Spotlight 157-251117

Good morning. What we’re covering in today’s Spotlight:

Grove Cemeteries: The Search for Lost Lives
A Promise Unkept: No Net Loss of Park Space
A City Proposal That Could Double Development
The Fate of Biscayne Nature Center

How to Support the Spotlight on Give Miami Day

Give Miami Day shows what the community looks like in action – just like the Spotlight does twice a week, when we hit your inbox. The Spotlight shares local stories that matter, stories that unite neighbors and build community. If you like what we’re doing, please support us by making a gift on our donation page by midnight Thursday.

Meet the Spotlight / Join the Conversation

Join the Spotlight’s editorial team for a casual conversation about Coconut Grove, our coverage, and your interests on Tuesday Nov. 18 starting at 6:00 p.m. at the pink picnic tables on Fuller Street. Hope to see you there…

Unearthing the Grove’s Forgotten Lives

In a historic Coconut Grove cemetery where Bahamian settlers and community leaders rest beneath live oaks, a local researcher is piecing together the names — and stories — of those long lost to time.

By Mike Clary

For more than 100 years, three cemeteries in West Coconut Grove have been the final resting place for the men and women prominent in building and leading what had long been one of South Florida’s most vibrant Black communities.

Among those buried in above-ground crypts are many of the city’s original Bahamian settlers, including Ebenezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup, a real estate developer, and his wife Charlotte Jane Stirrup, for whom one of the burial grounds is named.

Miami Promised ‘No Net Loss’ of Parks, then Changed the Fine Print

With no public notice, a last-minute “substitution ordinance” in 2023 allowed the City of Miami to sidestep requirements to acquire new land for parks when it turns its existing ones over to developers.

By David Villano

The City of Miami is not obligated to acquire new land to replace the roughly 73 acres of public park space lost to the Miami Freedom Park soccer stadium and mixed-use development — or any other park land later sold or converted for non-recreational use — because city officials quietly revised the wording of Miami’s “no net loss” park land ordinance before it came to a vote in 2023.

Under the changes — adopted without public review or input — existing city-owned parcels, such as rights of way, vacant tracts, and surplus commercial lots, can now be counted to offset the loss of city park land, rather than requiring the acquisition of new property as lawmakers initially intended.

The change was not disclosed, explained, or debated publicly prior to the City Commission vote.

City Proposal Would Double Density – For a Price

A new “Resilience Trust Fund” proposal heading to the City Commission on Thursday would let developers double project density by paying into a fund for flood and climate-resilience upgrades — a plan that could significantly alter the scale of new construction across Miami.

By David Villano & Jenny Jacoby

The Miami City Commission on Thursday will consider creating a new “Resilience Trust Fund” that would let developers pay into a city-run account to finance flood-control and climate projects – and, in return, build twice as much as current zoning allows.

The measure would establish a system where developers in designated “Resilience Fund Areas” — high-demand neighborhoods that often overlap with coastal and storm-surge zones — could build up to 100 percent more housing than currently permitted.

In exchange, they would contribute to a city-run fund earmarked for projects like pump stations, elevated roadways, seawalls, rain gardens, and native tree plantings.

Rift Widens Over Future of Biscayne Nature Center

Miami-Dade County officials have granted the Biscayne Nature Center a 45-day reprieve on the eviction notice they sent earlier this year. Discussions continue, but the fate of the center and its namesake nonprofit remain uncertain.

By Jenny Staletovich

Rather than quell an ongoing dispute over the future of a beloved nature center on Key Biscayne named for Marjory Stoneman Douglas and her namesake nonprofit, a move by Miami-Dade County to extend eviction talks has only deepened the mix-up.

“She would say this is ridiculous,” said Theodora Long, director of the Biscayne Nature Center nonprofit that Douglas founded after the two became friends in 1987. “She’d say get the governor on the phone!”

The confusion stems in part from a longstanding arrangement stitched together by a patchwork of legal arrangements over the years.