FYI Miami: April 11, 2024

Below are some of the FYIs in this week’s edition. The entire content of this week’s FYIs and Insider sections is available by subscription only. To subscribe click here.

NO SOLICITORS: Miami-Dade is moving forward legislation that would ban business solicitations on private residential property between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m., with a fine of $100 for a violation. The county would enforce the regulation in unincorporated areas and municipalities that have their own ordinances would enforce it within their borders. But no municipal ordinance could be less stringent than the county rules, the proposed ordinance states. It would permit solicitations during those hours if the solicitor had gotten advance permission of the propery owner or a resident of the property. The county commission passed the proposed ordinance on its first reading unanimously last week without discussion. There is a required six-week wait before a public hearing can be held on the proposal, which comes from commission Chairman Oliver Gilbert III. County code does not now regulate solicitation of business on private residential property.

BOATING RESTRICTIONS: Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is being asked to study whether year-round boating-restricted areas are vital in Biscayne Bay from the MacArthur Causeway to the Broward County line and report in 120 days. Restricted areas could include idle speed no-wake zones, slow speed minimum-wake zones, numerical speed limit zones, or vessel-exclusion zones, according to the resolution that county commissioners passed last week. The resolution notes that by law the county can on its own establish such zones within certain distances of boat ramps, hoists, landing facilities, fuel dispensers, bridges, locks, and certain types of swimming areas. To accomplish that, local governments must coordinate with the Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers. The mayor is ordered to coordinate the study with those two as well as the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and municipalities on that portion of the bay. Commissioner Micky Steinberg introduced the resolution.   

NEW JET FUEL SOURCE: Trains might bring jet fuel to Miami International Airport. Commissioners last week voted unanimously without comment to order a county study of either bringing aircraft fuel to the airport by train or constructing fuel facilities at the airport that would be accessible by rail. The resolution directs Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to immediately start talks with the Florida East Coast Railway about adding the aircraft fuel service to its freight operations. Miami-Dade operates a facility at the airport that fuels planes and some ground equipment, but fuel now reaches the airport via a single underground pipeline from Port Everglades. The legislation looks at fuel by rail as a supplemental or emergency fuel source “following the development of additional infrastructure to offload and store fuel delivered by rail.”