City of Miami drops controversial tree ordinance law, honors late Manolo Reyes with a park<\/a><\/p>\nOnly now, city officials say, are those changes beginning to take hold.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had some minor changes in procedures,\u201d Building Department Director Ed Santamaria said in an interview with the Spotlight. \u201cWhere the code is open to some interpretation, we\u2019re looking to interpret in a way that doesn\u2019t slow down things and just speeds up processes. We\u2019re looking to be more responsive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Santamaria says the effort aligns with a broader directive from new Mayor Eileen Higgins and City Manager James Reyes to adopt a more user-friendly permitting ecosystem at city hall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new administration has taken up this banner of improving the permitting process,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we are here to deliver around the mission as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Santamaria said reviewers are being instructed to rely on the accuracy of permit applications \u2014 including the size, number, species, location and condition of trees proposed for removal \u2014 while acknowledging the process depends largely on the competence and integrity of applicants and their arborists.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are bad actors,\u201d he acknowledged, noting that some applicants may attempt to misrepresent conditions in order to secure approvals.<\/p>\n
While Santamaria is quick to insist that Chapter 17 of the city code \u2013 the tree protection and permitting ordinance \u2014 remains intact, the internal guidelines outlined in the Building Department\u2019s updated manual of policies and procedures reflects a clear departure from a review process historically grounded in on-site inspection and staff discretion, toward a faster, applicant-driven system built around documentation and standardized workflows.<\/p>\n
Santamaria said he has seen an uptick in tree removal permits in recent months, which he cited as evidence of the success of the new approach.<\/p>\n
The internal changes are unfolding alongside a leadership shakeup within the Building Department division responsible for enforcing the city\u2019s tree protections. Quatisha Oguntoyinbo-Rashad, a 26-year City Hall veteran who spent the last 14 years leading the 10-member Environmental Resources Division, has been reassigned to the Department of Resilience and Public Works, where she no longer has a role in tree permitting or enforcement.<\/p>\n
City officials refused repeated requests to make Oguntoyinbo-Rashad available for an interview. (Under city policy, employees are forbidden from speaking with the media without prior authorization).<\/p>\n
Oguntoyinbo-Rashad raised eyebrows during the public outcry over the proposed changes to the tree laws in late 2024 when she told civic leaders that neither she nor her staff had been asked to weigh in on the legislative overhaul \u2014 even though her division is charged with implementing and enforcing the laws.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeither I nor the Environmental Resources Division has been involved in the proposed changes to this ordinance,\u201d she wrote to community stakeholders in a widely circulated email.<\/p>\n
Performance reviews obtained by the Spotlight through a public records request show glowing evaluations throughout her long tenure with the city, followed by a sudden red flag in 2024, when she received a \u201cneeds improvement\u201d in the \u201cJudgment\u201d category, with a Building Department official recommending that she \u201cshow more willingness to accept and implement directions from supervisors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her 2025 performance review, completed in December, has been withheld from the Spotlight without explanation, despite repeated requests and despite state law requiring that any documents exemption be justified.<\/p>\n
Oguntoyinbo-Rashad\u2019s reassignment comes as the effort to revisit the city\u2019s tree ordinance gains momentum \u2014 this time with broader public input and, city officials hope, buy-in from residents.<\/p>\n
Last summer, after yet another false start at revising the tree ordinance, city commissioners instructed staff to engage Florida State University\u2019s Florida Conflict Resolution Center under a $180,000 contract to help find common ground among civic groups pushing for stricter tree removal and enforcement laws and development interests who see them as overly burdensome.<\/p>\n
While off to a slow start, Assistant Building Director Melissa Fernandez-Stiers said in an interview that the center is now conducting outreach to a broad cross-section of community stakeholders \u2014 residents, civic groups and developers. Later this year, the center will conduct at least one and perhaps two community workshops within each of the city\u2019s five commission district to engage the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been an ongoing effort,\u201d Fernandez-Stiers said. \u201cWe want to make sure we\u2019re hearing from all sides before anything is put forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
The center\u2019s principals did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Also off to a slow start is the creation of a resident advisory group that will work in tandem with the Conflict Resolution Center. Fernandez-Stiers said the exact makeup of the group, which will include two nominations from each commissioner, has yet to be finalized.<\/p>\n
(District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo has not responded to the Spotlight\u2019s request to say who, if anyone, he has nominated, but North Grove arborist Ian Wogan said he has been asked to serve.)<\/p>\n
At the earliest, Fernandez-Stiers said, a draft ordinance \u2014 which, like its 2024 predecessor, will be overseen by officials in the city\u2019s Building Department \u2014 is not expected before December. \u201cAnd even that,\u201d she cautioned, \u201cis a best-case scenario if everything goes according to plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally published in the Coconut Grove Spotlight<\/a>, a WLRN News partner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miami\u2019s effort to rewrite its tree protection laws is springing back to life, with a proposed overhaul expected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-224962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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