SOUTH MIAMI-DADE WATERSHED STUDY
TECHNICAL REVIEW COMMITTEE (TRC)
Summary Outline of TRC Comments:
Meeting One
The following outline
summarizes the comments made by the Technical Review Committee for the South
Miami-Dade Watershed Study during the course of their first meeting on July 31-
TRC Meeting Overview
The first TRC meeting was held over a two-day
period to provide enough time to:
·
Orient the TRC to the purpose, goals, and scope of work
of the Watershed Study, the study area, and the role of the TRC
·
Review and comment on the products of the project
consultants for the meeting
The meeting consisted of the following components:
·
A welcome, introductions, and review of the meeting
agenda by Jim Murley,
Director, FAU Catanese Center for Urban and
Environmental Solutions and TRC Moderator, and Carolyn Dekle,
Executive Director, South Florida Regional Planning Council
·
An Overview
of the Watershed Study Process by:
–
Roger
Carlton, Chair, South Miami-Dade Watershed Study Citizen’s Advisory Committee,
who reviewed the work of the Watershed Advisory Committee
–
Cindy Dwyer,
Principal Planner, Miami-Dade County Department of Planning and Zoning, who
reviewed the history of the Watershed Study and the context of Miami-Dade
County’s Comprehensive Plan
–
Jerry Bell,
Project Manager, Agriculture and Rural Area Study, Miami-Dade County Department
of Planning and Zoning, who reviewed the scope and status of the Agricultural
and Rural Lands Study
–
John Hulsey,
Senior Planner, South Florida Regional Planning Council, who reviewed the
management process for the Watershed Study
·
A tour of the
study area
·
A
presentation by Keith and Schnars of the overall
study process, the scope of work, and the initial Task I products
·
TRC comments
on the Task I products
·
Time for public
comment
The first TRC meeting focused on Tasks 1.1-1.7 of the
Watershed Study, Existing Conditions, and Issue Identification:
1.1
Analysis and Documentation of Relevant Studies
1.2
Population Growth
1.3
Development Features
1.4
Natural Resources/Wildlife Resources
1.5
Water Resources
1.6
Description of Regulatory and Planning Agency
Jurisdictions
1.7
Land Inventory and Ownership Characteristics
TRC
Comments
TRC Moderator Jim Murley began the TRC discussion and comment session with a
review of the composition and role of the TRC. He noted that the TRC:
·
Is composed of a team of 18 experts selected for their
knowledge of the issues to be addressed by the Watershed Study and Plan
·
Analyzes the work products of the consultant and comments
on the soundness of the approach, assumptions, and data to help ensure the
technical validity of the consultant's work
·
Uses its meetings to develop:
–
A collective list of summary comments and recommendations
on the work products that are the focus of the meeting
–
A list, if needed, of individual member recommendations
that reflect their specific areas of expertise
He
also noted that an outline summarizing the TRC's
overall comments and the recommendations of individual members is prepared
following each TRC meeting and submitted to the Watershed Study Project
Manager. This outline notes any differing viewpoints among members and the
reasons for such differences.
Murley then reviewed how the TRC should organize its review
comments:
I.
Important points for the SFRPC, Miami-Dade County
Department of Planning and Zoning, and Keith and Schnars
on the overall work program
II.
Key points about each of the subtasks reviewed at this
first meeting and how they relate to goals of the study
III.
Other points to consider related to the Watershed Study
and Miami-Dade County Comprehensive Plan goals for the Study
I.
Comments on the Overall Work Program
TRC members made two main comments about the
overall work program. The study needs:
·
A more holistic, integrated approach to both the study
area and the study process
·
To make the Bay more of the focal point of the study,
with everything beginning with and ending with the Bay
To accomplish these goals, TRC members made the
following comments about the steps that should be taken by the project
consultants.
·
Prepare what would amount to the foreword of the
Watershed Plan now to set the context for the study. The foreword should:
–
Have as the focal point the condition of
–
Depict the overall character and interrelationships of
the built and natural environment of the Watershed Study area
–
Describe the history of how the Study area got to where
it is today and the dynamics of the area
·
Correct the current disconnect between the Bay and the
landside impact by clearly showing the connection between the Bay and what
happens on the landside. This should include making sure that the water quality
of the Bay is the focus point of:
–
All of the analysis, including changes in land use and
the different development scenarios, as well as alternative forms and patterns
of development.
–
The selection of the variables for the study
–
A public education program as part of the study process
that would address, for example, the
impacts of changes in development practices, such as urban landscaping, have on
the water quality of the Bay and its long-term protection
·
Move the study process beyond the process of science and
maps to the process of planning for the future of the area and the creation of
a vision for the area:
–
Begin the study process with a holistic viewpoint
–
Understand what data to collect
·
Make sure the vision and plan are based in community
values and concerns – i.e., what the public sees as important to their quality
of life and the character of their communities. The values should:
–
Address all three legs of sustainability – social,
environmental, and economic
–
Be used when defining the study parameters and developing
the alternative development scenarios and evaluation criteria
·
Test a preliminary set of evaluation criteria with the
community early in the process as a way to build consensus around a preferred
development scenario
·
Use multiple outreach tools tailored to the area to
determine what is important to the residents. This could include:
–
Using radio spots, TV advertisements on local shows,
workshops, and surveys
–
Recognizing that different groups will have different
definitions of values; for example, to a citizen, water quality of the Bay
would be evaluated by whether it is clear and free of trash, whereas to a
scientist at Biscayne Bay, water quality would depend on very specific water
quality measurements
·
Show how the tasks and subtasks fit together and how the
information will be assimilated, including:
–
Integrating and synthesizing the data into a coherent
picture
–
Taking a more holistic approach to the project
II. Comments on Task 1, Existing Conditions
and Issues Identification
1.1 Analysis and Documentation of Relevant Studies
·
Add examples of how similar studies have been done
elsewhere
·
Contact the following organizations with plans and
studies relevant to the watershed study area:
–
–
–
–
United States Department of Agriculture Research Service
1.2 Population Growth
·
Use, in addition to population growth, the projected
number of households and jobs, which are a key variable in determining land
use, property patterns, and the future pattern and form of development
·
Look at the composition and size of future household demands,
taking into account:
–
The household composition and size of different cultures
–
The impact on household demand of internal movements
within the county, as immigrant families move from entry-level apartments to
single-family homes
·
Use household and employment projections, as well as
population projections, when projecting water demand and infrastructure needs,
including transportation
·
Consider the following factors when developing population
scenarios:
–
The natural resource and environmental limitations on
growth in certain areas of the watershed
–
The effects of tourists coming to the area
–
The effects of personnel of military and agencies
utilizing Homestead Air Reserve Base who may choose to remain in the area
–
The impacts of wet and dry years and hurricanes on
population and settlement patterns
–
The amount of population that could be accommodated using
not only alternative land uses, but also alternative forms of development
(e.g., rural, suburban, and urban densities with more intense infill and
redevelopment and use of transit)
·
Use the county’s population figures as they are some of
the best in the state
·
Consider moving the interim planning year in the scope of
work from 2015 to 2025, which is the planning year of the county
·
Recognize that the 50-year projection is likely to
generate a large rate of errors because it is so far out in time
·
Consider Developing a map to illustrate Table 1 of Task
1.1,
1.3 Development Features
·
Make sure that the tables in this subtask clearly
distinguish between development that exists today and development that is
projected for the future.
·
Utilize, to the extent possible, the same year base line
data across jurisdictions
·
Develop a map that depicts significant places in the
study area, including strategic areas that could become significant, as well as
the unique attributes of roads, greenways, and other defining features
1.4 Natural Resources/Wildlife Resources
·
Make sure that the maps of natural resources clearly show
what environmental resources are included, and not included, in the maps
·
Develop a comprehensive map showing all the natural
resources and use this map as a framework for evaluating the alternative
scenarios, including how much land near the Bay should be protected under
different development densities
·
Develop a map that shows, if the funding were available,
the agricultural areas, greenways, including small connecting parcels in urban
areas, and open space that could be protected to create an connected system of
greenways and blueways
·
Develop more detailed information on the environmentally
significant areas in the study areas and the connection between the human and
natural environment and use this information when evaluating the impact of the
alternative development scenarios on the environment and natural resources
·
Make sure the impact of the scenarios on the environment
and natural resources is evaluated with the same level of detail as the impacts
on the human side
1.5 Water Resources
·
Use the same water modeling and water demand projections
as
·
Show the connection between the effects of surface flow
on the landside of the watershed on the water quality of the Bay, which has not
been done. (It was noted that the SFWMD is doing research that will make this
link; however, the results will not be completed prior to the end of this
study.)
·
Reexamine the use of the Storm Water Management Model
(XP-SWMM), which may be more than what is needed for this study and is designed
to model surface water runoff for an urban area and not for agricultural and
other rural areas. (It was noted that in agricultural areas, better flooding
data are needed. One resource for this type of data is the Extension Service,
which has information on the effects of flooding on different crop types.)
1.6 Description of Regulatory and Planning Agency
Jurisdictions
·
Evaluate the plans, codes, ordinances, and funding
mechanisms that will likely be needed to implement the Watershed Plan
·
Include the rules and regulations of the Biscayne Aquatic
Preserve and the
1.7 Land Inventory and Ownership Characteristics
·
Expand the definition of significant lands to include
small parcels that can be used to help create systems of connected greenway and
blueway system when analyzing ownership
characteristics
1.8 Watershed Characteristics – Parameters and Thresholds
TRC
members made a number of observations about the development of the parameters
and thresholds to be used in the risk assessment of coastal development
alternatives on the functioning and dynamics of the
·
Involve community
stakeholders in the development of the ecological, economic, and
socio-political parameters used in evaluating scenario consequences
·
Prepare a
thorough and comprehensive description of how the indicator parameters were
chosen, the parts of the system they represent, where parameter values were
obtained, and some sense of the precision of those parameters
·
Note that the
parameters should, by and large, be quantitative measures of system functioning
that fulfill various ecological and economic risk assessment criteria
·
Employ a
relative weighting scheme (e.g., multi-objective utility functions or
analytical hierarchy process model) to allow a quantitative assessment of all
weighted parameters to be evaluated simultaneously
·
Establish
parameter thresholds that allow effective evaluation of the consequences of the
proposed scenarios
·
Make sure
that subsequent presentations concerning the selected parameters and
thresholds:
–
Include a
succinct description of the rationale behind the selection criteria for each
model parameter and variable, a sense of its spatial context, and the accuracy
and precision of the parameters
–
Describe how
the parameters fit together in a comprehensive assessment of their individual
and combined impacts on the water quality and sustainability of
In closing their discussion of the Task 1
subtasks, several TRC members stressed the importance of making sure that as
the process goes along, county and agency staff are comfortable with the data
and assumptions so that they are in support of the plan when it is completed
and ready for approval by the Miami-Dade County Board of County Commissioners.
III.
Comments on Other Points to Consider in Relation to Study and Plan Goals
TRC members’ comments in
this part of the discussion focused on Task 2, Formulate Land Use Scenarios,
and Task 3, Modeling and Impact Assessment.
Task 2: Formulate Land Use Scenarios
Members of TRC made a number of comments on the
formulation of the land use scenarios:
·
Treat Scenarios II and III as two different versions of
the same scenarios – one with Urban Development Boundary movement and one
without
·
Show the consistent factors that are in all the scenarios
– what they are and how they were developed
·
Develop a series of sub-scenarios to test different
variables, including the variables for the:
–
Selected population, household, and employment
projections
–
Alternative development forms and conservation programs
designed to protect the Bay
·
Make sure that Scenarios II and III include development
forms and conservation measures that will minimize negative impacts on the Bay
·
Consider in Scenarios II and III compressing development
around existing nodes through infill and redevelopment and utilization of higher
development densities, including more attached single-family units and
multifamily units and transit-oriented and mixed-use development to avoid
continuing to develop vacant land
·
Incorporate in the scenarios contingencies for
inter-annual variations in rainfall, including some wet years, such as occurred
in the late 1990s, and some dry years, such as occurred during the 1980s
TRC members also made
comments on the consultant’s evaluation of the scenarios.
·
Focus on the impact on the water quality of the Bay and
the natural environment, including measurements that for Scenarios II and III:
–
Compare the benefits to the Bay of alternative land uses
under each scenario
–
Evaluate for different forms of development, densities, and
conservation programs for each scenario – for example, the benefits to the Bay
of percentage increases in the number of attached single-family and
multi-family residential units, as well as cluster, mixed-use, and
transit-oriented development
·
Utilize the amount of water used by a development form as
one of the criteria when evaluating development patterns
·
Evaluate the internal movements of households and jobs in
the study area and the relationship of those movements to land use and water
quality
–
Consider that
the results of the scenarios will be highly dependent upon the spatial and
temporal conditions that are to be evaluated, which means that the results will
have a strong time dimension to them as the resources are spread differentially
across the Bay, and the imposed effects will play out over variable amounts of
time depending upon the organisms, populations, and communities affected
·
Consider the impacts of the following factors:
–
Tourism
–
Property rights, the effects of climate (wet or dry) and
the economy (boom or bust)
–
The impacts of international policy decisions on the
agricultural properties
·
Allow enough time at the end of the process to work
through the preferred scenario
Task 3: Modeling and Impact Assessment
·
Understand the limitations of using REMI (Regional
Economic Models, Inc.) for this type of study since REMI cannot:
–
Do spatial modeling, which means that the data will not
change with different land use scenarios
–
Disaggregate future development into different geographic
areas of the study area, using for each area a different number of households
and jobs configured in different forms of development that will improve the
water quality of the Bay
·
Develop information on what needs to be included in the
different development alternatives in order to have a positive impact on the
Bay
·
Give consideration to utilizing the soon to be released
Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) from the Census
Bureau
·
Include a specific allowance for redevelopment in the
supply variables for the transportation datasets to reflect the importance of
redevelopment in the future development patterns of the county. (The Miami-Dade
County Department of Planning and Zoning has done some work in this area, which
could be reviewed with the project consultant.)
·
Consider whether there is enough time to do a
cost-benefit analysis of each scenario within the study timeframe. The
suggestion was made to consider conducting a cost-benefit analysis of Scenario
I, which is based on the continuation of existing land use and zoning practices,
and then qualitatively comparing the other two scenarios to this analysis near
the end of the study process.
Next TRC Meeting
TRC members recommended that, in addition to the
task products to be reviewed, the meeting also allocate time to review the following:
·
How Keith and Schnars addressed
the TRC’s comments from Meeting One – what they did
incorporate and how, and what they did not incorporate and why – including how
Scenarios II and III will be defined
·
The recommendations of the Agriculture and Rural Area
Study and the related report by the University of Florida, Economic Impact of Agriculture and Agribusiness in Miami-Dade County,
and how they will be incorporated in the analysis and definition of the Scenarios
II and II
·
The character of the parameters and thresholds for the
alternative scenarios, including the spatial context and rationale for the
precision, range, and variability, and how they will be connected to the
baseline data
In addition to this information, TRC members asked
for the following:
·
A map showing water resources
·
A map showing soil types (available from
·
Information on the level of the water table (to
understand the salt water intrusion issues)
·
Information on related South Florida Water Management
District (SFWMD) studies
·
A glossary of acronyms
·
SFRPC legal opinion regarding applicability of open
meeting laws
·
Information on the overall history of the area
·
A composite that brings together the various community charrettes and plans into one picture depicting what
citizens have said they want for their communities
·
Greater synthesis of the data, preferably in the form a
more integrated map that:
–
Combines all the resources, both built and natural, into
a single snapshot of the area that can be used to guide the opportunities and
constraints analysis and to build public understanding of the study area
–
Includes a description of the methodology that will be
used to evaluate the resources in the alternative development scenarios
Public
Comments
No public comments were made during the TRC
meeting.
APPENDIX
A: TRC MEMBERS
TRC Members
Participating in Meeting One
Jim Murley
Mahadev Bhat
Associate Professor (Resource Economics) and
Graduate Program Director
Environmental Studies and Economics Department
Gerrit Knapp
Professor of Urban Studies and Planning, and
Director of the
Faculty Associate, Lincoln Institute of Land
Policy
Robert Burchell
Distinguished Professor and Center Co-Director,
Center for Urban Policy Research (CUPR)
Chuck Blowers
Chief of Research
Miami-Dade Department of Planning and Zoning
Dave Barth
Director of Parks and Open Space Planning and
Director of the
Bill Anderson
Director of Planning and Research
Greater
Tom Daniels
Professor of City and
Regional Planning
Department of City and
Regional Planning
Donald Pybas
County Extension Director
Miami-Dade County Florida Cooperative Extension
Service
David Chin
Professor of Environmental and Civil Engineering
and Department Chair
Department of Civil, Architectural, and
Environmental Engineering
Steve Nix
Professor and Chair
Department of Civil Engineering
Jerry Ault
Associate Professor of Marine Biology and
Fisheries
Rosenstiel School of Marine and
Atmospheric Sciences
Joel Trexler
Director,
Graduate Program in Biological Sciences, and Associate Professor of Biology
Department
of Biological Sciences
John Volin
Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, and
Interim Director of Environmental Sciences Graduate Research Program
Division of Biological Sciences
Joe Kohl
Dover Kohl and Partners
Roy Rogers
Special Consultant
CCL Consultants, Inc.
Liz
Abbott
Senior
Planner
South
Florida Water Management District
Susan Markley
Natural
Resources Division, Chief
Miami-Dade
County Department of Environmental Resources Management
Jean
Scott
Catanese Center for Urban and
Environmental Solutions
TRC Members Not Participating in
Meeting One Because of Schedule Conflicts
Edwin J. Stacker
Attorney
Akerman Senterfitt
APPENDIX
B: Miami-Dade Watershed Study Technical Review Committee
The Role of
the TRC
The Technical Review Committee (TRC) component of
the South Miami-Dade Watershed Study and Plan brings an objective, outside,
professional perspective to the planning process and an additional level of
review from experts in different fields who contribute ideas and lessons
learned from other areas.
The TRC evaluates and makes recommendations on the
products of the Watershed Study and Plan and helps ensure the technical
validity of the consultant's work. It does this by analyzing the work products
of the consultant and commenting on the soundness of the approach, assumptions,
and data. TRC members may bring information to the process as a part of their
critique.
An important feature of the TRC is that it
operates independently of the consulting team. This helps ensure that the
planning process is appropriate and correctly executed, that the products of
the process are underpinned by the best possible data and sound modeling
assumptions, and that the implementation strategies will be the most effective
in accomplishing the goals of the planning process.
TRC Membership
The
TRC is made up of a team of experts selected for their knowledge of the issues
to be addressed by the Watershed Study and Plan. Its 18 members represent the
disciplines of economic modeling, cost benefit analysis, infrastructure
planning, resource-based tourism, agriculture, property rights law, water
modeling, habitat, marine biology, community character, and land use. The TRC
is coordinated by Florida Atlantic University’s Catanese
Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions. The Director of the Catanese Center, Jim Murley,
serves as the moderator of the Panel.
How the TRC
Develops Its Comments and Recommendations
The TRC holds a planning session as a part of each
of its meetings. Members use this session to develop a summary of their
collective comments and recommendations. They also use the session to develop a
list of individual member recommendations that reflect their specific areas of
expertise. An outline summarizing the TRC's overall
comments and the recommendations of individual members is prepared following
each TRC meeting and submitted to the Watershed Study Project Manager. This
outline notes any differing viewpoints among members and the reasons for such
differences.
Use of the TRC’s Recommendations
The TRC’s recommendations
are offered with the knowledge that the specific activities may not be planned
in the current scope of work and would only proceed if the South Florida
Regional Planning Council, the Miami-Dade County Department of Planning and
Zoning, and project consultants conclude that it would be beneficial to the
project.