Why Is The City Allowing This To Happen?
Short-term rentals are prohibited in SoFi, so why did our city officials grant permits to open several of these properties in SoFi? The City of Miami Beach wrongfully waived the Certificate of Appropriateness required and granted permit BC1704920 for the property on 310 Meridian Ave.
Short Term Rental / “Airbnb style” hotels
Ever since the creation of "Casa Sofi", an "airbnb style" hotel 735 2nd St, there has been a noticeable change to the chemistry of our neighborhood. A constant smell of drugs in the air, speeding cars slingshot-ing down Meridian - going at least 60 mph from one stop sign to the next, often ignoring the stop signs altogether, increased graffiti on our cherished historic buildings and trash littering our landscaping. Our neighborhood has experienced violent gang-related shootings at restaurants, constant theft, and tourists stopping traffic to twerk on main roads. We have skid marks at every intersection from transients doing wheelies and donuts in the middle of intersections. These issues directly stem from cheap, unsupervised and unmanageable short-term rentals.
Three new projects already been “Permitted”
Three projects currently have permits for opening up "airbnb/hotels." 310 Meridian, 226 and 333 Jefferson. Furthermore, there are at least 2-3 others contemplated/publicized that are also in the pipeline. At 15 units each that is 75 new “airbnb” units with 6-8 persons per unit; that will be 450-600 transient renters in our neighborhood on a daily basis. These airbnb/ hotel units will certainly be at a lower cost than any nearby full-service hotels, which is going to attract more of the careless tourists we already witness on Washington/Collins ave. The previous owner of "Club Space" is planning to open up an airbnb hotel in our neighborhood at 333 Jefferson.
Why is this being allowed to happen?
Lack of accountability and due-diligence from the Building Department, the Planning Department, and the City Administration as a whole As a Prime example, the 310 Meridian Developer somehow managed to bypass the historic board, and 3 critical zoning requirements when they originally applied for their building permit. This is why no one received that familiar perforated “zoning notice” about these developments.This is why we never saw the familiar “red sign” posted out front of the building notifying the neighboring residents of the proposed changes.
Click below and read details on how the building department missed three critical zoning requirements for 310 Meridian.These same kind of “mistakes” by the building and planning departments are apparent at the other developments.