A controversial proposal for a residential development on a golf course finally scored approval more than five years after it first surfaced.
GL Homes wants to develop 524 single-family homes on the closed 168-acre Calusa golf course at 9400 Southwest 130th Avenue in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, near Kendall.
Miami-Dade commissioners, sitting as the comprehensive development master plan and zoning board, on Thursday greenlit GL Homes’ application with an 8-5 vote.
Sunrise-based GL Homes’s 524-homes project marks a scaled-down version of its originally proposed 550.
Nearby residents, through the nonprofit Save Calusa organization, raised concerns over worsening traffic and pressure on overcrowded schools. Residents and the Tropical Audubon Society decried potential impacts on wildlife, specifically the tricolored herons that settled in on the vacant golf course over the years.
The homebuilder, led by Misha Ezratti, met with Save Calusa and Tropical Audubon Society to fine-tune its proposal in recent months.
It agreed to tweaks with the Tropical Audubon Society, including expanding an existing lake from 3.5 acres to 4.1 acres, creating a bigger buffer between the nesting area and new homes, scrapping any new homes backing up to the rookery, granting Tropical Audubon access to survey the birds, installing bigger landscape buffers with double-hedged trees between the homes and the rookery, and postponing construction of some homes for two years.
GL Homes and Save Calusa couldn’t reach a settlement.
“For my community it was impossible to make the distinction between only rookery protections and a meaningful community benefit as well as the negative traffic impacts to quality of life,” Amanda Prieto, who leads Save Calusa, told commissioners, adding that roads will be “bombarded” with more traffic. “Where we couldn’t reach an agreement was density.”
Prieto met with area homeowners associations to gauge residents’ response to GL Homes’ latest changes. But people consistently spoke out against the potential traffic impacts, she told commissioners, adding that “it weighed heavily” on her that she had to decline GL Homes’ settlement offer.
A settlement also would have waived her right to appeal, Prieto pointed out.
Save Calusa moved the goalpost on their asks during talks, including at one point requesting a reduction to about 300 homes, Dick Norwalk, of GL Homes, told commissioners. The latest proposal “far exceeds regulations,” he said.
In a statement to The Real Deal, Norwalk said the approval marks a culmination of years of collaboration with governmental and environmental agencies, plus neighbors who support the project.
GL Homes first scored approval for 550 homes in 2021, but Save Calusa then sued the county. GL Homes ultimately lost the case when the Florida Supreme Court in 2024 declined to review an appeals court decision in favor of Save Calusa.
Many residents near Calusa have said they bought their homes under the understanding the golf course would remain vacant due to a covenant banning development until 2067. In 2019, the covenant was lifted when enough homeowners surrounding the golf course voted in favor of scrapping the restriction.
Yet, many residents have alleged that ringlot owners who voted in favor of scrapping the covenant were promised $300,000 payments from the previous golf course owner. Commissioners voted to remove the covenant in 2020. GL Homes paid $32 million for the golf course in 2021.
