The neighborhood battle to save our little jungle

I had mentioned our easement next to our condo building in my previous post.

Well, it’s there to allow neighbors access to the bay. It’s sort of small and not many people use it in the neighborhood, but over the years, many people from around the county would use it to fish, hang out, smoke pot, and other things. If you blink you will miss it. It’s a tiny piece of property. It’s a proffer for allowing buildings to be built and block the bay. A little concession for the rest of the neighborhood.

It was a well-kept secret. But over the past year, we had a lot of street work and other major jobs done which kept visitors from getting access to the area.

The easement is wild, meaning it is unkempt. At one time there were wild fruit trees in there – a banana tree, some sort of citrus tree and I think a peach tree. But over the years they died off.

But there are still many palm trees and various bushes and growths and the small easement looks like a jungle at times – which is what this whole area of Florida looked like before over-development 100 years ago, so it’s basically a living historic display of the area. Sort of a living museum display.

Recently I was made aware of a bunch of people in the neighborhood wanting to turn this beautiful tropical jungle into an open area – adding a cement walkway to the bay, adding lighting and benches, which seemed odd since there had been a lot of talk and local meetings about keeping the neighborhood safe and adding security, not inviting strangers in to fish, hangout and etc.

Since all those guys were here working on the street renovation, neighbors felt that they could easily add cement and make that part of their streetscape project. There was even a meeting set up with the local City of Miami commissioner, to discuss the whole project.

This was not going to happen as far as I was concerned. I had myself added to the neighborhood WhatsApp chat, which I had taken myself off in the past because it was annoying. Anyway I got myself on one day and started an argument about why the easement should be left alone. First off being that it is the responsibility of our building and everyone else in the neighborhood has no right to decide its fate. We maintain it and live next to it and deal with the visitors who use it, so we should have say as to what happens with it.

I also brought up the fact that it will bring in strangers to the area who many are trying to keep out for security reasons. After all this time, people were kept out due to all the projects in the area and they found other areas to fish, etc. Now they are “inviting” them in again?

Let it be known, that it never bothered me that people visited the area and fished, etc. But it bothered most of the neighborhood and now some dolt wanted to open up the area again after having multiple meetings talking about security issues including putting a guard gate at the entrance to the cul-de-sac, etc. Ironically, no one wanted to pay for that. So what was the point of lighting up the area and accommodating the people they wanted kept out?

So, for almost a full day neighbors and I went back and forth on the chat, arguing, discussing and throwing tantrums.

After a day of arguing with everyone, I left the chat, as I had done previously. I said my piece and left. In and out. Leaving while I was at the top, as they say. I put the whole mess out of my head and just assumed one day I would wake up to cement trucks dumping cement all over the precious landscape.

Interestingly enough, since my phone number was shown on the chat, many people in the neighborhood reached out to me, telling me they fully agreed with me. But they never spoke up in the chat. They all remained silent.

Some weeks later, one of the city workers who was working on the streetscape out front, told me that the whole easement project was canceled. It was not going to happen.

Why? Because I opened the eyes of most of the neighbors who realized that one neighborhood bully wanted her way (to clean up the “mess,” as she called the easement), but everyone else was afraid to speak up in the chat and say they wanted it to remain a natural area.

So lo and behold, my arguments got all these “shy” people who were afraid to speak up to finally say something. They did not want the area cemented in. They wanted it to remain natural. They didn’t feel that nature is a “mess.”

So today, the easement is saved. It’s not so jungle-like because the cement-loving neighbor has her maintenance guy in there all the time “cleaning it up,” which I fear killed a lot of the foliage. But at least as of now, there is no cement – no lights – no park benches. Just a quiet little jungle-wannabe. An oasis in the cement jungle.

Till next time . . .