Homestead Gears Up for the City of Tomorrow

With spring in full swing now, while some plan for home gardens or summer vacations, Homestead planned an ambitious revitalization of the area; all with public input during the first week of April.

From April 1st-4th, at Miami-Dade College's Homestead Campus, the City of Homestead’s Design Team and Steering Committee held their Visioning Charette, as a chance for the community to offer their suggestions on ways to re-envision the area. From residents, property owners, to businesses, all were invited to the free event at the Student Center to solicit ideas on how to best move forward successfully.

The four simultaneous morning discussions centered on Downtown Krome, the Civic Center, Campbell Drive, and the Civic East District; at each of these roundtables, a handful of people from local stakeholders to city hall staff, offered their improvement thoughts. With an aerial photo of the specific areas in each of the four sections, a lengthy sheet of paper accompanied it, and noted the strategy session comments – which were then used by the Design Team to render them in 3D models, offering scaled illustrations of the revamped locations to be displayed and discussed in the afternoon.

Councilman Sean Fletcher attended and spoke about ways to take, for example, the Civic East District – Town Hall, Mowry Drive, and the surrounding area – and review how to best utilize it for students, residents, and businesses. “Building some student housing down here maybe,” said Fletcher, “some elderly housing so they can engage with the college as well. We're completely ripe for redevelopment.” Fletcher also noted the biggest surprise suggestion from the public. “To increase the density size in Downtown,” Fletcher said. “There’s a possibility that we will increase some density, but we don’t want it to be Downtown Dadeland either.”

For those who didn't make it to any of the sessions, Fletcher explained why getting as many resident ideas as possible is important. “They're missing out on giving us an idea that none of us are thinking of,” Fletcher said, “everyone has different experiences in life.” As for how soon the new plans will be completed, Fletcher stated it looks to be done in the very near future. “I think the mission of the council right now is to drive some of these things to fruition in a very short period of time,” said Fletcher.

There will be different stages of follow-up which will take place over several months. Stay up to date with what follows the Visioning Charratte on the city of Homestead website, (https://www.cityof homestead.com/), through the South Dade News Leader print version, or website (https://www.south dadenewsleader.com/).