A Greener Miami Gardens

August was an important month for Miami Gardens-area parks.

North Glade Park celebrated a new community center and a tennis courts conversion to basketball courts (“North Glade Park Like New,” November 2020).

Improvements at Lake Stevens Park, located at 18350 NW 52nd Ave., as well as future park plans, were unveiled at a Miami-Dade County Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces ceremony on Aug. 14. District 1 County Commissioner Barbara Jordan and parks director Maria Nardi were on hand to applaud recently completed additions to the park’s tree canopy.

The planting of 36 new shade trees at the park was organized by Neat Streets Miami, with the support of its Growing Green Playgrounds Project partnership with TD Bank. Lake Stevens Park now boasts native silver dollar trees as well as palms, oaks and flowering cassia.

Visitors to the park enjoy sunrise to sunset hours and plenty of parking opportunities in its 30-space lot located at the east entrance. There are three bike racks and a bus stop in front on 183rd Street.

Most notable is the wide open space of the 11.7-acre green space. According to the Trust for Public Land (TPL), Lake Stevens Park serves 6,423 residents living within a 10-minute walk. The main lawn is made up of three retention ponds at the ready for flooding tropical rains. A concrete circular walkway is lined with new green metal benches, garbage receptacles and newly planted trees. Picnicking is welcomed here, as evidenced by the presence of 13 picnic tables and eight grills, although because of current COVID-19 restrictions, grilling is not allowed.

The park’s west side is the site of a new adult fitness zone erected on a concrete pad. Fourteen pieces of exercise equipment and two benches are there thanks to TPL’s Fitness Zone program, which provides free outdoor fitness machines to local parks. A new, large children’s playground is nearby, featuring swings, climbers and small slides built on safety flooring and under massive green canvas sunshades. A water fountain keeps kids hydrated. Caution tape temporarily prevents the fitness zone and playground from being used during the pandemic. Along the park’s perimeter is two-rail wooden fencing. Future plans here include the addition of a splash pad on the park’s western edge.

Lake Stevens Park does have two major weaknesses: No night lighting and poor mowing maintenance. The grass was a foot high in spots, and hitchhiker seeds covered my shoes after a walk-through. Only park butterflies and roosters love that.

Miami Gardens is a city in need of more park space. Data from TPL shows that there are 19 parks in the city of 112,198 residents, but only 46% of residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park. The national average is 55%. By comparison, in Miami Lakes 85% of residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park. In North Miami, 77% of residents live within a 10-minute walk. And North Miami Beach has a very high percentage of its residents living near a park – 91%. Even Hialeah, which has a low 2020 ParkScore rating of #90 out of 100 by TPL, has 69% of its residents living within a 10-minute walk of a park.

As previously reported by Biscayne Times (“Miami Gets a Grade,” August 2019), TPL is a national nonprofit group that conserves land for public use and compiles data on parks in 14,000 cities in the county. For nearly a decade, it has created an annual ParkScore index for 100 U.S. cities with the largest populations. (Miami Gardens is not on that list). ParkScore rating is based on access, investment, acreage and amenities. The organization believes park access is paramount, since more than 100 million people living in the country don’t live within a 10-minute walk of a public green space. It is TPL’s mission to help all residents have close access to a park.