Life is full of tradeoffs: Miami Beach’s Historic Art Deco District Collides With Push for More Housing

Florida law revisions could enable developers to demolish art deco buildings in favor of high-rise towers

By Deborah Acosta of The WSJ.  Excerpts:

"Florida’s effort to tackle its affordable-housing crisis is crashing into this city’s famous art deco history.

Proposed changes to a state law would allow developers to knock down hundreds of Miami Beach’s iconic art deco buildings and replace them with rows of taller apartment buildings.

The city boasts the world’s largest concentration of this early-20th-century architectural style, including the famous Raleigh Hotel and the Tides Hotel."

"a revised version of the 2023 housing law could lead to demolition of many of these low-rise buildings"

"The art deco neighborhood near the Atlantic Ocean generates more tourism revenue than any other part of the state but Disney World"

"Developers, however, say it is necessary to create more housing for the city’s lower- and middle-income residents and to ease the city’s chronic traffic congestion"

"The state in 2023 had the highest rate of cost-burdened renters in the country, or renters who spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs"

"Fifty-nine percent of Florida’s rental population were cost-burdened."

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