I heard about it the other day. A nice rectangular shaped acre on a side street in the north end of town sold for $450,000. There wasn’t even a knock-down house on the lot.

The purchasers, whether they are private owners or a developer building on "spec," will build a house which surely will be over 5,000 square feet and might be 7,000 or 8,000 square feet. The economics of the property demand no less.

I am told that the builder’s half acres and 15,000-square-foot lots in the village near the highway or in the south part of town command extraordinary premiums as compared to properties in the unincorporated portion of the county. Aside from being in a naturally pleasant, convenient setting with superior schools, one has to conclude the obvious…Pinecrest property commands a premium.

The Village Council has recognized that it has certain responsibilities associated with these conditions. Yes, it is nice to represent a Village where everything is working well.

We are in excellent shape financially but we have a responsibility to provide some balance to what could otherwise become an exclusionary environment with a community divided between more modest homes and new, huge estates of $1 million and up properties.

From an aesthetic standpoint, the Village Council has been developing new Land Use Regulations in an effort to motivate developers not to build some of the 10,000-square-foot plus fortress-like two-story villas which we have seen in some parts of town which completely overpower and overwhelm the surrounding neighborhood.

We are working with modifications to set backs and floor to area ratios on first and second floor structures in an effort to augment the open space and open view corridors. We have enforced in a consistent manner the principle that variances must be granted very sparingly and should be avoided where the applicant is trying to correct a self-created condition.

From a political standpoint, we recognize the creation of the Village has created great value and an increased tax base which has benefited everyone, especially Miami-Dade County. Our county leaders don’t get it for the very simple reason that they don’t want to get it because it puts them out of business and it eliminates their power base.

Besides, if you give power back to the local communities, it is far more difficult to exercise the anti-democratic, corrupting influences which the lobbyist controlled county commission has so successfully and consistently manipulated a la "Dadeland Junction Project."

The value created by the incorporation of Pinecrest also has created an extraordinary thorn in the side of these influences because the Village has the financial wherewithal to stand up to these influences and to finance litigation where it becomes the route of last resort to deal with the irresponsible excesses of the county’s governing body.

Perhaps that $450,000.00 acre symbolizes not only Pinecrest’s health and the hope that it holds out to our unincorporated neighbors who long for their own municipality. Perhaps it also directly reflects the flight from the political and financial disease which has plagued our county government for too long, to the point of terminal cynicism which it has instilled in much of its citizenry. Watch those market values on Pinecrest lots. They are the touchstone of our village’s health and of Miami-Dade County’s political and governmental illness.