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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSubmittal-Miami River Marine GroupNot for Profit Corporation 3033 N.W. North River Dr, 2nd Floor Miami, FL 33142 PRESIDENT Richard Dubin Haiti Shipping Lines, Inc. VICE-PRESIDENT Sara Babun Antillean Marine Shipping Corp. SECRETARY • TREASURER Dick Bunnell Bunnell Foundation Inc. DIRECTORS Cleve Jones Jeff Hooper Munir Mourra Bill Parkes Beau Payne Bruce Schurger EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Fran Bohnsack, Ph.D. CORPORATE MEMBERS Antillean Marine Shipping Corp. Associated Marine Salvage Betty K Agencies Biscayne Bay Pilots Bunnell Foundation, Inc. Ferrous Processing & Trading International Maritime Ships' Agents Island Cargo Systems Laser Freight Merrill Stevens Dry Dock P&L Towing and Transportation, Inc. Weston Solutions / Bean Environmental ASSOCIATE MEMBERS AME Ship Equipment Cliff Berry Inc. Fifth Street Marina Fifth Street Terminal Florida Marine Agencies Haiti Shipping Line Horr, Novak and Skipp, PA Hydraulic Sales & Service Kelly Tractor Co. Langer -Krell Marine Electronics Mirage Yacht, LLC Norseman Shipbuilding River Terminal Services Shoreline Marine Fuel Waste Management Inc. MEMBERS Anais Shipping Andreas Leontsinis Ash Property Group Customers Rule Insurance Best Yacht Repair Biscayne Towing & Salvage Gil, Garden, Norman et. al. Marilyn Properties Marine Council McCrory & Associates South Shore Marine Diesel Shark Shipping Tanenbaum Harber of Florida TransAtlantic Bank Founding Sponsors of Miami's FACSIMILE (305) 637-7949 TELEPHONE (305) 637-7977 EMAIL manatee@gate.net MAN HAL WAY SOUSE 1111111, Miami River Marine Group A Private Port Cooperative Trade Association www.miamirivermarinegroup.com Port of Miami River November 13, 2008 Hon. Joe M. Sanchez Hon. Tomas P. Regalado Hon. Angel Gonzalez Hon. Michelle Spence -Jones Hon. Marc D. Sarnoff Miami City Commission 3500 Pan American Drive Miami FL 33133 Re: "Miami River Demand and Economic Assessment Waterfront Industrial Parcels;" Prepared by Lambert Advisory, LLC (October 2008) Dear Commissioners: As you know, I am the Executive Director of the Miami River Marine Group, Inc., which is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the working Miami River. I have over 16 years of involvement with the Miami River and Maritime issues. I serve as the Port Director of the "Port of Miami River" for the United States Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security; I am a Commissioner on Florida's Board of (water) Pilot Commissioners as a consumer representative; I am Corporate Secretary for the Port of Miami's Crane Management Company, and I have been selected as one of Florida's Outstanding Leaders in Transportation by the Journal of Commerce, an Exceptional Leader for Enhancing Free Trade by Miami's World Trade Center, and a recipient of the 2008 Award of Excellence given by the Marine Industries Association of South Florida. SUBMITTED INTO THE PUBLIC RECORD FOR 1TEMPZONJ3/b Og- 00223C1-S bmtat- 171l,Oj diver far'ine GrouP I have reviewed the most recent economic study of the Miami River commissioned by the City of Miami and undertaken by Lambert Advisory. Although your planning staff released this report only a couple of days ago (specifically, after 5 p.m. on November 10th, the eve of a federal holiday), I put aside other work in order to comment on this report. I would also note that the complete Comprehensive Plan package released on November 10 is over 1500 pages long, compared to less that 300 pages when we last saw it back in April. Clearly, I have not been able to give the entire package the scrutiny it deserves, so I will confine my remarks to the Lambert report, a copy of which is attached. In general, I would like to make the following observations about the report. It is evident that the report was commissioned to provide a justification for abandoning any protection for marine industry and fisheries on the river in favor of residential development. It is not independent of bias, was clearly conducted in secrecy, offers no peer review, and did not involve the expertise offered by either the Miami River Commission or the Miami River Marine Group — the two non-profit entities most associated with the Miami River. It also offers conclusions that are inconsistent with many previous economic reports on the Miami River's marine industry; these include reports offered by the Beacon Council, the Bermello Group, the Miami River Commission, the South Florida Water Management District, a Miami River Market Study by Innovative Development Resources (commissioned by the City in 2004), and the FAU Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions published in April of this year. Based on my professional opinion, the Lambert Advisory report does not reflect the true economic environment on the Miami River and deliberately undervalues the marine industry. I urge you to reject the report and modify its recommendations to offer protection for the river's current working waterfront. cc: Brett Bibeau, Miami River Commission Frank Herhold, Marine Industries Association of SW Florida David Dickerson, National Marine Manufacturers Association Bill Pable, Florida Department of Community Affairs Submitted into the public record in connection with item PZ.13 on 11-13-08 Priscilla A. Thompson City Clerk Submitted into the public record in connection with item PZ.13 on 11-13-08 Priscilla A. Thompson City Clerk November 11, 2008 Comments made in response to "Miami River Demand and Market Assessment Waterfront Industrial Parcels," a study commissioned by the City of Miami and conducted by the Lambert Advisory Submitted By: Fran Bohnsack, Ph.D. Executive Director, Miami River Marine Group Page 1 of 21: The Introduction states that the study's purpose is to justify residential development on the river by examining the impacts of "changing allowable uses of the Miami River adjacent waterfront industrial parcels to include non -working waterfront uses." Page 2 of 21: The 5 source documents listed can all present a part of the picture of activity of working waterfront on the Miami River, although they are sometimes cited in ways which are unconventional in their application. The Army Corps of Engineers 2005 Supplement to Miami River Dredged Material Management Plan is a study undertaken to determine a cost benefit analysis for completion of the Miami River maintenance dredging project. It measured only containerized cargo; it did not include break bulk cargo, which is a sizable part of the river's commerce. It also did not weigh economic benefits that come from other elements of the working waterfront (marinas, boatyards & yacht traffic, for example). It did determine that the river should be dredged for the purpose of commerce. The Army Corps of Engineers Waterborne Commerce of the United States, 2003-2007, is a periodic inventory of extant docks located by area. It does not measure cargo or draw conclusions about its viability. The FIU Metropolitan Center's Miami River Marine Industry Economic Assessment and Profile, 2008 was conducted without consultation with the Miami River Commission or the Miami River Marine Group, the two main repositories of Miami River data. The first paragraph mentions that PIERS (Port Import Export Reporting Service) data has been reviewed for the study, and it goes on to describe PIERS as "a database of every shipment of cargo made between 2002 and December 2007 by the principle carriers... based along the Miami River[Italics mine]." The language is significant: the PIERS report only measures containerized cargo; it does not include break bulk. The language also mentions "principle carriers." The word "carriers" here has a very specific meaning; it refers to liner service, which includes only regularly scheduled sailings from a particular port. Charter vessel cargo is not liner service and would not be captured in PIERS data. Since a significant portion of the river's commerce is charter, the picture of cargo activity created by reliance solely on PIERS is a falsely diminutive one. Page 3 of 21, 2nd paragraph Says "this report does not address the economic impact including job creation of working waterfront activity on the Miami River ..." yet it calls for a re -review of job creation estimates from Miami River working waterfront activities ...." The peer review of previous economic studies done by the Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions at FAU (An Economic Analysis of the Miami River Marine industry, April 2008) cited as a resource by Lambert Advisory found job creation estimates to be consistent over the years, although this was not information Lambert chose to include. In assessing the marine related parcels "which might be subject to land use change," the study fails to include the three properties whose land use changes were successfully litigated: Hurricane Cove, Brisas del Rio, and Coastal. These properties represent 23.81 acres of marine industrial property. When these are added to the total of 39.17 acres represented in the study, one discovers that the actual total amount of marine industrial acreage slated for change to residential is 62.98 acres! Page 4 of 21 Mentions Map 1 as an indicator that "the continuous working waterfront has been diminished to the point where there is limited fabric of a traditional industrial waterfront remaining along most of Miami's River within the City of Miami." Map 1, however, is incorrect. Three properties that went through litigation to the Third District Court of Appeal are depicted as commercial on the map, when in fact their proposed land use changes to commercial were overturned by the Third DCA. Today they remain Industrial, and comprise a total of 23.81 additional acres of mostly contiguous working waterfront, all within the same proximity (2 properties on the South side bordered by industrial, one on the north side directly across from industrial). Page 5 of 21 Similar to the comment above, the chart described as Parcel Summary does not include Hurricane Cove, Coastal, or Brisas del Rio, the three land use changes successfully litigated by the Miami River Marine Group and others. Again, it creates a false picture of what the report describes as the working waterfront's "limited fabric." Submitted into the public record in connection with item PZ.13 on 11-13-08 Priscilla A. Thompson City Clerk Submitted into the public record in connection with item PZ.13 on 11-13-08 Priscilla A. Thompson City Clerk Page 6 of 21 The author of the study comments on channel depth as a limiting factor for the cargo function of the Miami River. This comment would be true of a conventional port that serves worldwide ports of call, reflecting ever -larger ships to carry more capacity, but it is not true of the Miami River. The Miami River's shallow draft serves as a special niche. that virtually guarantees its longevity as a port because its smaller vessels are the only ones that can call on the many similar shallow draft ports throughout the Caribbean. The author also incorrectly suggests that the Army Corps has imposed a 100' "buffer" as a no build, no dock zone. It is true that the Corps issues permits and looks at each circumstance for building a dock or seawall on a case -by -case basis. The intent is to assure that alignment in the channel for ships remains unimpeded. There is no 100' buffer rule; if there were, none of the condos that have been built on the river would have been allowed. Also incorrect, the author cites an example of what he thinks might be allowed in a wider reach of the river by mentioning "a distinct area known as River Cove/Yacht Harbor Marina in the City of Miami where redevelopment is already underway." I believe he means Hurricane Cove, one of the properties that were successfully litigated on behalf of the marine industry where redevelopment has been decidedly stopped. Page 8 0f 21 Offers a chart of tonnage and projected tonnage. This chart is inconsistent with all other information I have ever reviewed that compares the Miami River to other Florida ports. In addition, the Chart offers up data in "short tons," while cargo on the Miami River has always been measured in metric tons. Perhaps that error contributes to an overall miscalculation. I collected data from the river terminals in 2004 that totaled 854,516 metric tons. The author points out as a weakness that 80% of the river's cargo between.2002 and 2006 was outbound. The Miami River has always been an export port, but we see this as a good thing. During a time when American manufacturing and products for export are down, we have at the river a year round opportunity to send American goods to island nations throughout the Caribbean. Since many of these goods are food commodities and staples, the market remains a relatively consistent performer. Page 10 of 21 Posits the non -scientific statement that "it is difficult to imagine a scenario where there will be dramatic increases in trade through the Miami River in the foreseeable future." It is not difficult for Miami River terminal operators, however. The lack of vision evidenced in the report can simply be countered by the fact that virtually all cargo businesses on the Miami River have plans in place for operations in a post -Castro Cuba. Submitted into the public record in connection with item PZ.13 on 11-13-08 Priscilla A. Thompson City Clerk Again in remarking on the Miami River as among the smallest ports in the state, the author cites the ACOE as a source for his assertion. For 16 years I have been aware of problems in the Corps data with regard to the Miami River. This is in part due to low- level computer entry of data that often confuses the Port of Miami River with the Port of Miami (for example, one can find listings of commodities supposedly shipped from the river that have never been handled here). A secondary component to this is due to self - reporting and under reporting of data to the Corps, confusion confounded by the fact that a private port operates differently, with different reporting requirements, than a government port. In the last sentence on the page, the author notes that three terminals in the City of Miami are suitable for redevelopment for non -maritime uses, commenting that even "despite current market conditions which are unlikely to encourage the development of non - maritime uses, plans are in place to redevelop the Trans Caribbean property over a longer time period. [Italics mine] " Contrary to the assumption made here, the Trans Caribbean property is being redeveloped for a maritime use. Page 11 of 21: The first sentence is an unfounded assumption: "In the end, and with the exception of one operator, it is likely that over the next decade there activity occurring along the City of Miami's portion of the Miami River regardless of any change to the marine industrial land use designation of this land." Page 12 of 21 Discusses low densities per acre on the Miami River, while the author admittedly acknowledges, "caveats to a rather gross analysis of short tons/acre". The forced comparison of cargo type assumes a sameness in ports that simply does not exist. In making the determination to dredge, the Army Corps itself acknowledged that if the Miami River were not to exist as a port, the trade that is currently here would not transfer elsewhere, a fact due to the uniqueness of the river and its markets. The author argues that because of lower densities, the terminals have "significant room to grow without the addition of new terminals in the City." What is at stake in the City's proposed Comp Plan is not the desire to create new terminals, but the need to save those that already exist and that serve markets which, Haiti particularly, that would otherwise remain unserved. The extended discussion of the need for wet slips and dry slips on pages 14 — 17 and their ideal siting on the Miami River strikes me as valid and worthy of pursuit. Page 18 of 21 I have to question the NAISC data featured in the chart and discussion on Commercial Fishing. If the report is to be believed, there were only 9 employees in the fishing sector in all of Miami -Dade County in 2007. The evidence tells a different story. On the Miami River alone, we have Garcia's fishery with two fishery yards (one of them a recent expansion) each with fleets of over a dozen boats. When these boats go out, they are manned with at least two persons. Also on the river is the Miami River Lobster and Stone Crab fishery, recently expanded to two new parcels and operating its own fleet. Casablanca's and Joe's on the river also deploy fishing fleets, so clearly there is a problem with the data and the report's conclusion that "it is unlikely that this sector will be a driver of demand along the City of Miami's stretch of the River for the foreseeable future ." The incredible popularity of the restaurants associated with these fisheries is alone a driving force for demand. Page 19 of 21 Asserts that "employment is forecast to remain relatively strong during the next five to seven years." It goes on to say that "The Miami River, specifically, is positioned to capture its fair share of economic growth, building upon a residential and commercial development trend that started several years ago with many proposed projects still planned for development." What a remarkable statement in light of our nation's recent , economic crisis! On May 28, 2008, the South Florida Business Journal reported that South Florida lost 15,200 jobs in April (based on data released by the U.S. Department of Labor), a situation that has since deteriorated further. The "trend" that started several years ago was the epi-center of over building and mortgage meltdown for Miami and the Miami River, which, since 2000, has absorbed 4,200 new residential units, 5,200 more which are under construction, and 6,500 units in addition that have been granted permits to begin construction. These figures do not justify the forced eviction of the Miami River's working waterfront in favor of residential and commercial development. The Recommendations as to how the City of Miami can Support Working Waterfront are good, such as they are, but they don't go far enough, and they don't protect important segments of the working waterfront like cargo and fisheries. Lambert Advisory has produced a report that appears to be tailor made for the City's goal of eliminating the port functions of the Miami River. It clearly is not an independent report: it was conducted in secret, without peer review and without consultation with either the Miami River Commission or the Miami River Marine Group. Submitted into the public record in connection with item PZ.13 on 11-13-08 Priscilla A. Thompson City Clerk Submitted into the public record in connection with item PZ.13 on 11-13-08 Priscilla A. Thompson City Clerk Part of the package can and -switch is bad policy. Miami laver port deserves support OUR OPINION: City officials can boost waterway businesses' economic value Seventy percent of Flor- ; ida voters think that working waterfronts are important enough for their Character and commerce to deserve a property -tax break. To'be more. precise, 70.4 percent of the state's voters approved a constitu- tional.amendment requiring that boatyards.. and certain other waterfront businesses be appraised according to their current use, not the highest and best use; which favors hotels, apartments and condominiums. The vote brought a sigh of relief to waterfront -business own- ers all over the state. , Make .that almost all such owners. In Miami, the busi- nesses along the Miami. River, which is its own'bus- tling port separate from the seaport, can'treally breathe easier. This is because the city of Miami seems deter- mined to drive out riverside businesses in order to allow more waterfront:: high=rise condo development. Reject revisions Today., the Miami City, Commission will consider, changes to its comprehen- sive plan that wouldgive the Port of.the Miami 'River and the river businesses less. protection from encroach- ing. residential develop- ment. The changes should be rejected. For some unfathomable reason,` the river port and transportation corridor are no longer enshrined as such in the reworded comp plan. This runs counter to what the Department of Commu- nity Affairs told the city to do before the state agency would sign off on any plan changes. The DCA wants the comp plan to keep and actu- ally reinforce a strong com- mitment to the city's work- ing river and its •current allowed uses. Generates revenue Why would the,city not agree? After all, the river serves: as a shallow -draft port for shipping companies doing business all around the Caribbean. It generates about $4 billion in revenue annually: Shipyards offer Miami residents high -pay- ing blue-collar jobs, usually in the $50,000 range. What's .more, the U.S. Corps. of 'Engineers just • completed a long -needed $88 million dredging of the river, making it an even.: more viable shipping chan- nel. Doesn't the city need all this more than it needs a few more high-rise condos sitting empty thanks tothe continued housing slump? Yes, of course it does. Theriver is in U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's dis- trict, and maybe it's time for .. . her to talk sense to city offi cials by reminding them of the economic importance of the ;river -port to the city's` jobmarket andin_generat-, in revenue. `Ms. Ros-Lehti-. nen helpedbring home mil- lions . . . of dollars for the dredging project : for just these reasons. It is -uncon- scionable for Miami officials to even contemplateunder- mining this investment in the river by U.S. and Florida taxpayers. past with its member Congress and commt leaders, we will be left e the dust of the . voic change. -VIVIAN MANNERUD, Fort Lauderdale Follow the found' In his Nov. 8 Otter V column, Religious Right c politics, Cal. Thomas truth and reality. Reli practiced the way i intendedby the "fount can do far more good trying to force a parti( brand of religion ontc people via government trol. The doctrine of "pra what you preach," Tht writes, is the way to make this a better wo] agree and. congratt Thomas for fmally telli truth that has been. evident since the begin of time. -GUNTHER KARGER, Palmettc 150-word letter to I"IeraldEd@Miami ami'`FL 33132 1693 Include your.name, aaaress and