More than 3,000 homes and buildings across Miami-Dade County could be jacked up on taller foundations or fitted with flood barriers under a $4.5 billion plan released this week by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The proposal, which covers everything from single-family houses in Cutler Bay to fire stations and wastewater treatment plants, marks the latest step in a federal effort that began after Hurricane Irma struck in 2017.
The Army Corps of Engineers and Miami-Dade County released the Phase II Draft Report on Wednesday, opening a public comment window that runs through September 18, according to the Miami Herald. The plan targets more than 3,000 properties across the county, including over 400 homes in Cutler Bay, over 400 in Miami Beach, and more than 1,000 in Homestead, along with 275 businesses and government buildings identified for floodproofing rather than elevation. The federal government has found more than 6,000 properties at medium or high risk of destructive flooding in the coming decades, though the current plan focuses construction funding on the roughly 3,200 properties deemed highest priority.
From Concrete Walls to Raised Foundations
This nonstructural approach represents a dramatic reversal from the Army Corps’ original 2020 proposal, which called for six miles of concrete walls standing 6 to 13 feet tall along the Miami-Dade coast at an estimated cost of $4.6 billion. Miami residents and officials fiercely opposed those walls, and the Miami Downtown Development Agency reportedly paid a consultant to generate images showing what the barriers might look like covered in graffiti and trash. One Miami commissioner went so far as to call the proposed walls “the Berlin Wall,” per the Herald’s reporting.
The backlash was intense enough that the Army Corps paused the Back Bay study altogether in 2021. Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava formally requested a study extension in September 2022 to give the agency time to reconsider its approach, according to Miami-Dade County. That pressure eventually led the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works to approve a National Economic Development Policy Exception in June 2024, allowing the project to move forward based on public safety and social cohesion in environmental justice communities instead of the strict cost-benefit ratios the Army Corps normally requires. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Chief of Engineers Lt. Gen. Scott A. Spellmon signed the official Chief’s Report on August 26, 2024, formally endorsing voluntary home elevations and building floodproofing for eventual Congressional authorization.
How the Elevation Process Would Work
Under the current plan, the Army Corps would elevate 2,800 single-family homes and 430 multifamily buildings, which the agency defines as quadplexes or smaller, while floodproofing roughly 275 other properties, including about 175 commercial businesses, warehouses, government buildings and churches. Home elevations, per the Herald, involve jacking structures up with heavy machinery and building taller foundations, a process that can take several months and may require homes to be raised a maximum of 12 feet, though many will need only a few additional feet. Dry floodproofing, used for nonresidential buildings, includes temporary or permanent flood barriers and water pumps…