The City of Miami Beach hosts various special events that enrich the community for visitors and residents. To mitigate the ever-increasing demands made on City resources and infrastructure, special event permit applicants must present proposed special event activities to potentially impacted neighborhood associations and appropriate City departments. This process assists in evaluating and assessing the City’s resources, both in terms of personnel and use of public property and rights-of-way, to adequately protect the health, safety and welfare of the community.
The City has the authority to approve, approve with conditions, deny, or revoke a Special Event Application. The review includes, but is not limited to, the type of event, resident benefit, and quality of life and city services impact. After an initial vetting, if approved to move through the special event permitting process, applications are reviewed internally by city departments and externally by the community.
Internal Review Procedure
All proposed events with projected attendance of more than 150 persons on public or private property, where such event would not be incidental generally or without restriction throughout a particular zoning district, will be reviewed, internally, by the City’s relevant Departments. Representatives from City departments, including, but not limited to Police, Fire, Tourism and Culture, Public Works, Parking, Planning, Code Compliance, Environment and Sustainability and Parks and Recreation take part in a monthly Special Events Internal Review meeting. The various departments review and provide feedback on the proposed site, run of show, security, parking, transportation, and all other necessary plans for the proposed event. Based on feedback received from City Departments, Tourism and Culture Department (TCD) staff advise the applicant with the specific requirements they will need to satisfy and the timeframe for completing these requirements. Each City department will take note of announced events and potential events of significance and initiate customized action plans to address the requisite levels of service and outline their efforts and responsibilities associated with any upcoming major event planned within the City.
External Review Procedure
Special events in the City of Miami Beach are subject to review and recommendation by the corresponding neighborhood or business association(s) and/ or as part of a monthly Special Events Community Review.
Currently, TCD hosts the virtual Special Events Community Review meeting on the third Thursday of every month. The invitation for the monthly meeting is sent to City personnel, event producers and community stakeholders. Although the Guidelines currently only state events in public property, TCD includes all events, whether on public or private property, in the monthly Community Review Meetings, which are publicly noticed through the City Clerk’s Office, as seen in Exhibit A.
Additional Neighborhood Notification and Input Strategy
Part of the external review procedure includes notification to affected neighborhoods and associations, such as the Art Deco Neighborhood Association, Ocean Drive Association, and Collins Park Neighborhood Association for example. TCD routinely connects event producers with affected neighborhoods to allow for event proposals, including a site plan and run of show, to be shared and discussed. This allows for dialogue between the parties, and questions and concerns are shared directly with the producers. In addition, TCD has coordinated meetings between producers and community stakeholders when more discussion is deemed necessary.
TCD staff has continued to take various steps to enhance notifications to residents and neighborhood associations of upcoming special event application reviews by implementing the following:
- Monthly Special Event Community Review virtual meetings publicly noticed through the City Clerk’s office, providing residents with dates, time, and meeting login information in advance, as seen in Exhibit A.
- An electronic email blast was restarted in November 2023 with more than 2,000 subscribers. An email is sent with the agenda of the upcoming Community Review meeting, making residents aware of events proposed in their area, as seen in Exhibit B.
- The Administration has worked with the Information Technology Department to create a link to subscribe to the “Special Event” newsletter, as seen in Exhibit C.
- For events that are expected to have a high impact on the community and City services, a separate community meeting is scheduled. TCD has worked with the Neighborhood Affairs Division to schedule and promote community meetings, as seen in Exhibit D.
Since the additional notification strategies were implemented, TCD staff has witnessed increased participation of residents at monthly meetings. Through participation, residents have been able to share concerns, ask questions, and at times, receive feedback and real time solutions to address concerns. All comments received during the external review process are incorporated with feedback received through the internal review process.
Since March 2024, TCD has taken steps to continue enhancing notification to residents, making residents aware of special event permits being reviewed at the public Community Review meetings. TCD has collaborated with the City’s Marketing and Communications Department and the Neighborhood Affairs Division to distribute sign up information to residents for the established special events electronic newsletter, and was shared to the following:
- City’s Marketing and Communications database of more than 36,000 residents
- City’s Facebook page with more than 56,000 followers
- TCD’s Arts and Culture Distribution List with more than 18,000 subscribers.
Continued Communications Efforts:
TCD will continue working with the Marketing and Communications Department and the Neighborhood Affairs Division to disseminate information about the electronic newsletter sent by TCD, which includes special event applications being reviewed at monthly Community Review Meetings, the agendas and meeting login information. Steps may include sending newsletter sign up information to a database of residents in Miami Beach zip codes and a database of Miami Beach Homeowners Associations.