Thursday February 10th, the Miami-Dade County Infrastructure, Operations, and Innovations Committee (CIOIC) is considering Item 2A, a change to the established development process that creates an immediate, artificial deficit of single family housing. Adopting this new formula will prioritize the same short-sighted land use policies that have led to the affordability crisis we confront today. More sprawl, more traffic congestion, and more pressure to pave over our vulnerable agricultural land are not solutions for the majority of Miami residents struggling with housing costs or stuck in traffic.

What Item 2A does not do is address our extreme shortage of affordable and multi-family housing. Today, Miami-Dade county's residential housing supply is 87% single family homes and only 6% multi-family housing, far below the 70-30% ratio that exists in other large American cities. It will do nothing to reduce traffic and improve mobility, or create density to support transportation alternatives for the 250,000 Miami households making ends meet on less than $35,000 of annual income. Item 2A also threatens the important progress the county has made to improve the health of Biscayne Bay and to restore the Everglades, critical to large sectors of our economy and our drinking water supplies.

Tell Chair Regalado and the CIOIC Commissioners to reject Item 2A and prioritize solutions creating affordable housing options, equitable transit-friendly communities through density and infill projects, and expanded, reliable transit options that put homeownership and mobility within reach of all our neighbors.