At the February 8, 2017 meeting of the Commission of the City of Miami Beach, the Administration was asked to give an overview of the state of the film and print industry in Miami Beach. As was reported, Miami Beach has historically been a hot spot for film and print production for the better part of five decades, hosting major celebrities and box office and ratings sensations, including Miami Vice, Burn Notice, Magic City, Bird Cage, Bad Boys 1 & 2, Iron Man 3 and the recent Oscar winner Moonlight. However, the lack of additional funding and ultimate sunset of the State of Florida’s Film and Entertainment Incentive Program in July, 2016 has seen a decline of 44% in dollars spent and 36% in hotel room nights used in Miami Beach alone. The Commission tasked the Administration with looking into ways to bring back film and print production and promote the City of Miami Beach as a film friendly destination. The Administration met with production industry figures, the City’s Production Industry Council and reviewed processes and local incentive options provided by other communities to evaluate our internal processes, looked at key constraints towards improving the process and the City’s image and developed options for presentation that would potentially bring more production work to Miami Beach in ways that would be beneficial to the City.
At the April 26, 2017 meeting of the Commission of the City of Miami Beach, multiple opportunities for encouraging more film and print production in Miami Beach were discussed and unanimously supported by the Commission. Amendments to the parking ordinance are addressed in a separate agenda item submitted by the Parking Department, and a possible cash incentive program is addressed through a referral to the Finance and Citywide Projects Committee.
Set forth in this resolution are the following amendments to the film and print guidelines for adoption:
· Eliminate the signed consent requirement for reservation of metered parking, requiring merely notification with all details.
· Reduce signed consent for road or lane closures to 75% of directly affected properties, instead of the current 100%.
· Reduce the residential signature consent area to 200’ from the production use, where it currently requires 500’.
· Permitted allowance for short term residential rental uses strictly for production purpose.
· Extending the number of free vehicle access passes to productions which demonstrate Miami Beach room nights, to a scale of 5 passes for 50 room nights; 10 passes for 100 room nights; and 20 passes for 200 room nights.
If adopted, the Administration will evaluate the impacts of these changes and report back to the Commission on the success or problems created by these changes in six months.
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