In 2016, a Coral Gables-based company called Megladon bought a vacant lot at 13100 Southwest 77th Avenue in Pinecrest for $745,000. Three years later it applied to build a single new house on it. The Real Deal reported that, according to its lawsuit, the Village's planning director refused to issue the permit unless Megladon handed over a 7.5-foot strip running the length of the property for public right-of-way.
That strip ended up in front of a federal jury. In March 2026, jurors awarded Megladon $409,000 after finding that the Village's practice of conditioning permits on land dedications was unconstitutional. The fight over a few feet of frontage makes sense once you know how Pinecrest measures a house. The Village sizes it against the land that remains after public rights-of-way come out, and anything that shrinks that remainder shrinks the home that can go on it.
The ratio is applied to the net lot
Most of the Village's large-lot estates are zoned EU-1, which is defined as one unit per gross acre. In the neighboring EU-S district, the code says outright that the minimum lot area counts one-half of the adjacent rights-of-way. The rules that set house size use a different base. The EU-1 table in the Village's land development regulations carries this note:
Required setbacks and floor area ratio shall apply to the net lot area, exclusive of public rights-of-way.
Building coverage works the same way. Under the EU-1 rules, total structures can cover 20 percent of the net lot for a two-story house and 25 percent for a one-story house. Impervious surface is capped at 45 percent, and at least 55 percent must stay green. The floor area ratio, or FAR, is total floor area divided by lot area. It is 0.20 for the first floor and 0.10 for the second on a two-story house, and 0.25 for a one-story house. Uncovered pools, pool patios and hard-surfaced tennis courts don't count toward FAR, but they do count as impervious surface.
Here is the math on a lot with exactly 43,560 square feet of net area, one full acre after rights-of-way:
- Two-story house: 0.20 × 43,560 = 8,712 square feet on the ground floor, plus 0.10 × 43,560 = 4,356 upstairs. That makes about 13,068 square feet in total.
- One-story house: 0.25 × 43,560 = about 10,890 square feet.
- The two-story ground floor of 8,712 square feet equals the 20 percent coverage cap, and any accessory structures share that same coverage.
- Height is capped at 35 feet for two stories, with a 27-foot maximum wall height.
Every square foot of net land therefore carries 0.30 square feet of two-story house. A lot sold as "an acre" whose gross figure includes half the street in front supports less house than the acreage suggests. The Village's zoning setbacks and lot coverage chart lists the EU-1 front setback at 50 feet. Before making an offer, a buyer should know whether the survey reports gross or net area.
What a 7.5-foot strip costs in floor area
Megladon's lot dimensions weren't reported, so take a hypothetical. Suppose a 7.5-foot strip runs along a 200-foot side, the EU-1 minimum lot depth. That removes 1,500 square feet of net land. At EU-1 two-story ratios, it also removes about 450 square feet of buildable floor area for good. The setbacks then get measured from the new property line.
During the trial, Village officials admitted they had refused the permit unless Megladon signed an affidavit agreeing to the dedication and waiving its right to challenge it in court. The case isn't fully closed. The federal docket lists it as terminated on April 7, 2026, yet fee-related motions from both sides were still being filed in September. The Council also held a closed executive session on the case on July 14. In the public record reviewed through the September 22 meeting, we found no vote changing how right-of-way dedications are handled for new homes. If you are buying land to build, ask the planning department early whether your parcel's frontage has ever come up in a dedication request. The answer feeds straight into the floor-area math above.
A finished spec home near the edge of the envelope
The clearest recent example of the envelope at work sits at 6290 Chapman Field Drive. A company led by builder Fouad Kraishan acquired the property in 2023 for $1.3 million and put up an 11,700-square-foot spec home on 1.1 acres, marketed as Villa Al Walid. It went under contract during the week of August 24 to 30, 2026, at an asking price of $16.3 million. The Real Deal later reported the sale at $13.5 million. The house was designed by Ignacio Permuy of Coral Gables-based Permuy Architecture.
A 1.1-acre lot is about 47,900 square feet. If all of that were net area, the two-story limit would be roughly 14,375 square feet. Marketed square footage and code-defined floor area are not always measured the same way. Even so, the house appears to have been designed close to the maximum. A builder on a project like this treats the zoning envelope as the product being sold, and the land price reflects how much of that envelope can actually be used.
The final price came in at about 83 percent of the ask. Across the wider Pinecrest single-family market in August 2026, the median sale closed at 94 percent of original list price. The median was $2.926 million, up 31 percent year over year. There were six months of supply and a median of 48 days to contract. Half of sales were cash. MIAMI REALTORS notes that new-construction sales are largely not reported in the MLS, so treat that median as a picture of resale homes. It is not a benchmark for new construction.
The clock starts before demolition
Removing an existing house takes its own permit, and it comes before anything new gets approved. Pinecrest's demolition checklist requires a sewer-cap permit to be finalized before you apply to demolish. Trees come next. If a project removes or relocates trees, the new-construction checklist requires landscape documentation and a tree-removal or relocation permit before the building permit is issued. The Village treats any tree more than 18 inches in diameter, measured four feet above the ground, as a specimen tree, and replacement or mitigation may apply. On a mature estate lot, the placement of the trees can matter as much as the coverage cap in deciding where the footprint goes.
The state's new permitting law doesn't shorten this sequence for a rebuild. Florida HB 803 took effect July 1, 2026, and covers certain eligible residential projects under $7,500. Pinecrest says it doesn't waive zoning, setback, landscaping or other local requirements.
Time costs money on a spec build, and one Pinecrest project shows how quickly it adds up. The Real Deal reported that Devtov Group, a builder, formed a 50-50 joint venture called Mansions 8800 with Navja Corp.
- 2021: The venture pays $1.6 million for a one-acre site at 8800 Southwest 64th Court.
- 2022: Construction stops with the house partly built, and the shell sits from then on.
- About a year before the August 2026 report: Devtov sues to remove Navja as a controlling member. Devtov says it has been covering property taxes, city fines and maintenance. The parties dispute whether a construction loan could be secured.
- Reported August 21, 2026: A recent filing shows an arbitrator ordered Devtov to pay Navja about $1.8 million plus damages. Devtov says it disagrees with some of the findings and is pursuing legal remedies.
Five years after the land purchase, the site still has no finished house. Over the same years, Pinecrest's resale median kept climbing. For a partner putting capital into a local builder's project, the joint venture agreement matters as much as the zoning. Spell out loan guarantees, who pays carrying costs and how a deadlock gets resolved before any money moves.
The code was just rewritten, and one clause is still unclear
On July 14, 2026, the Village Council approved on second reading a comprehensive update to Chapter 30, the part of the Village Code that covers zoning, development procedures and environmental rules. The item had been deferred twice, from May 5 and June 11. The two-story limits described above, 20 percent coverage and floor-area ratios of 0.20 and 0.10, appear in both the Village's older zoning chart and the second-reading draft. The October 2024 code text already allowed 25 percent coverage for one-story houses.
The draft also includes a trade that the 2024 code didn't have. In the EU-1C, EU-1, EU-S and EU-M estate districts, an owner could receive "an additional 25 percent building coverage on the first floor." In return, the owner would remove or forgo any privacy wall, fence or continuous hedge between the front or side-street property line and the building line, and record a covenant in Miami-Dade County public records barring them in the future. Two things are unresolved. The Legistar record still shows no final action or ordinance number, so it is unclear whether the clause survived into the enacted text. The text also doesn't say whether "25 percent" means 25 percentage points or a 25 percent increase over the base limit. On a one-story EU-1 lot, those readings produce first-floor coverage of 50 percent or 31.25 percent. Any buyer pricing land on the assumption of a larger footprint should get the enacted language in writing from the Village first.
Questions buyers ask about building in Pinecrest
Does a pool count against the size of the house? An uncovered pool and pool patio don't count toward FAR under the EU-1 rules. They do count toward the 45 percent impervious surface cap, so a large pool deck can limit driveways and hardscape.
Does the July 2026 rewrite change the EU-1 floor-area ratios? The second-reading draft lists 0.20 and 0.10 for two-story houses and 0.25 for one-story houses. Until the enacted ordinance is published, check those figures with the Planning Department.
Can I skip the tree permit if the tree is in the way of the footprint? Under the Village's rules, removing or relocating a tree generally requires a permit, with exceptions for certain invasive or hazardous species.
Before you go under contract on a Pinecrest lot or an older house you plan to replace, One Trust Realty can help you run the numbers that set its real value: the net area on the survey, the floor area it supports, and the permit sequence between closing and a finished house. Schedule a consultation and bring the survey with you.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
