MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — Miami-Dade County commissioners voted 8 to 5 on Thursday morning to approve the Calusa golf course redevelopment in West Kendall despite some opposition.

Commissioner Roberto J. Gonzalez, an attorney who was elected in 2024 to represent District 11, which includes parts of West Kendall, stood in opposition.

“West Kendall is already burdened with congestion, and adding more without a clear, realistic mitigation plan is not responsible,” Gonzalez wrote in a statement released on X after the vote.

The redevelopment project has been at the center of a long and tedious fight between a group of residents trying to protect their neighborhood’s quality of life and an influential group of investors.

“I have been advocating for seven years now,” Amanda Prieto, the leader of Save Calusa, a nonprofit grassroots residents’ organization, told commissioners during the meeting on Thursday.

The Calusa Country Club, at 9400 SW 130th Ave., opened in 1968 with a legally-binding land covenant that banned redevelopment until 2067.

“This is designated parks and rec land that was intended to be preserved for 100 years,” Prieto told commissioners during the meeting.

Facundo Bacardi, of the family-owned spirits company founded in Cuba, purchased the 169-acre golf club in 2003 and closed it in 2011. Commissioners lifted the covenant in 2020.

In 2021, Bacardi sold the golf course to Sunrise-based GL Homes for $32 million, and commissioners voted to rezone it in favor of the redevelopment’s vision of a community of single-family homes.

“In 2021, the commission passed it, this was a reconsideration of that,” Richard Norwalk, a senior vice president at GL Homes, said about the commissioners’ vote on Thursday.

Prieto filed a lawsuit against the county to invalidate the 2021 rezoning vote. The Florida Supreme Court sided with Prieto, who had claimed the county had failed to notify residents about the hearing.

“I am proud of my community,” Prieto said about Save Calusa’s efforts to protect the golf course. “We made tremendous progress over the last seven years.”

After the court’s ruling, Norwalk went back before the commission and had the application reheard.

“Notice wasn’t done correctly, so we are glad that once again they saw their way to approving this community and providing more housing for Miami-Dade,” Norwalk said after the commissioner’s zoning vote.

The developers’ proposals have ranged from 1,300 houses to the most recent 524, which makes up three units per acre.

Aside from traffic, Prieto and the Save Calusa members have also raised concerns about a loss of green space and impacts to local wildlife, including a bird rookery.

Wildlife expert Ron Magill sided with Save Calusa over concerns about bonneted bats and tricolored herons. The developer hired environmental consultants.

There were some concessions. The developer also committed to working with the Tropical Audubon Society to protect the rookery.

“The revised plan expands the lake,” Norwalk told commissioners during the meeting.

The development is within Commissioner Raquel A. Regalado’s District 7.

“I am very happy with the agreement with Audubon, and I think that a lot of the concessions that have been made make this a very different and much better application,” Regalado said during the meeting before moving the item.

Commissioner Oliver G. Gilbert seconded the item with Kendall Associates I, 9800 Calusa Club Drive, and Home at 9810 as the applicants.

Prieto said she was disappointed that she couldn’t agree with the developer on density, and that despite this, eight commissioners bent to the will of the developer.

“We got some rookery protections. I think our voices were heard, but ultimately, this decision, and their legacy, will lie on the shoulders of the commissioners that voted today,” Prieto said.

Related document: County staff recommendations summary (553 pages)

THE 8-5 VOTE

Miami-Dade commissioners vote 8-5 for Calusa development

Eight who voted to pass it: Gilbert, Regalado, and Commissioners Keon Hardemon, Vicki L. Lopez, Natalie Milian Orbis, Marleine Bastien, Juan Carlos “JC” Bermudez, and Kionne L. McGhee

Five who voted against it: Gonzalez, and Commissioners René Garcia, Danielle Cohen Higgins, Anthony Rodriguez, and Micky Steinberg.

Watch the meeting