Zoning District Regulations
Hotel uses are permitted in the following zoning districts within the city:

• CD-2 and CD-3 (Commercial).
• TC-C (North Beach, Town Center Central Core).
• TC-1 and TC-2 (North Beach Town Center).
• TC-3 (North Beach Town Center) – As a conditional use only.
• MXE (Mixed Use Entertainment).
• RM-3 and RM-2 (Residential Multifamily) – Hotels are prohibited in the RM-2 and RM-3 districts located in the West Avenue and Palm View Neighborhoods.
• RM-1 (Residential Low Intensity) – Only for properties fronting Harding Avenue from 73rd to 87th Streets.
• R-PS3 and R-PS4 (Residential Performance Standard).
• C-PS1, C-PS2, C-PS3 and C-PS4 (Commercial Performance Standard).
• CCC (Civic and Convention Center District).

In most of the above noted zoning districts the minimum hotel unit size requirement is as follows:

• 85% of hotel units must have a minimum unit size of 335 square feet; and

• 15% of hotel rooms may be between 300-335 square feet.

There are some exceptions to the minimum hotel unit sizes, as noted hereto:

• Within the North Beach Town Center-Central Core (TC-C) district, the minimum hotel room size is 300 square feet.

• In certain local historic districts, minimum hotel room sizes of 200 square feet are permitted for sites with historic buildings that are renovated in accordance with the Secretary of Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation and Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings. This is due to many historic buildings having been designed with facades and structural grids that are configured to smaller rooms. This regulation facilitates substantial restorations and the ability to incorporate additions that maintain a similar character as the historic portion of the building.

• Along the Washington Avenue corridor, between 6th Street and 16th Street, as well as within the TC-C district, micro-hotel units are also permitted. Micro-unit hotels can have hotel units as small as 175 square feet but require that 20% of a building’s gross floor area consist of amenity space. The micro-hotel use was established in 2016 as part of the creation of the Washington Avenue Zoning Overlay, which was intended to incentivize hotel uses and better activate the Washington Avenue corridor.

A proposal to restrict hotel uses within specified zoning districts, as well as amend the minimum and average unit size requirements for hotels, can only be implemented by amending the Land Development Regulations of the City Code (LDRs). This would require a separate referral by the City Commission to the Planning Board.

Hotel Density Limitations

Where hotels are allowed, the City of Miami Beach currently regulates hotel unit density using floor area ratio (FAR) limits and minimum hotel unit sizes. Recently, the Planning Department reviewed hotel density and unit size requirements for other jurisdictions within the State of Florida.

The following is an analysis of how incorporating density limits like those utilized by other jurisdictions would impact typical lots in the City of Miami Beach. Density limits where a hotel room counts as one-half (0.5) and two-thirds (0.66) of a residential unit were used for this analysis and these are equivalent to the density limits utilized in the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County respectively. 

The following is a brief summary of the types of lots within the City of Miami Beach that were used for the analysis:

1.     An RM-2 zoned lot, which has an FAR limit of 2.0 and a residential density limit of 100 units per acre; these FAR and density limits are equivalent to the FAR and density limits of the MXE district. 

2.   An RM-3 zoned lot size that is over 45,000 SF, which has an FAR limit of 2.75 and a residential density limit of 150 units per acre. 

3.      An oceanfront lot with RM-3 zoning with a lot size over 100,000 SF, which has an FAR limit of 3.0, an additional FAR of 0.15 for hotel amenities, and a residential density limit of 150 units per acre. Given the additional FAR for hotel amenities on the RM-3 site over 100,000 SF, it was assumed that a smaller proportion of the base 3.0 FAR would be utilized for back of house and amenities, thereby allowing for the development of more units. 

The following is also noted regarding existing hotel uses in Miami Beach:

·        Miami Beach has a very large diversity of hotel types ranging from small boutique hotels to very large luxury resorts. 

·        Most of the City’s hotels are in historic buildings and a number of hotels do not conform with the current regulations set forth in the LDRs; as such, establishing hotel density limits would likely increase the number of nonconformances. 

·    Given that there are not many sites available for new hotel development, hotel density regulations would primarily impact existing hotels that are seeking to undergo major renovations. Renovations that are considered a substantial improvement could result in hotels having to remove units, or the owner foregoing a much-needed renovation project. The threshold for a substantial improvement under the Florida Building Code, commonly referred to as the 50% rule, is when the improvements to an existing building exceed 50% of the value of the building.

·        Hotels with available FAR that propose an addition as part of a renovation project might not have sufficient hotel density to build the addition, especially if the original portion of the hotel was historic and had small rooms.

The analysis above demonstrates that placing a density limit where hotel rooms count as one-half (0.5) of a residential unit would have a minimal impact on lots that are less than 100,000 square feet in size. However, oceanfront lots over 100,000 square feet would be significantly impacted, as they would be limited to a much lower number of hotel rooms than can be built currently. The reason that lots over 100,000 square feet are disproportionately impacted is because they have a higher FAR limit without a corresponding higher residential density limit. Therefore, the greatest impacts would be on the sites of the City’s largest resorts, such as the Eden Rock and the Fontainebleau. However, if a density limit where hotel rooms count as two-thirds (0.66) of a residential unit were established, all sites utilized in this analysis would be greatly impacted with a significant reduction in the total number of hotel rooms that could be built on a site. 

Also, this analysis does not consider micro-hotel room sizes or the 200 square foot hotel room sizes that are permitted in historic hotel buildings, which would see greater impacts on the number of hotel rooms that could be built if hotel density limits were utilized.

In summary, the regulatory issues that pertain to a given site are unique.  Establishing a density limit in the Comprehensive Plan that takes all the existing variables for hotel room sizes into account would be complex to create and administer and likely result in a need for future Comprehensive Plan amendments on a case-by-case basis, given that variances to the Comprehensive Plan regulations are not permitted. 

Hotel Unit Caps
Four (4) of the jurisdictions reviewed by Planning staff placed caps on the uses that could be developed in certain Activity Centers, Regional Activity Centers (RACs), or Planned Development areas. These caps are typically part of initiatives to encourage development in underdeveloped areas in a managed way, and not to stop the growth of hotel uses entirely. These caps often include limits on hotel rooms and are generally based on transportation impacts that are studied as part of a redevelopment plan. A process is established to trade one land use type for another based on equivalent transportation impacts.

The City of Miami Beach has established similar use caps in the North Beach TC-C district, to encourage redevelopment in a managed fashion. As a result, caps for several types of uses were established based on the results of a traffic study that was undertaken, which took into account previous and new development capacities of the area. To this end, the TC-C district has a cap of 1,762 hotel rooms, which was possible to implement and track in this area due to no previous hotel development within the district. To date, only 74 hotel rooms have been reserved from the cap.

Conversely, if a cap were established for other parts of the City with a significant hotel inventory, maintaining an accurate accounting of credits would be exceedingly difficult given the number of hotels and hotel rooms that already exist within the City. This could create permitting issues and pose challenges for determining credit allocation in the future. Given that most of the City’s neighborhoods that permit hotel uses are nearly built-out to their maximum intensity, significant new hotel development is not expected, and unit caps would have the primary effect of hindering improvements to existing hotels, especially as credits are depleted.

SUMMARY
As noted above, several cities in Florida utilize density limitations for hotel rooms. However, there is no other city in Florida that has the same built environment, diversity of hotel types, and number of historically designated buildings as Miami Beach. Given the variety of hotel types and room sizes within the City of Miami Beach, creating hotel density limitations like other jurisdictions could create challenges in the future that prevent improvements to existing hotels, thereby potentially impacting the preservation of historic buildings and the City’s ability to attract high-end tourism. This could have long-term impacts on the city and county’s economy and ultimately impact the quality of life of residents.

Also, once incorporated into the Comprehensive Plan, hotel density limits would be difficult to modify in the future, given the State processes involved in processing comprehensive plan amendments. Of note in the research herein, the City of St. Pete Beach Comprehensive Plan, which has implemented density limits for hotel rooms, acknowledges the long-term issues it has faced due to hotel density limits. Such issues include disinvestment in existing hotels, loss of jobs, tourism, and an increased tax burden on residential properties to maintain services. The City of St. Pete Beach has since had to adopt complex regulations to counteract these unintended consequences, including significant increases in allowable hotel density.

Finally, hotel room density limits or caps could have an unintended consequence of encouraging additional short-term rentals (STRs) of residential apartments. Given that the City is pre-empted by the State of Florida from prohibiting STRs in areas where they are already permitted, this would also be difficult to reverse.

The Administration does not recommend modifying existing regulations to establish hotel density limits or hotel room caps. However, if the City Commission has concerns regarding hotel uses in specific neighborhoods or areas of the City, the Administration recommends that appropriate policy be developed to address these specific areas. An option would include prohibiting new hotels and apartment hotels in specific neighborhoods where the use creates nuisances for residents.