🌴 They Want to Pave Paradise and Put up a Parking Lot
You don't know what you got 'til it's gone
CLICK HERE to watch a recording of Wednesday’s parking discussion.
Pride Park is barely three years old and already a pair of commissioners want to rip it up in service of — what else? — parking.
At Wednesday’s Public Safety and Neighborhood Quality of Life Committee meeting, Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez proposed repaving a section of Pride Park to return it to a parking lot. Commissioner Alex Fernandez appeared to agree (43:40 of the meeting).
The commissioners played with the idea of having over-worked city staff create a new capital project for street parking in the area because they deemed the parking garage across the Miami Beach Botanical Garden (which boasts 800 spots), the city garage on 18th street and two additional nearby garages insufficient.
Parking Director Monica Beltran and G.O. Bond Program Director Maria Hernandez recommended to the commissioners that they use a combination of the many existing parking facilities in the area. They proposed creating an attractive walking path from the city garage through Pride Park to guide guests to the botanical garden.
A number of surface parking spots next to the botanical garden on 19th street will remain even after the Holocaust Memorial finishes its expansion, but not having additional surface parking in the area is so anathema to the commissioners that just last month, Fernandez proposed destroying all the newly planted shade trees on 19th Street to allow for additional spots. The Palm View Neighborhood Association got wind of the tree removal proposal, and Fernandez quickly withdrew his suggestion.
We urge the commissioners to not spend precious resources, city staff time and taxpayer money on this street parking project. Please, take the advice of your city staff to use the city garages and spend these resources revitalizing Pride Park.
Help us communicate this message by emailing them.
Now… Can we get back to fixing our disconnected, dangerous, and unproductive streets?