There is an indelible struggle between city developers trying to develop, modernize, and raise the value of property and residents of these areas seek to maintain reasonable housing prices. The new Miami Worldcenter has received approval for a prelimenary funding of $1.7 billion. However there is a lot of negative response by residents–including jobs going to workers outside the neighborhood and city and rising property values. In an article by Ben Kennedy, more is explained about the benefits and negatives in the proposed Worldcenter.

Overtown residents voice concern over Miami Worldcenter

The Miami Worldcenter is one step closer to becoming a reality after Miami-Dade County commissioners gave the $1.7 billion project preliminary approval.

Overtown residents packed the Miami-Dade County government center Tuesday morning to voice their concerns with the project.

The nearly $2 billion project will transform the Magic City and connect Museum Park to the proposed downtown train station, 1 million square feet of retail space, new hotels and condominiums.

“It’s hard for people in the communities where these developments are happening to have more of a say,” said Phillip Agnew.

The commission will vote Tuesday on the community development district.

“It means that we are allowing the developer to charge the people that are going to be part of the development, whoever is renting it, etc. to have an extra fee so that they can pay for infrastructure,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez. “Today, Miami-Dade County is not giving any tax dollars to this developer.”

The project is set to create 20,000 construction jobs and thousands of full-time work.

Some residents want developers to lock down competitive wages that can sustain people in their community.

“What we want is in the contract that the permanent jobs will have quality wages and that they will be able to unionize,” said Agnew.