![]() The area is mostly a commercial and industrial district, along with some residential mobile homes. "The proposed annexation area would be part of the city's plan to further develop a burgeoning entertainment district that would be adjacent to the city's east end,” a representative from Corradino Group, a consulting firm hired by Hialeah last year, said at an April 25 city council meeting. ![]() Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Kenneth Kilpatrick, president of the Brownsville Civic Neighborhood Association, contends that annexation threatens to strip Brownsville of financial development opportunities and eat away at the community's history. "The area proposed to be annexed would significantly strengthen Hialeah’s economic vitality while decimating Brownsville’s economic potential." "Industrial areas are major economic tools that power neighborhoods and cities," Kilpatrick tells New Times. Kilpatrick says he fears Brownsville's future may mirror that of Seminola, one of South Florida’s first Black communities that's now part of Hialeah. Developed in 1924 so Black laborers building the Hialeah Park racetrack could live nearby, the 20-block neighborhood has seen its Black population dwindle over the past few decades. "The City of Hialeah has not fared well with nurturing the African-American community of Seminola. "And there is a well-founded fear that the current annexation effort could result in future residential takings to the east of the industrial district." This once-thriving African-American community within Hialeah’s city limits is now being gentrified, with less than 20 percent of the current population being African-American today," Kilpatrick adds. What is now Brownsville was farmland when it was settled by a white man named W.L. It became known as Brownsville, or as locals call it, "Brown Sub."Ĭity of Hialeah annexation map for Brownsville The neighborhood first appeared on a county plat map in 1916, when Brown registered the two-square-mile patch of land as "Brown Subdivision," according to archived Miami-Dade Public Library System records. ![]() The Black population blossomed in the community between the 1940s and the 1960s. ![]() Kilpatrick notes that Brownsville was a key destination for civil-rights icons and entertainers who visited Miami during the segregation era, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Sammy Davis Jr., and Billie Holiday.Īt the April 25 city meeting, Hialeah Councilman Jesus Tundidor insisted that the proposed annexation is in the review stage and the city is still weighing its options. "We’re not here to blindside anyone we are here to work with you." "It's not and never will be our intent to break up any type of community, break up any type of historical preservation or heritage,” said Tundidor, who sponsored the annexation proposal. The Corradino Group's presentation indicated that the City of Hialeah would take in about $850,000 annually in tax revenue from the annexed area, while the cost of providing city services to the area would exceed $4 million in the first year after annexation and $1.8 million in the second year. If the space is developed into an entertainment district, as the Corradino Group suggested it may be, property values would be poised to increase and provide potential surplus tax revenue for the city. In terms of area, the parcel represents about one-tenth of Brownsville's 2.28 square miles. ![]()
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