MIAMI — In one Miami neighborhood, there is an ongoing battle between developers and preservationists.
Residents are pushing back against a plan to remove dozens of mature trees near Legion Memorial Park.
Construction workers are already hard at work on a new development called Adella 3 that Acre Developments plans to build on the site.
But first, for it to go up, trees have to come down -- a total of 46 of them, including five large oaks.
Some residents, including Peter Ehrlich, are livid and have filed appeals with the city.
“Every tree is crucial,” he said. “The developer’s architect should work diligently to save those trees, not to just kill them, because some of the oak trees are 120 or 150 years old.”
Attorney David Winker represents an environmental group that has also filed an appeal.
“We feel strongly that they should stay, and also that they haven’t met the code requirements, which are to show that there’s no alternative, that they can’t build their building because of these trees that are on a public park,” said Winker.
The issue has sparked strong emotions among dozens of residents who say preserving the tree canopy helps reduce heat, provides shade, improves air quality, and protects wildlife.
“It’s crucial, but unfortunately, developers in such a desperate bid to build as quickly as they can to help their general contractors to have sites with no trees and city officials who receive campaign contributions from developers bend over backwards to kill trees as quickly as they possibly can,” said Ehrlich.
As mitigation for the tree loss, the developer has agreed to plant 103 new trees in and around the property once construction is complete.
“We’ve got eight appeals tonight -- it’s unprecedented,” said Winker. “We have so many appeals going on and some people have expressed frustration with the number of appeals, but it really is, why are the appeals happening? Because the city shouldn’t be approving these in the first place.”
Local 10 News reached out to the attorney representing the developer but has not heard back as of the time of this story’s publication.
Two days after the story aired, a spokesperson for the city of Miami provided an update to this story.
“Neither the City, nor the developer/property owner are removing multiple trees from within Legion park. The owner of the Adela project is proposing to remove (1) Live Oak from within Legion park which has a severe lean and is in poor/hazardous condition. The tree has already had large branch failures and has severe decay,” the spokesperson said.
Correction: There was only one appeal submitted about this property. 7 other appeals were also submitted for different properties with tree removals in the city of Miami.
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