A 1950’s change to Florida’s constitution allowed Miami-Dade County to assume greater powers over transportation and a plethora of other issues within the more than 30 incorporated cities within its borders. But all land use decisions remained with those cities—a bad recipe for effectively managing growth and development.
While building the Metrorail system in the 1970’s, the creation of a special “rapid transit zone” (RTZ) allowed the county to control transportation and land use decisions. The RTZ was originally applied narrowly to the immediate area around the Metrorail tracks and stations, but today there is renewed interest in expanding the RTZ to better facilitate transit-oriented and joint development.
This month on Building Better Communities with Transit we’re joined by Eric Singer and Andrej Micovic, Associates at Bilzin Sumberg in Miami who talk about the creation of the RTZ ordinance. They also talk about how the recent TIF districts and the county’s Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit (SMART) Plan interact with the RTZ and what’s important in writing planning code.
Building Better Communities with Transit is intended to provide more support to communities and local leaders who are working to catalyze new development around transit, give more people access to public transportation, increase access to opportunity, and build robust local economies. You can find this episode—and all of our previous episodes—on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Recent TOD news
Here are a few things that have been happening this week with TOD projects across the country.
- Pioneering community-led development on Atlanta’s Beltline (Curbed)
- American Fork, UT finalizing TOD zoning for FrontRunner commuter rail station (Daily Herald)
- California gives BART control over zoning on agency-owned land (San Francisco Chronicle)
- Building with limited parking is a transit-oriented success (Evanston Now)
- Expo/Crenshaw development project takes another step forward (Streetsblog LA)