The City of Miami commission was busy this week. This morning I received a press release highlighting their recent sustainable initiatives, including:
- The Bicycle Masterplan. “a map of over 285 miles of inter-connected bicycle routes to be implemented in the City by 2030. These bicycle routes include bicycle lanes, greenways and innovative new bicycle facilities. The Plan also introduces bicycle parking standards and calls for the implementation of bicycle parking racks, shelters or lockers at nearly 1,000 new locations throughout our city.”
- A Green Job Training Program: “following the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s grant to help train City residents for jobs assessing, remediating and redeveloping brownfield sites.”
- A zoning Bicycle Parking requirement for large developments.
- A new landscaping ordinance. This one is just ok. While I appreciate the effort at supporting the Tree Master Plan, and encouraging drought tolerant species, the ordinance has very little mention of native plants, or minimum requirements. This was a great opportunity to require property owners to plant a certain minimum percentage of native plants (I would say 60%) – helping the overall goal of greening the city and restoring vital habitat connections. A win-win.
Ironic that the city would tout all of these great initiatives (I say sincerely), while simultaneously completely cutting the Department of Sustainable Initiatives (the brainchild of many green initiatives that have generated millions of dollars in grant funding and cost savings). Too bad. It seems in this town we are always moving two steps forward and three steps back.
PS. They also put off a vote on the Virginia Key Masterplan. A victory for environmentalists who have been fighting for less development and more environmental restoration. Interestingly, Commissioner Sarnoff seemed to hint that the island would not be off-limits to development, only that the plan needed further study. He made some excellent points about the existing surface parking, and the potential future of the Marine Stadium. (Even hinting that the future visitors of the stadium might not be younger generations, but more of the ‘Viagra crowd’. Awesome.)
In a separate victory for cyclists, the commission did vote to move forward with the BMX and off-road coarse in the North Point area. Kudos Collin Worth and others who helped convince the Commissioners that this was an important and worthwhile amenity.
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