Wading birds flock together to their nests in a rookery sheltered on an island in a man-made lake. Birds like anhingas, tricolored herons, and great egrets gather to raise their young on 159 acres of vacant land, the former Calusa Golf Course. On the rookery’s south side, homes are only 50 feet away.
Maybe some of the older birds remember when the golf course was still active. Yet, the rookery’s future is uncertain. Formerly, a now-rejected residential development plan proposed to destroy the rookery. Now, a revised proposal by GL Homes plans to build single-family housing on the vacant land, to partially fill the lake and surround the rookery.
Save Calusa, an activist non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the Calusa Rookery, wrote, “All Miami-Dade County residents should be concerned about residential development on Parks and Recreation land, the release of long-standing land-use protections, limited resident input, environmental impacts, and the lack of community benefits.”
In 2011, when the golf course closed, the land was covered by a protected use covenant restricting development.
By 2021, GL Homes had paid $32 million for the land, planning to develop 550 single-family homes, a proposal that would have gotten rid of the rookery. GL Homes reached an agreement with some residents to go ahead with the planned development, but after activists including Save Calusa protested, the proposal was turned down by the county commission.
“Tri-colored herons are nesting within this island and using it as a rookery,” wrote Miami-Dade Mayor Danielle Levine Cava, on Nov. 7, 2022, in a letter to the county commissioners. “Therefore, pursuant to Condition N. 8 of Resolution No. Z-34–21 and the CDMP, the rookery is required to be preserved, and the developer is required to modify the proposed development plan to accommodate preservation of the roosting and nesting habitat.”
In the Miami-Dade Comprehensive Development Master Plan (CDMP), the 159 acres of land are listed under Parks, Preserves, and Conservation Areas.
Now facing the county commission and Calusa residents is a revised proposal to build 540 homes. This new plan would spare the rookery, only partially filling in the lake it inhabits. But there is still some local pushback.
The county commission, at a zoning hearing on February 19, urged GL Homes to return to residents and work out a better compromise before submitting another revision of their plan.
“I think it has been the history of this board that we like to see concessions made,” said Chairman Anthony Rodriguez, at the meeting. “And that’s what the majority of this board today is asking for of the developer. But we also like to see very realistic expectations from the surrounding neighbors.”
And so the legal dueling continues, while the rookery and birds continue to raise their young, unaware of the debate over their future happening far from it.
