Florida Business Journal

The city of Miami's planning board met Wednesday to consider approving new zoning rules for the bulk of the city as part of Miami 21, its controversial zoning code overhaul. The meeting lasted into the wee hours of the morning, with the vote moved to the first week in January.

 To make the review manageable, Miami planning officials broke the city into four quadrants. The rules for the first quadrant were approved in April 2007, along with the entire code.

The city's Planning Advisory Board was slated to vote Wednesday night on the remaining three quadrants, but spent the entire time reviewing changes city staff made to the rules they approved in early 2007.

City officials say Miami 21 will streamline the outdated code and make neighborhoods more pedestrian-friendly. Opponents of the new rules including some of Miami's most powerful developers and zoning attorney's claim Miami 21 will handcuff property owners and stagnate design.

The changes, if approved, would have a huge effect on Miami's neighborhoods and skyline for generations. The planning board delayed the vote on the three quadrants last month after some board members said they thought they had only voted on the first quadrant, and not the entire code, in April 2007.