Florida bills open the door to demolishing iconic Miami Beach and Key West sites

A pair of related bills rapidly advancing through the Florida Legislature would eviscerate protections for historic buildings and districts in coastal areas across the state, allowing property owners and developers to bypass local regulations and bulldoze and redevelop much of Miami Beach, among many other places.

That would include the iconic Art Deco hotel row on Ocean Drive as well as famed neighborhoods such as Key West’s Old Town, the town of Palm Beach and Fernandina Beach.

The bills, SB 1317 and HB 1346, sponsored by Republicans Sen. Bryan Avila and Rep. Spencer Roach, are causing alarm among preservationists and municipal officials statewide, including shocked elected officials in St. Augustine — the oldest city in the United States — as they realize their potentially devastating implications. One preservation group in Miami Beach called the legislation “the end of historic preservation in coastal Florida.” Another critic likened it to “an atom bomb.”

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