Shoma Withdraws Application to Develop Outside the UDB

Without amendment, the land west of the UDB allowed for just one home every five acres. Shoma's application, which was among 25 submitted to the county for development outside the UDB, was for a master-planned community with an aggregate of approximately 492 residential units. That translates to an average of no more than six units per acre, and might also have included some amenities, such as service retail, Shoma's lawyer, Stanley Price of the law firm of Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod, tells GlobeSt.com.

Development is required to be consistent with county master plans, and municipalities are to have infrastructure, including transportation improvements in place prior to development. A plan for transportation improvements is among the conditions not addressed in respect to the amendment, Price says. "With no municipal infrastructure investment planned and no application by a developer for land contiguous to the Shoma site," he says, "Shoma determined that its plan would become economically infeasible."

In withdrawing the application, Masoud Shojaee," president of Shoma, said in a statement, "there are too many issues that remain unresolved coupled with a limited time frame to properly address the complex issues for a suitable conclusion. The need for long-term planning has never been more evident than with the existing conditions occurring in Miami-Dade County. It's unfortunate that the master plan process has become such a divisive procedure." Expansion of the UDB is a controversial issue. An activist group called Hold the Line has long enlisted support against expansion and also lobbies government officials and others. In an editorial, titled "Hold the Line," county commissioner Katy Sorenson, took up the cry, writing, "this line serves to limit urban sprawl." Speaking for Shojaee, Price contends, "allowing just one housing unit every five acres is the definition of urban sprawl."