Will becoming a city help Brownsville and its neighbors thrive? Residents are split

Miami Herald

a day ago

At the corner of Northwest 27th Street and 54th Avenue in Brownsville sits a plot of land that was supposed to have a grocery store atop it.
It has changed hands many times and suffered through many broken promises, Kenneth Kilpatrick told the Miami Herald as he drove through the community of more than 16,000 residents.
Scattered throughout the neighborhood are a few corner stores. There are two flea markets at a nearby shopping center that includes a Foot Locker, a dd's Discounts, and a few fast food chains. Not one major grocery store is in the area.
To get fresh produce, Kilpatrick has to go to neighboring Hialeah. In fact, for any entertainment – see a movie, eat at a sit-down restaurant, or any recreational fun – he has to leave the neighborhood. And the one shopping center the area does have isn't enough to sustain the community, he said.
The vacant land, lack of grocery store, entertainment and ideal shopping options are a few of the reasons Kilpatrick, president of the Brownsville Civic Neighborhood Association, wants to see if it's feasible for the neighborhood, along with five other neighboring unincorporated communities in Miami-Dade County, to become a city.
'Quality of life has been an issue in Brownsville for decades,' he said. 'It's public safety, it's infrastructure, like a grocery store, better schools, better everything from your sidewalks to your street lighting, the parks and having funded programs for children, programs for seniors.'
Kilpatrick now sits on the North Dade Municipal Advisory Committee that is tasked with the job of determining if the area has the tax base to thrive as a city. The efforts shifted into high gear after the neighborhood came under threat of annexation by Hialeah, which commissioned a feasibility study to determine if annexing 150 acres of Brownsville would generate revenue for the city back in 2023. Residents packed Hialeah city hall meetings pushing back against the annexation, which ultimately was dropped.
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The committee will be composed of members from each of the six communities, which include Brownsville, Gladeview, Gratigny, Little River Farms, North Shore, and Twin Lakes/Northshore Gardens. They are set to have their first meeting Tuesday, but not everyone is sure cityhood is the right path. They worry about increased property taxes and question the area's ability to generate revenue.
'There's nothing to draw any major businesses that want to come here, unless we invite them to come and develop some of the areas along Seventh Avenue,' said Little River Farm Homeowners Association president Munir Ingram. 'But what are people going to come here to do?'
Still, Kilpatrick said there are potential benefits. 'You can create business districts in your city,' he said. 'You can create entertainment destinations and places for leisure all within the purview of your city limits, I think, if you have the right visionaries and right people at the helm, if you have the tax revenue. That's the biggest thing.'
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'Our fair share'
Brownsville is a community dear to Kilpatrick, whose roots in the community go back decades. His grandfather, George Kilpatrick, was a business leader in the community and founded the first merchant store, along with Neil Adams, Spic and Span, in the late 1940s.
Originally called Browns Subdivision, the area was a farming development platted by W.L. Brown during the 1920s. The community became a model of Black home ownership and was home to Homeowner's Paradise, a subdivision where wealthy Black people lived. The community has birthed Black political stalwarts, such as the late Gwen Cherry, the first Black woman elected to the Florida legislature, and Joe Lang Kershaw, the state's first Black state legislator after Reconstruction.
Kilpatrick moved to Brownsville 12 years ago, and described it as once a bedroom community. The predominantly Black area, like most in Miami-Dade county, has seen changes: it's become increasingly rental with the rise of Airbnbs. According to U.S. census data, about 31 percent of the units in Brownsville are owner-occupied, 69 percent are renter-occupied. Nearby Gladeview, which has about 14,000 residents, is a similar situation: 27.5 percent of its homes are owner-occupied and the remaining 72.5 percent of residents are renters.
Despite the lack of big box businesses in the area and a shrinking homeowner base, Kilpatrick believes that incorporation could resolve some of the issues Brownsville and surrounding neighborhoods are experiencing because it would allow their tax dollars to go toward infrastructure that would benefit the community. Kilpatrick said it could also help with zoning.
'If you don't want a bunch of 28-story condominium apartments in your neighborhood, cityhood kind of helps you to balance that right because you control the zoning,' he said.
As Kilpatrick drives through the neighborhood, he stops at the historic Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, Miami's historic Black cemetery. He stops to talk to Jessie Wooden, the owner of the cemetery who made its preservation a personal mission. Wooden, who lives 10 minutes outside of Brownsville, said he's optimistic about the area potentially becoming a city.'We just want our fair share given to our constituents and what they deserve in the community and to preserve the community that so many that came before me have built,' he said.
'What is the benefit?'
While most of the residents living in the proposed incorporation zone agree on the area's issues, not everyone is convinced becoming a city will solve any of them.
Huddled inside the living room of Richard and Jannie Johnson's home sat a dozen of Little River Farms homeowners who had a list of reasons why they don't see incorporation leading to much change, citing the lack of a tax base, shrinking homeownership, and too few businesses to attract new residents or visitors.
The Johnsons have lived in Little River Farm for 50 years and have seen the changes in their community, which used to be predominantly white with few Cuban and Black families. They watched as one by one, homes were built and the community grew. Residents eventually formed a homeowners association to take care of their neighborhood.
But the area has become plagued with developers looking to build upward and investors looking for cheap property to rent out.
Longtime resident Everlina Chandler said many properties are being sold to developers and apartment buildings are being put on top of the land. 'No one is buying or purchasing homes anymore, and that brings down the property value in the neighborhood,' she said. 'They're just renting. So they don't care about their property value or how the community looks, the beautification of the neighborhood that will attract younger families.'
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'You won't attract any of those types of people because everything is for rent,' Chandler continued. 'And those who own, they're elderly now, and they can't afford to keep the neighborhood up and purchase things to make the neighborhood better.'
Jannie Johnson said she's also worried about the increase in property taxes. And while residents bemoaned having to leave the community to find basic needs such as groceries or entertainment, they're not convinced they have the tax base to be able to be a city, given the types of businesses in the area.
Little River Farms HOA president Munir Ingram said there are also environmental concerns that impact their community, such as converting to septic, illegal dumping, and the threat of development encroaching on their lakes.
In the nearby Gratigny neighborhood, residents raised the same issues. Gratigny Homeowners Association president Joyce Brown said there are several unknowns for residents, including how much taxes will go up should it be found that they can become a city.
'There are going to be some changes,' she said. 'But what is the benefit? I don't think the benefit is going to be worth it.'
Longtime resident of Gratigny, Mary Bennett, 92, said she recalled a time when the neighborhood itself didn't have lights and sidewalks. The community petitioned the county to bring streetlights and pavement to the areas.
Standing outside her well-manicured lawn, Bennett said she's more concerned about the threat of high rises coming into the quiet enclave. 'I don't like what I see going on in other neighborhoods, meaning skyscrapers. If you're going to build a home, where is the parking? Where are these people who are living in these 12 stories? Where are they gonna park? That's a problem.'
'We need to make an informed decision'
Felicia Mayo-Cutler grew up in the North Shore neighborhood and described it as one of the few communities where well-off Black professionals lived. Nestled near Miami Shores, Mayo-Cutler has lived in the community since she was 2, only leaving when she went off to college before returning in 1990. She now owns a home in the community alongside the parents of the children she grew up with and serves as vice president of the North Shore Community Association.
She noted that the community, once predominantly Black community, has seen demographic changes. Nearby construction has led to people driving through the neighborhood and taking an interest in homes in the area.
'It's still predominantly Black, however, the newer residents are not,' she said, adding that North Shore is still a neighborhood of predominantly homeowners. She estimated there are about 250 homes in the community.
Mayo-Cutler, who will sit on the committee to explore cityhood, said she wants to weigh the options before deciding if she's for it, adding she sees added benefits in controlling tax dollars, but said she's pleased with some of the services provided by the county. 'We need to know what the options are, as well as share that information with our commissioner so she can make an informed decision as well,' she said.
Trameka Rios, who handles social media for the Little River Farms community and will sit on the MAC, is of a similar mindset, and also understands the concerns of residents as her husband grew up in the neighborhood and his family owned a corner store in the community. They now live in his childhood home.
Still, she emphasized that she hopes they can be open to the process and give the committee a chance to determine if becoming a city is even viable.
'My biggest thing is to give it a chance,' she said. 'If it doesn't work, we tried it, and if it does work, then we can all collectively come together and see what we want to have happen in our area.'
But Brown, with Gratigny, said if the area doesn't incorporate, she thinks the various neighborhoods will eventually find themselves annexed by various cities – precisely the fear that led Kilpatrick and others to push for incorporation.
'We just will fight it and delay it as much as possible,' she said. 'But I think eventually it will happen.'