Developers got city land for affordable housing in Little Havana. Is it a good deal?

In his final act before leaving office last year, longtime Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo quietly put together a complex, multimillion-dollar deal to provide public land in East Little Havana to three developers to build 500 affordable apartments in one of the city’s most housing-challenged districts. The unusual no-bid deal, which Carollo conceived of and oversaw, was not a secret. The agreements to transfer land to the developers won unanimous City Commission approval in a December hearing and attracted modest news coverage. Carollo, termed out and having failed to make the runoff for the mayor’s seat he had been campaigning for, resigned the next day, a week before the inauguration of his successor in District 3. On Thursday, a modified agreement with one of the developers won City Commission approval.