Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Miami Commissioner Tomas Regalado was elected mayor of Florida’s biggest city with a pledge to control spending, limit property-tax increases and curtail development.

Regalado, 62, led fellow commissioner Joe Sanchez, 44, by 72 percent of the votes to 28 percent with 88 percent of precincts reporting, according to the Miami-Dade County Elections Department.

The Cuban-born Spanish-language television journalist replaces Manny Diaz, who’s served the two-term limit. Regalado pledged to continue spending controls Diaz implemented, including job and salary cuts that helped close a $118 million gap in the city’s fiscal 2010 budget.

Miami was forced to raise property taxes and cut costs as the housing recession shrank its tax base. The value of the city’s real estate will drop 6.6 percent next year, compared with average annual growth the previous four years of 19 percent, Standard & Poor’s said in July.

Regalado promised to review remuneration for city employees, half of whom earn more than $100,000, according to the Miami Herald. One of his first acts will be to reject a $53,000 salary increase for the mayor approved by the commission earlier this year, he said.

He said he wants to renegotiate union pension costs, which will consume 12 percent of the city’s $756.5 million fiscal 2010 spending, according to budget documents.

“The next mayor will have to move quickly to stop the bleeding flowing from the city’s books and extract real concessions from the unions,” he said in campaign literature.

Voter Approval

Regalado also wants large municipal expenditures to face voter approval. He was the only commissioner not to vote for a $515 million baseball stadium for the Florida Marlins, which is being built with $360 million of public funds.

A city commissioner since 1996, longer than any other currently serving, Regalado said he’ll oppose raising property taxes to fix budget shortfalls. He also wants to control real- estate development in Miami, where 8,000 of the 23,000 condominiums built in downtown from 2003 to 2008 are vacant, says Condo Vultures LLC, a broker.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jerry Hart in Miami at jhart@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 3, 2009 22:15 EST