Cutler Bay delays master plan vote as council weighs arsenic cleanup and funding options

The Town of Cutler Bay Town Council on Jan. 7 deferred a resolution to adopt the final master plan for the town’s 16-acre Legacy Park and municipal complex after lengthy presentations and discussion about arsenic contamination, remediation costs and how to pay for cleanup.

Stantec owner’s representative Emma Jones gave the council a detailed status update and a costed menu of six build options for the park, community center, pool, town hall, police facility and parking. Jones told the council the project’s schematic and design-development phases are complete but that the construction-document phase is paused until the council decides the project scope. She said the design team and contractor Kaufman Lynn provided pricing and that the soil-remediation plan — approved by the contractor as a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) in December — is on the project’s critical path.

The council heard that the original master plan adopted by resolution 23-68 envisioned roughly 4 acres of buildings and 12 acres of park. Jones and staff described sites and cost changes driven by environmental findings: a planned 1.5-acre lake was removed…