CREI Holdings has filed plans for an eight-story, 250-unit apartment building at 11033 N.W. Second Terrace in Miami-Dade County, the fourth phase of its sprawling Li'l Abner housing project rising on the footprint of a mobile home park the company cleared through mass evictions. The new building, known as Li'l Abner IV, would sit on a 5.2-acre parcel and include 288 parking spaces, a swimming pool, and other amenities alongside its residential units.
According to Florida YIMBY, CREI Holdings intends to file Li'l Abner IV under Florida's Live Local Act, the state law that lets developers bypass local zoning hurdles and build multifamily housing by-right on commercial or mixed-use land. Under the plan, 100 units would be designated affordable housing for households earning up to 120 percent of Area Median Income, while 150 units would be set aside as workforce housing for households earning between 60 and 140 percent of AMI, splits that amount to 40 percent and 60 percent of the building respectively. Miami-Dade County's Area Median Income stood at $87,200 in 2025, the benchmark used to calculate those income ceilings, per the outlet's report.
A Law Built for By-Right Approval
The Live Local Act, enacted in 2023 and updated under Senate Bill 1730 in June 2025, requires municipalities to approve qualifying multifamily housing on commercial or mixed-use land without discretionary review, so long as at least 40 percent of the units are restricted to households earning up to 120 percent of AMI for a minimum of 30 years, according to Holland & Knight. That mechanism is precisely the one CREI Holdings, a Miami-based developer, plans to use to push Li'l Abner IV through, sidestepping the kind of zoning fight that might otherwise accompany an eight-story tower. The Florida Housing Data Clearinghouse has since adjusted the county's AMI benchmark to $89,800 for FY 2026, the figure that will guide income limits for future residents once the building opens.
Li'l Abner IV is the latest addition to a project lineage that already includes three earlier phases on the same broader site. Li'l Abner I opened in 2013 as an 87-unit LEED-certified affordable complex for low-income seniors that still carries a waiting list exceeding 1,000 applicants and a turnover rate below one percent, per CREI Holdings. Li'l Abner II followed in February 2023 as an eight-story, 244-unit senior affordable community for residents earning up to 60 percent of AMI, celebrated with a ribbon-cutting by Miami-Dade County and Sweetwater officials. Li'l Abner III, an $86 million, eight-story building supplying 316 to 328 workforce and affordable apartments between the first two phases, secured a $67 million construction loan in March 2024 and was scheduled for completion in early 2026, according to Multi-Housing News. Combined, the preceding phases will offer close to 1,000 units once finished.
Built on a Cleared Trailer Park
All four phases sit within a much larger 105-acre effort, the $4.65 billion Flagler Center District, which the Sweetwater City Commission approved in February 2026 with master-plan zoning amendments allowing up to 6,000 residential units, commercial space, a school, and a hospital. That entire redevelopment replaced the 1968-built Li'l Abner Mobile Home Park, which had housed roughly 900 low-income immigrant and senior families, about 3,000 residents, before CREI Holdings issued eviction notices in November 2024. Protests and a class-action lawsuit followed, and the remaining residents were cleared under an October 2025 court order, according to WLRN. Hoodline previously covered the eviction fight at Li'l Abner as residents resisted displacement, and later reported on a suspicious trailer fire that flared amid the standoff.
The project has also drawn scrutiny beyond land use. A March 2026 investigation by Florida Bulldog found that CREI Holdings CEO Raul F. Rodriguez made roughly $400,000 in political action committee donations tied to U.S. Reps. Carlos Gimenez and Mario Diaz-Balart around the time the congressmen secured $10 million in federal housing earmarks for the Li'l Abner III phase, a story Hoodline covered in its own reporting on the Sweetwater donations tied to housing grants. A follow-up April 2026 Florida Bulldog report detailed that corporate entities controlled by Rodriguez donated $100,000 to a PAC supporting Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, whose administration recommended and administered $9 million in county and federal HUD grants for CREI's housing phases.
A Broader Local Track Record
Rodriguez, who also serves as CEO of Miami-based medical transportation provider National Health Transport, established the non-profit Li'l Abner Foundation in 2009 to run free tutoring, martial arts, and youth programs in Sweetwater, according to CREI Holdings. The city has approved other large housing pushes recently as well; Hoodline reported in April that Sweetwater gave the green light to an FIU-area student tower despite objections from neighbors over height and displacement concerns. Miami-Dade County broadly defines affordable housing as serving households earning up to 120 percent of AMI and workforce housing as serving those earning 60 to 140 percent of AMI, the income bands that will govern who ultimately qualifies for Li'l Abner IV's 250 units once the Live Local Act filing moves forward.
