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Coconut Grove Tree Massacre Highlights a Huge Problem Facing Miami By Michelle Niemeyer, Chairperson of the Coconut Grove Village Council and Candidate for Miami City Commission in District 2
Every Miami neighborhood has its iconic symbol: Art Deco and fashion in Miami Beach, The Biltmore in Coral Gables, the Coppertone Girl in the MiMo District, chic high rises in Downtown and Brickell. In Coconut Grove it’s the lush tree canopy. In parts of the Grove, narrow streets meander through a jungle of banyan, royal poinciana and live oak trees, while peacocks parade down the road, blocking traffic at their leisure. Even in the Center Grove and its commercial district, you can sit at an outdoor café under the shade of a tree. As you enter the Grove on 27th Avenue, although the road is a little wider and there are taller buildings, there are a lot of very large trees. Grovites are passionate about their trees. Their passion is the reason the City of Miami has stricter laws protecting trees than most other parts of Miami-Dade County. This law requires notice to be posted and mailed to neighbors about trees slated for removal so unnecessary tree chopping can be stopped by appeal. This month, that system broke down and 15 trees were chopped down by Miami-Dade County, part of a County plan to remove 77 trees for a street “beautification” project on 27th Avenue. How this happened is a textbook example of one of the biggest problems Miami faces today. The County met with the Coconut Grove Village Council, an elected group of voluntary community representatives, in 2006 and 2007, but never showed the final plans with the tree removals included. Since the County officials present had said they would respect the tree canopy and could work around it in most places, residents were not concerned when a sign saying the 27th Avenue improvements were starting. The posted tree removal signs were inconspicuously placed where no one saw them, and the mailed notices the City should have sent were not sent out. No one appealed, or was even worried, until massive trees on a main thoroughfare through the Grove, right down the street from Miami City Hall, started coming down. Then people went crazy!
Residents Liliana Dones and Santiago Villegas, founding members of the Village Council’s TreeWatch Committee, tried calling the City Commissioner and the Mayor, who came and watched the trees falling but did nothing to stop the carnage. Ultimately the new County Commissioner, Xavier Suarez, made the cutting stop after receiving a text from the author of this article, but by then all but two of the 17 trees in the first phase of the project were destroyed, including one tree with a 47’ circumference. Thankfully, the removal of another 60 trees in Phase II will now be reconsidered. So, what went wrong? The County led residents to believe the project would be designed to minimize the impact to the tree canopy and promised to follow through with the residents, but never did. It went to a City of Miami department (Public Works) for a tree removal permit, which was granted by employees who didn’t know the history, and then the City failed to notify people, which was the City’s job. Residents an interest in protecting their neighborhood’s integrity were left out of the equation when it mattered most. This is a problem that plagues the City of Miami’s neighborhoods, especially the ones that are host to County and State roads leading toward downtown Miami. In the MiMo District and other neighborhoods north of downtown, The Florida Department of Transportation flexes its muscle to move as much traffic as it can as fast as it can to downtown from areas north. In the Brickell neighborhood, traffic is similarly funneled through with little regard to the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists or the residents’ quality of life. In Coconut Grove, the County pushes traffic downtown through secondary roads that snake through its commercial core and residential neighborhoods. There is a clash between the residents’ desire to have less and slower traffic and the County’s and FDOT’s goal of pushing traffic toward downtown as quickly and efficiently as possible. Each of these neighborhoods has a strong desire to improve their quality of life by minimizing the impact of these roads that run through them, but it can only happen with strong leadership from elected officials willing to stand up for their constituents. The long term solution to suburban sprawl and overdevelopment beyond the capacity of our roads is not to make neighborhood streets like South Bayshore, Biscayne Boulevard and Brickell into unsafe and unsightly commuter highways. It is better public transportation. It is encouraging people to live near where they work, and providing shaded sidewalks with safe pedestrian crosswalks so they don’t need to drive to work every day, and so that they can walk or ride their bikes from their homes to local stores and restaurants. Local governments need to be reminded that serving the needs of local businesses and residents is the reason they exist. It’s really that simple. County and City and State officials should be speaking first to the residents and local business owners, and then to each other to carry out the residents’ wishes in the most cost effective way possible. They should be working together to maximize the benefit of our tax dollars efficiently and effectively, and to deliver services that are wanted by the people who are paying those taxes. |
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