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Activists Argue That Green Space Must Be Priority in Miami

Posted on: Tuesday, 19 July 2005, 00:00 CDT

Jul. 17--Stroll through the Upper Eastside's Legion Park on any weekday morning before rush hour -- through a corridor of grand trees leading down to a lush field overlooking Biscayne Bay -- and you'll find a stillness that's hard to come by in the rapidly redeveloping heart of Miami.

Recently, the neighborhood has become a bustling circus of cranes, traffic and gaping steel-and-stone foundations for future high-rise condominium towers.

To make matters worse, some say, much of the 1,196 acres that the city counts as park space are small lots that have little recreational value, or are small islands in Biscayne Bay without public access.

It's a situation that has prompted nature lovers, civic activists and city officials to consider a host of options -- from raising fees charged to developers for the land they use to building a trail that winds around the edges of Downtown Miami -- to bring more green space to a city that is well on its way to becoming a concrete citadel.

The issue was the focus of a presentation at a recent Miami City Commission meeting by civic group Miami Neighborhoods United. The group cited figures from a 2002 study done by the Trust for Public Land, a San Francisco-based nonprofit land conservation agency, in which Miami is last on a list of 12 high population density cities when it comes to available park space.

"We have a parks system that is woefully deficient," said Steve Hagen, who heads the Parks Committee of Miami Neighborhoods United. "The mayor and commission have had an opportunity to improve the situation, but they've been dragging their feet."

City officials say they are just as concerned about Miami's lack of greenery, but say it's a problem that can't be solved overnight.

"Nobody's questioning the fact that we need more parks, but to say that we can simply snap our fingers and have a great parks system is extremely misleading," said Commissioner Johnny Winton. "Every chance we get we're doing what we can."

At the heart of the issue: Finding a way to pay for new park space, and then finding the space.

It's an issue that's particularly significant in Downtown Miami, the Upper Eastside and surrounding neighborhoods, because of the development boom in which new construction sprouts up throughout the area.

"The development is both a blessing and curse," Winton said. "It's a blessing in that it creates more resources for us to draw on to fund parks, but a curse because it creates more pressure to find space as more and more buildings go up."

Currently, developers are required to pay an impact fee of 15 cents per square foot of new development for the land they displace. The money collected goes toward park funding. Some, like Hagen, have complained the fee is too low, and on the direction of the commission, the city manager is considering an increase, Winton said.

According to Winton, the city manager's office has also been directed to eliminate a clause that allows developers of condominiums to have those fees waived for space they include in "entertainment zones" -- landscaped areas on the higher floors of their buildings. Both items should come before the commission in September, Winton said.

But critics say it's too little, too late, especially considering the rate at which new buildings are being approved.

"By September, at least eight or nine new buildings will be approved. With each one, that's millions of dollars the residents of Miami are losing," said Hagen, who called for a 45-day moratorium on new building permits during his presentation. "I'm not even sure if the increase they're considering will be enough. A couple of cents is not going to do it," he added.

Winton disagreed. "It is what it is," he said. "Taking these measures will have an impact, even if it isn't enough just yet. It is a difficult situation, but we have to start somewhere."

Besides the lack of parks in general, activists are concerned about something more specific: "green space," or open space not devoted to sports or activities.

"Recreational space is important, but passive space -- fields and trees -- is essential," Hagen said.

Hagen cites the 30-acre Bicentennial Park, where the Miami Art Museum and the Miami Museum of Science will relocate, as an example of a missed opportunity for open parkland. At the 12-acre Little Haiti Park, which recently broke ground, almost six acres will be covered with buildings, he says.

"There are an abundance of spaces in the city that may be called parks on paper, but in reality they don't have a lot of green space," said Amy Condon, office director for the South Florida branch of the Trust for Public Land. "We need to uphold the sanctity of our spaces; they need to be better designed."

Winton points to the city's vision of a baywalk that would run along the bay to the tip of downtown and back up the Miami River as a means to drastically increase the city's green space.

With the growing concern on all fronts, Condon believes that the new levels of awareness will ultimately lead to the city working toward becoming a greener place.

"There's a growing public constituency dedicated to parks, and now we're seeing the city dedicating itself in a new way to investing in parks, which hasn't always been the case," Condon said.

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Source: The Miami Herald

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