From the Editor
Downtown Needs Schools
And Teachers Affordable Housing
The Greater Downtown has a 92,000+ population, of which 13,000 are school-age kids. The Downtown Proper, north of the Miami River to the Omni District, and westwards from Biscayne Bay to North Miami Avenue — roughly the original city of Miami — accounts for one-third.
Yet, the Downtown Proper lacks adequate schools. Our Greater Downtown neighbors to the south, Brickell, do have public schools with seats reserved for each local student. And plans are underway to further build. I read just the other day an announcement about a projected expansion. The office of Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins enthusiastically heralded it:
“The Commissioner wanted to let you all know that the item for the joint PHCD / MDCPS pilot project to build the Southside Middle School together with one floor of workforce housing passed unanimously in yesterday’s Board meeting. We’re very excited to see some progress on the schools front.”
DNA’s Education Committee Chair, Joy Prevor, promptly replied:
“Thrilled to hear! However (don’t mean to be Debbie Downer️), I want to remind all that this does not solve our schools’ issue. Yes, there will be another local option and more seats county-wide. But unless we win the magnet lottery (competing with kids from throughout the county), we are not guaranteed a school we can attend. We need to keep working on creating designated seats for Downtown residents at existing Magnet programs (just as Brickell residents are guaranteed a spot at Southside…), expanding local Magnet options such as I Prep (with designated seats for us) AND advocating for building a new, quality neighborhood school where all our residents will be assigned to send their kids (sans application/lottery).”
Teachers
One pressing need for downtown families is good schools. Good teachers make good schools, but to have good teachers affordable housing is a must.
A middle-school teacher who used to live in downtown explained: “I make around $52,000. Subtract taxes, social security, health insurance, and I am left with some $38,000 to bring home… Now, ask any realtor how much housing costs in downtown.”
I asked local realtor Zoila Perez-Chanquet. The average rent for Downtown was $1600–1700 for a studio. A one-bedroom apartment averaged between $ 1700–2200. For two bedrooms rents increased to $ 2200–3000. And Zoila Perez-Chanquet cited her source: Miami Association of Realtors, last six months rental rates.
Downtown’s rebirth, AKA gentrification, said the middle-school teacher, had cost her and her two children their middle-class status. “Having to spend close to $30,000 in housing, we quickly became the working poor.”
That she left town would be no more than a sad anecdote, but for the lack of good schools for downtown children.
Affordable Housing
Change might be on the way. On December 13, the City of Miami Commission passed unanimously inclusionary litigation sponsored by District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell. It mandates developers in designated zones to allocate apartments for the local workforce, including teachers and police officers. To qualify, you must make between 60 and 120 percent of the Miami-Dade $45,000 income median.
And what waters the garden of the developers’ generosity? More density, meaning they would be able to build extra floors to offset the market-rate difference. As it stands now, 14% percent of the units in new developments will be for workforce/affordable housing. The model has successfully been tried in a voluntary manner, hence some developers are on board.
Andres Viglucci spoke to Commissioner Russel for the Miami Herald: “The idea behind the inclusionary zoning rule is to produce truly mixed-income buildings and a mixed-income community at a time when Miamians are increasingly physically separated by class.”
Downtown News caught up with Commissioner Russell. His comment:
“For Miami to be a great city, we’ve got to do a much better job of ensuring that there is a healthy mix of affordable options for our residents at all income levels. We have an incredible opportunity to test out and improve this model of inclusionary zoning in the Omni CRA neighborhood, which is one of the last areas in the downtown core where there is land available for major projects that can help us make a dent on this issue.”
Common wisdom has it that the three human inevitabilities are death, taxes, and change. Perhaps we should add hope to the list.
[Adapted from the article A Statistical Profile of Downtown.]
