Blacks fight for housing in Grove renewal
BY DAVID SMILEY
The question has never been whether Grand Avenue's vacant lots and deteriorating buildings would be redeveloped, but when.
The answer may come Thursday.
Miami commissioners will consider giving preliminary approval to the first phase of the massive Grove Village on Grand, which would reshape six blocks of the street that runs through the heart of Coconut Grove's black and Bahamian community.
Meanwhile, community activists are calling for subsidized housing and hoping for the protection afforded other Bahamian communities in South Florida.
''This is a story of survival,'' says Pierre Sands, president of the Village West Homeowners and Tenants Association.
Grove Village, the $300 million vision of Pointe Group Advisors, headed by local businessman Peter Gardner, promises new life to a street that once thrived.
A supermarket would serve an area that currently relies on corner convenience stores. About 170,000 square feet in retail space would replace drug traffic with foot traffic. And sleek apartments, shops and offices would replace old buildings ravaged by hurricanes, time and neglect.
But the sheer size of Grove Village has evoked not only hope, but fear.
''Things are changing everywhere,'' Sands said of his community. ``But it doesn't mean we have to go by the way of the dinosaur.''
Sands' association voted Monday to support the development based on 10 conditions, including a mandate that 20 percent of Grove Village's units be affordable or workforce housing.
Gardner, who said Wednesday he would include some workforce housing, said he has done his best to listen to the community in which he was born and reared. Gardner has surrounded himself with influential locals, including Grove architect Max Strang and Richard Shepard, director of the University of Miami's Center for Urban and Community Design, which has studied development opportunities in the West Grove.
Pointe Group has met often with community groups, participated in a community redevelopment project and joined an umbrella group called Positive Partners. All that, and an agreement that 800 to 1,000 full-time jobs will be available to Grovites, has brought wide support.
NO GUARANTEES
But considering Pointe Group is also buying and razing duplexes and homes on Grand Avenue's side streets and has made no commitment to include affordable housing in Grove Village, some wonder if the black community will be around to enjoy it.
''What is going on here is going to hurt us for the rest of our lives,'' resident William Bellinger, 46, said at a recent public hearing in City Hall.
The neighborhood, once known as the ''Black Grove'' and now Village West, is one of eight communities in a five-year Miami plan to improve economic and housing conditions.
But City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, who represents the Grove, says the city doesn't have a legal responsibility to demand affordable housing.
And with just two of six blocks before the commission Thursday, Sarnoff said he doesn't know if such a demand makes sense.
''I think it can be done, but I don't know that it can be done in this phase,'' he said. ``But I'll ask the question on the dais.''
That shouldn't stop the community from demanding affordable housing, said Norma Jean Sawyer, executive director of the Bahama Conch Community Land Trust, which has been fighting gentrification in the Key West community of Bahama Village.
''They must say how many affordable units they will provide,'' she said. ``They must give a number.''
Several years ago, Key West allocated $2.5 million toward the development and restoration of affordable homes in neighborhoods targeted for redevelopment.
Sawyer said because the land trust swayed the Keys commission to grant money for land acquisition and affordable housing, it was able to keep a number of native residents in the community of about 3,000.
The 2000 Census counted about 2,700 black residents in the West Grove. Since then, many have moved, and an informal study conducted last year shows many have been replaced by Hispanics.
Gardner says he will include affordable housing in other properties he has bought in the community and is not razing any affordable housing now.
''As far as rental rates that already exist here, I can tell you the same rates will be here,'' he said.
EARLIER RENT INCREASE
According to the Pointe Group, Grand Avenue rents range from $500 to $1,000 per month, plus utilities. Five years ago, some were as low as $400 a month, but those rates rose when a group of developers led by Coral Gables attorney Julio Marrero began buying up Grand Avenue properties with plans to build mixed-use condominiums as high as 12 stories.
Those plans fell through. Now, Gardner says, Marrero and partners have a contract with Pointe Group.
With the Marrero group owning much of the land on Grand Avenue, the Pointe Group is looking for property to expand the vision of the redeveloped Grove.
Accountant Twyman Bentley, 54, who works out of his house in the 3300 block of Florida Avenue, says Gardner's dream dampens his heritage. Bentley says he inherited the home from his parents and hopes to pass it on to his family.
He said the Pointe Group wants to buy his property to build a rental with parking beneath it.
''It's giving the impression that we're being squeezed out here,'' Bentley said.
Though the commission will be considering a part of the project that is two blocks west of his home, Bentley can already see evidence of what could happen to his neighborhood.
On Saturday, he and a few other holdouts stood two doors down from his house, outside the home of Bennie Chapman.
The house next to hers has been sold and is now housing a squatter.
On the next lot, a trackhoe sits where a home once stood. Other homes on the street are missing windows and doors.
The wrecking ball isn't coming, says Chapman, 64, it's already swinging on her street.
''They're destroying us,'' she said.
Prev
I've been away for a while with computer problems and even forgot my Flickr password to upload pics. Had to create a new account, but really nothing new to post as of yet. I've turned into an absolute terror on some of the other threads posting pics like a kid with a new toy. I hope to one day get my own camera to take my own perspectives of the new Miami skyline, but have other priorities right now.
Sweet Coconut Grove Condo
Linear Mode
