hundreds of moving parts. Some are already in place. Most important was the lengthy process of community assessment and creation of a redevelopment plan, a linchpin of the CRA and its guiding document. Miami-Based Plusurbia Design completed this phase of the project earlier in 2021 and is currently engaged in a study of affordable housing for the West Grove.

A critically important next step is for the Board of County Commissioners to approve the Coconut Grove CRA. Anthony Balzebre, formerly a Coconut Grove staffer in Commissioner Russell’s office, now assistant director of the Omni CRA, which will provide staff support for the Coconut Grove CRA, estimates this could be completed by November 2021.

The County Commission approval will trigger an interlocal agreement among all the governing entities (the County, the City of Miami, and the Coconut Grove CRA) establishing a CRA Trust Fund supported by property taxes in the CRA area. According to Balzebre, more than $200,000 will be allocated in the first year and more than $1 million in the second and subsequent years.

After the County collects the 2021 property taxes for the designated CRA area, says Balzebre, the money will flow. The West Grove could see funding for CRA projects as early as January 2022. Major goals include economic development; infrastructure improvements; housing and home ownership; historic and cultural preservation; transportation, transit, and parking improvements; and redevelopment support. All of these are spelled out in detail in the online redevelopment plan.

These are the broad outlines of the Coconut Grove CRA. But isn’t the need for a CRA based on urban blight? To what extent is Village West still characterized by urban blight, given how much it has gentrified in recent years?

“Despite the recent wave of development within the West Grove CRA area,” says Balzebre, “there still remain numerous conditions that support the creation of a CRA.” They include but are not limited to the presence of substandard, inadequate, or unsafe structures; a shortage of affordable housing; inadequate infrastructure; insufficient roadways and inadequate parking; defective or unusual conditions of title; a preponderance of governmentally owned property with adverse environmental conditions; and a higher incidence of crime, fire, and emergency medical service calls to the area.

The arrival of the CRA in the West Grove is a harbinger of continuing change there. Interestingly, the CRA area is defined by a map that shows part of the West Grove CRA in and near the Douglas Rd. Metrorail station in Coral Gables. This is an area where hundreds of new housing units are just about to come online and enter the tax rolls, which will directly benefit the new CRA.

It remains an area very much in transition. If the standard playbook for gentrification is followed, older and poorer residents, mostly Black, will eventually be pushed out. They will not be able to afford the West Grove, and they’ll move to other parts of the County. Many have already done that.

The new CRA could be a bulwark against gentrification. It could help to create an interesting, diverse, significantly improved neighborhood unlike anything else in Miami where affluent newcomers and legacy residents whose families have owned property for generations live side by side. Says long-time Village West resident Linda Williams, “This is an opportunity to fund various projects that will help older citizens, like myself, maintain our homes, upgrade, and possibly build affordable housing so residents of this community can stay here.”

To visit the CRA website and view the Plusurbia report in a format that allows viewers to flip through the pages and zoom in on specific details, click here.

This press release was produced by Coconut Grove Chamber of Commerce. The views expressed here are the author’s own.