Miami-Dade Threatens to Reclaim 30 Stalled Liberty City Lots

Thirty of the 35 Liberty City lots Miami-Dade deeded to a nonprofit developer in 2016 are still empty, and a federal judge’s order this summer lays out the nonprofit’s account of why in more detail than either side has said publicly: not a financing gap or a cost overrun, but a deed-extension vote that a county commissioner would not put on the agenda after the nonprofit backed his election rival.

Why it matters

The county’s Infill Housing Program hands surplus parcels to developers at nominal cost on the condition they build within two or five years. Neighbors and Neighbors Association, known as NANA, took 35 of those lots in 2016 and hit the usual COVID-era delays. But when it sought a further extension in 2024, Commissioner Keon Hardemon, whose District 3 covers Liberty City, Little Haiti and Allapattah, declined to bring the resolution to a vote after NANA’s director backed his rival, Audrey Edmonson, according to the amended complaint a federal judge largely credited on July 20. The county then suspended NANA’s funding pending an audit and moved toward reverting the deeds. For developers who treat a county Infill deed as safe entitlement, this is the case file showing it is not: a lot’s fate can turn on a commissioner’s relationship with the recipient, not on the recipient’s construction progress.

The numbers

Of the 30 lots at issue, NANA says it has poured footers, foundation slabs and rough-in plumbing on 8. The county issued a default notice on February 25, 2025, warning of reversion within 30 days, then had staff recommend reversion of all 30 lots at an October 21, 2025 board briefing. The deeds have not yet reverted. Judge Roy Altman dismissed the First Amendment and due-process claims against Hardemon personally on legislative-immunity grounds but let claims against the county itself proceed, on the theory that the full Commission ratified his freeze after NANA’s director, Leroy Jones, appealed to a quorum directly. Jones told commissioners that without a vote, “people cannot move in their house because we’re waiting on an extension so they can complete their houses.”

What’s next

The Monell and due-process claims against Miami-Dade now head toward discovery, and a reversion vote, if the Commission takes it up, would send 22 unstarted lots and 8 partially built ones back into county inventory, reopening a Liberty City site list other Infill Program developers can bid to finish. Watch the County Commission’s agenda for that reversion item and the docket in Case No. 25-cv-22659 for what discovery surfaces about who at the county knew. For the wider South Florida distress pipeline, the pattern is a reminder that entitlement risk here can be political, not just financial.