In an effort to win support from Miami Lakes residents, Mount Sinai Medical Center is modifying its proposal for a six-story hospital with helicopter deck that was planned for the west side of town.
Instead, it is working on a design to use four of the 10 acres of cattle pasture at the northwest corner of Miami Lakes Drive and Northwest 87th Avenue, next to the gated Satori luxury residential community.
“When you buy a $700,000 house, you don’t expect your privacy in your own backyard to be violated,” said Bryan Morera, an attorney and president of the Satori homeowner’s association.
The proposed hospital complex was to also have an emergency department and a 300-car parking garage.
On July 15, the Satori HOA’s board voted unanimously against the project, Morera said.
They also met with Mount Sinai officials to discuss their concerns about increased traffic and noise from helicopters and emergency vehicles if the facility as originally proposed was built.
“Under no circumstances we will support any proposal of a hospital there,” Morera said. “A hospital should go in an industrial area, and not in a residential neighborhood.”
The scaled down plan would have a two-story emergency department and physician offices, Mount Sinai Medical Center President and Chief Executive Officer Gino R. Santorio said in an email.
An entity called F71 LLC is the landowner and state records list Betty Dunn as manager of the limited liability company.
A spokeswoman for Mount Sinai declined to comment on the pending deal.
The property is zoned BU-1A, a designation which allows for “retail and service convenience facilities,” Miami Lakes Principal Town Planner Susana Alonso said.
A BU-1A designation does not currently allow for a hospital or emergency room, which are allowed in industrial districts, she said. Mount Sinai’s project will go through multiple Planning and Zoning Board and town council hearings – for rezoning, to change the code, review of the site plan and conditional use – to allow a facility to be built there.
Though the planned emergency department is different than a hospital, zoning text would still need to be changed to allow an emergency room in a business district, Alonso said.
Mount Sinai will also be required to hold a developer information session for the public to see the new proposal and ask questions directly to hospital officials.
None of those hearings had been scheduled as of July 30.
Morera said Satori home buyers expected a Publix supermarket and pharmacy would rise on the site.
Aaron Curtiss, communications director for Lennar, the developer of Satori, said the company declined to comment.
Mount Sinai has nine primary and specialty care offices in Miami-Dade County, including three emergency centers.
Its newest facility opened in 2018 at 6050 W. 20th Ave. in Hialeah.
Santorio said having strong partnerships with emergency responders, residents and community leaders is “essential to ensuring the health and well-being of the communities we serve.
“As a result of the meet- ing [with the Satori HOA], a revised proposal is in progress that meets the health care needs of the communi- ty and provides the benefit of accessible, quality care to its residents,” he said on July 23.
Research and consumer needs prompted Mount Sinai to choose Miami Lakes for its next location.
“Understanding the importance of convenient, quality medical care, many Miami Lakes residents have asked for greater access in their community, since the opening in Hialeah,” Santorio said.
“We have searched for the best location to suit the needs of the residents and have finally identified a site,” he said.
A petition on Change.org to the town, council and Santorio has drawn more than 300 signers who object to the project.