Street Economics

Miami Gardens, Florida

HJR 1 Homestead-Exemption Tax-Base Exposure

Miami-Dade County . 2025 final assessment roll

Snapshot

The Miami Gardens read

Miami Gardens fits the Bedroom Residential Monoculture archetype: the base is owner-occupied single-family housing at moderate value with thin commercial, industrial, or rental property. This is the maximum-exposure profile because almost every dollar of value is the exact kind of property the amendment exempts — strip the homesteads and little taxable base remains. At full phase-in in 2028, 25.6% of Miami Gardens’ non-school taxable base is exposed to the $250,000 exemption, with a 17.6% hit at the 2027 $150,000 step. The driver is straightforward: a high homestead share combined with a low commercial share means the exemption lands on nearly the whole base at once.

Of 36,279 residential housing units, 56.7% are owner-occupied, 11.3% are owned by out-of-state owners, and 32.0% are non-homestead but Florida-owned. That 32.0% Florida-owned non-homestead share is a meaningful signal: a substantial portion of Miami Gardens’ rental market is held by in-state landlords, not absentee out-of-state investors. Among ranked Florida cities, Miami Gardens sits at 155 of 404 by exposure — a middle-of-the-pack position that reflects the city’s meaningful but not extreme homestead concentration.

Land-use composition

Share of taxable value by category, Miami Gardens, 2025 roll:

Two figures in this table stand out. Industrial property, while representing 13.0% of total value, has 36.2% of its value held by out-of-state owners — a concentration worth watching as the city thinks about who controls its most resilient non-homestead base. Multifamily is even more striking: 41.7% of multifamily value is out-of-state owned despite only 5.5% of multifamily parcels carrying an out-of-state mailing address, which suggests a small number of large out-of-state-owned apartment assets account for a disproportionate share of that category’s value.

What the exposure band means

Moderate exposure. A meaningful but absorbable hit. The place has some non-homestead base to lean on. Mitigation is about steering future growth, not emergency response.

Looking ahead

Neither of the following changes the exposure figures above; both shape how Miami Gardens grows its base after the amendment takes effect.

First, beginning January 1, 2027, the annual assessment-increase cap on non-homestead property drops from 10% to 5%, covering commercial and industrial real property and small residential rentals of nine units or fewer. Because a capped property’s assessed value can rise only 5% per year, the main engine of base growth in these categories becomes transactions: a sale or change of control resets the property to market value, so transaction velocity matters more to non-homestead base growth than it did under the old cap.

Second, new Florida residents who did not maintain a Florida permanent residence as of December 31, 2026 phase into the larger exemption over five years rather than receiving it immediately. This residency ramp cannot be read from the assessment roll, so all exposure figures here assume full application of the exemption to every homestead. Near-term exposure could run slightly lower than modeled in places with many recent arrivals still inside their five-year window.

Where the opportunity is

These recommendations are based solely on the tax roll’s land-use composition. They do not account for whether local land development regulations and zoning permit the uses described, whether there is local obstruction, or the political dynamics that typically decide what actually gets approved. This is a starting point for a conversation, not a development plan.

• Commercial at 8.8% of total value sits just above the threshold where it becomes the single highest-leverage move, and it remains the most important target. The single biggest lever Miami Gardens can pull is converting a share of future growth from rooftops to taxable commercial square footage that carries no homestead exemption. A neighborhood-serving retail node, a small office or medical-office cluster, or a light-flex business park positioned along an existing arterial would each add non-homestead value the amendment does not touch. The goal is not scattered commercial infill but a real non-homestead spine that concentrates value in one corridor rather than staying thin everywhere.
• Multifamily rental is the second major opportunity. Apartments pay full freight under the amendment, and Miami Gardens already has a substantial Florida-owned rental market at 32.0% of residential units. Allowing well-sited rental near jobs and transit adds non-homestead taxable value and workforce housing at the same time, deepening the base without adding to the homestead monoculture. Given that 41.7% of existing multifamily value is already out-of-state owned, the city has reason to think carefully about ownership structure as it evaluates new rental proposals — favoring local or in-state ownership where possible is a community choice, not a fiscal one, but it is worth naming.
• Industrial at 13.0% of value is already Miami Gardens’ second-largest non-homestead category and deserves protection and intensification. Any existing employment anchor — distribution, light manufacturing, or a similar use — is a non-homestead taxpayer already in place, and losing one to conversion to residential would trade resilient base for exposed base. Prioritizing commercial and industrial parcels for future municipal growth rather than more subdivisions ensures any expansion of the city’s footprint deepens the non-homestead base instead of the monoculture.

Watch-out: do not solve a revenue hole by approving more single-family subdivisions. Each one adds homestead value the amendment will exempt while adding service demand the millage must cover. That is the trap that created the exposure, and more of the same deepens it.

Source and scope

All figures are drawn from the Florida Department of Revenue 2025 final assessment roll, the most recent certified roll in the state’s possession. The roll is used here as a structural proxy for Miami Gardens’ tax-base composition, not as a dollar forecast for any specific budget year. HJR 1 / CS-HJR 1F is on the November 2026 ballot; the 2026 roll is the assessment roll in place when voters decide. If the amendment passes, the first roll affected is the 2027 roll at the $150,000 step, followed by the 2028 roll at full $250,000 phase-in. When the 2026 and later rolls are certified, this analysis re-runs on the new data.

Ownership shares are measured on a residential-unit basis. The out-of-state ownership figure is a mailing-address proxy: it counts units whose owner’s mailing-address state in the roll is a non-Florida state or country. It undercounts true outside ownership because an out-of-state owner using an in-state LLC mailing address counts as Florida-owned, and it does not prove where any individual owner actually lives. This is a land-use-composition starting point, not a full fiscal, economic, or legal analysis.

Place: Miami Gardens