Downtown Miami, Brickell, Edgewater owners luck out on tax hike proposal. Here’s why

Downtown Miami’s homeowners and businesses mobilized against a tax increase , telling city leaders — in the words of Twisted Sister — “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”

On Wednesday, Miami’s Downtown Development Authority dropped the proposal, alleviating concerns for a community facing rising financial pressures.

The quasi-independent city agency funded by a special tax levy eliminated its proposal for a tax rate that would collectively cost current taxpayers some $640,000 more, adjusted for inflation. It would have gone toward future savings and maintaining the quality of existing services.

Costs would have varied per household depending on property values.

According to the DDA’s estimates using data from the property appraiser, for properties in the DDA district ranging from $500,000 to $999,999, the average increase per property for the year would be $2. For properties ranging from $1 million to just under $2 million, the average increase per property for the year would be $6.

But the Downtown Neighbors Alliance, a group advocating against the tax increase, said that would have had an unwanted impact on 75,000 residents in the district in downtown Miami, Brickell and Edgewater.

On Saturday, the organization’s leader and previous political candidate James Torres presented to city leaders and the DDA. He said during the community meeting residents already faced high costs due to inflation , condo assessment fees and special assessments. In addition to the financial burden, quality of life failed to keep up with costs.

“Overall the savings to the taxpayer is what we have been looking for,” Torres said. “This is a true win for the community.”

The new city budget was reviewed and approved on Thursday and set to be approved ahead of the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1.

Without the original tax increase proposal, the DDA cut its budget by $1.2 million to avoid owners paying more on the Miami DDA portion of their property taxes, said Manolo Reyes by email, a city commissioner and chairman of the DDA board. Reyes said the DDA will collect the same amount of revenue it has so far and will be able to maintain services, especially on homelessness initiatives, security, sanitation and business incentive grants.

“We had to make sacrifices to give residents the financial relief they were looking for. Some were easy as we were able to close out contracts and invoices to zero out estimates,” Reyes said. “Other choices will have greater impact. We will need to hold on some of the items that were noted as being important by residents at the community meetings, like the doggy bag program and parking relief.”