LIVE LOCAL ACT
violate existing height and density restrictions.
Critics question whether the state law really will help people struggling the most to afford soaring apartment rents and home sale prices that became South Florida’s hallmark during the pandemic.
Most controversially, the Live Local Act bars local authorities from enacting rent controls as Orange County voters did last year. Housing advocates had called for such controls to calm down the frenetic Miami-Dade housing market.
What’s more, the language of the law appears intended to entice real estate developers who typically build market-rate projects to build housing, rather than give experienced affordable homebuilders new incentives to get more homes built.
In at least two local cities, Doral and Hollywood, developers have cited the new law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, in publicly floating supersized plans for high-rise residential and commercial developments that would far exceed anything around them in height, scale and density.
Oasis Doral would be a 17-acre residential and commercial project at a major intersection backing up to a pair of longstanding developments of modest two-story townhomes Villas of Amberwood surrounding a golf course called Costa del Sol.
In Hollywood along the beachfront Broadwalk, a group of motels would be replaced with an 18-story condo and apartment tower complex, a threestory beach club and restaurant facing the pedestrian promenade.
The proposals though not yet formally submitted to local officials for review and approval, have rapidly drawn heated pushback in both cities from residents, property owners and public officials. Elected officials in Doral and Hollywood are frustrated that the state law appears to render them powerless to address community concerns or to plan for the effects on established