CMB Neighborhoods Committee: Choose -- Clay Courts or Hard Courts; But Don't further Erode Flamingo Park's other role as an important Urban, Green Space Amenity

The City Commission Neighborhoods Committee will meet on Tuesday, February 16th, at 2:30 pm.  The Flamingo Park Neighborhood Association has consistently advocated an increase in passive green space for Flamingo Park as an important green space amenity for the neighborhood and the City.  Already Flamingo Park is the most intensively used active recreational facility in the City -- with players who come from throughout the city and the entire region. 

After months of planning the decsion was made that the 17 tennis courts at Flamingo would be clay courts.  It was planned that hard courts would be installed at other facilities, i.e., at Polo Park and at the site of the Par 3 golf course.    There is now a call to install hard courts at Flamingo Park either by replacing the clay courts or by adding additional courts.  It has long been the position of the Flamingo Park Neighborhood Association to contain the dedicated special uses in the park, including tennis uses and to make available increased passive green space. 

As reported in The Miami Herald ........

After 18 months of public meetings and a dozen designs, Miami Beach residents probably thought the plan for a revamped Flamingo Park was finally complete last September when elected officials signed off on a redesign.

Think again.

On Feb. 3, the City Commission opened the door for additional changes to the $10.4 million park master plan after tennis enthusiasts again butted heads over clay versus hard courts.

At issue: All 17 tennis courts in the plan approved in September were clay, leaving players who want hard courts out of the 36-acre park.

Miami Beach Senior High's tennis team, mothers whose children play tennis, recreational players and even School Board member Martin Karp packed the commission chambers for two hours. They either lobbied for all clay courts, changing some clay courts to hard courts, or adding additional hard courts at the old Abel Holtz Stadium site, where the current plan calls for an open field.

Commissioners eventually agreed to either convert five clay courts to hard courts or add hard courts in the green space near Meridian Avenue and 13th Street, though they did so with the prediction that building more courts would irk those who aren't as enamored with tennis.

They were right.

"That's the worst possible outcome. That is just the pits,'' Flamingo Park Neighborhood Association co-chairman Jack Johnson said in a phone interview Feb. 4. "We have been working with the commission for so long on this issue. I can't believe they don't get it. We advocated for the demolition of Holtz Stadium because we wanted the green space.''

The City Commission has already made the decision to add a skate park to Flamingo Park -- over the opposition of the great majority of the Flamingo Park neighborhood community.  There is a practical limit to the amount of active, attractive uses that the park and the neighborhood can adequately accommodate.

The number of tennis courts in Flamingo Park ought not be increased above 17!