Developers are making noise and moving earth at start of nesting season

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Pinecrest voters have the chance to get more control over development in their village through a referendum that would require a public vote for practically all zoning code and land use changes. If it passes next week, any attempt to increase density, height and floor area ratio, or to create new zoning districts — or even change a definition in the zoning code — would have to be approved by 60% of voters.

Pinecrest electeds are livid that they are losing that power.

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There are eight referendum questions on the Miami Beach ballot, including two that are carefully camouflaged giveaways to rich millionaire developer friends of Mayor Dan Gelber.

Even former Mayor Philip Levine — who was caught in a secret meeting with Gelber and developers trying to form a political action committee to turn South Beach into another Brickell — could get a piece of the action.

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The owners of the closed Presidential Estates Golf Course in North Miami Beach got the green light Thursday to build 119 homes on the property after Miami-Dade Commission voted to approve the rezoning despite concerns from staff, residents and the district commissioner, Sally Heyman.

But it was expected. The commission is so developer friendly that Chairman Jose “Pepe” Diaz actually feels comfortable saying out loud that he’s going to cut critics’ time in half but give more time to an applicant.

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Speculators who want to change the zoning on 800 acres of environmentally sensitive land outside the Urban Development Boundary will get another bite of the apple on Wednesday.

To call them developers would be wrong. They are real estate flippers who have no real plan to develop the land, no announced tenants, and no control of the land in question. About a quarter of the assembled farmland acreage is not even for sale and will not be part of any repurposing. It will continue to grow food, the owner insists.

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Neighbors hope county or state will step in and save the natural preserve

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