Town sues to stop road construction

Town officials were shocked when a hydraulic backhoe dug a ditch and a front-end loader filled the trench with gravel along Northwest 170th Street.
The street leads to a closed bridge that the city of Hialeah and Miami-Dade County apparently want to open soon.
“They’re doing the work without permits,” Mayor Manny Cid said Oct. 2 as he observed the road work at Northwest 89th Avenue. Cid said the construction partially trespassed on town property.
Miami Lakes’ northern border extends to the middle of Northwest 170th Street.
On the other side of the bridge along the west side of Interstate 75, more than 2,000 Hialeah residents want to be able to access Miami Lakes and highways without having to drive south to Northwest 138th Street.
But town leaders say its residents shouldn’t have to cope with extra traffic that an open bridge would bring.
The next day, the town sued Miami-Dade County and sought an emergency court hearing to stop the construction.
The hearing was postponed because of a judge’s conflict and had not been rescheduled.
A town complaint said in part, “…while development has moved forward at a blazing pace, the county and city of Hialeah have failed to provide the residents of the West I-75 Development with an adequate road network.”
Miami Lakes is seeking to stymie the project until other area road improvements are made to accommodate increased traffic, officials said.
Councilmembers on Oct. 8 authorized town attorney Raul Gastesi to also take legal action against Hialeah as well as residential developer Lennar Corporation.
As of Oct. 14, the other parties were not named in the lawsuit.
The town claims the road construction may have violated a 2003 road transfer agreement with Miami-Dade County.
Though conflict resolution proceedings had been attempted, those talks were futile because the county was moving aggressively toward opening the bridge, the town said in court documents.
“We must proceed with litigation because the project is an immediate danger to the safety, health and welfare for Miami Lakes,” Gastesi said at the council meeting.
Miami-Dade County spokeswoman Karla Damian said in an email,
“Miami-Dade County does not comment on threatened or pending litigation.”
Hialeah Town Attorney Lorena Bravo and representatives of the Lennar Corporation could not be reached for comment.