Miami-Dade commissioners have deferred the vote on the site of the county's new trash incinerator until next year.
Commissioners discussed the issue for around an hour at a meeting Tuesday but decided to defer it until 2025.
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A committee discussion will be held in January, followed by an expected vote in February.
Residents and local leaders in Doral have been hoping to prevent the next trash incinerator from being built on the site of the old one that burned down last year, after Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava came out in support of that proposal.
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“If we move this facility outside of Doral, and the city of Doral does not help pay for this, the minimal incremental cost would be $800 million over the next 20 years, that’s almost a billion dollars," said Commissioner Eileen Higgins, who is also in support of the Doral site.
Before Tuesday's meeting, Higgins requested data from the county to understand how much more residents, specifically those in the city of Miami, would have to pay if the site isn't in Doral.
“The minimum extra money they would pay would be $36 million over that time period, and it could be as high as $90 million," Higgins said. "I cannot responsibly shift that many, many millions of dollars of burden on the residents of the City of Miami."
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However, while Doral Mayor Christi Fraga said while her city might be the cheapest option, it's still not the answer.
“Doral is the smallest of all the options that are being considered, so there’s no room for expansion or growth as the county grows, which is why I have continued to say this is putting a tourniquet on a separate artery," she said.
After much debate and heated discussion, the commission agreed to move forward with Levine Cava’s deferral. She claimed environmental groups suggested landfilling as a potential option versus a waste-to-energy facility, something that was not previously considered. She also mentioned a conversation with the Trump family asking her to consider other alternatives.
Talk of relocating the facility started last year when the existing one was destroyed by a fire. Four areas had been proposed, including the current Doral location, a site in Medley, and two sites near the Miami-Dade/Broward western border.
Last week, the Trump family got involved with the ongoing saga. The President-elect’s son, Eric Trump, met with Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez and told him he called the mayor to voice his concerns about keeping the incinerator in Doral, where Trump National Doral is located.
