Letters from the Issue of May 25, 2006

To accommodate a center, our green play field would be paved over, which would kick into the street thousands of children and families who play hundreds of sports. Such an out-of-scale development would destroy our restored and rebounding 1920s neighborhood with parking, traffic, noise, lighting pollution, and a loss of open space. A proper youth tennis center needs more room than our little neighborhood park can afford to give.

With dozens upon dozens of mixed-use projects rising in the greater Little Havana-Shenandoah area, a progressive City of Miami could create a large tennis center with proper parking and amenities — on a rooftop or as part of the parking pedestal for one of these developments.

In his State of the City Address, Mayor Diaz committed to creating an environmentally friendly, "green" Miami. What could be a better opportunity to "go green" than to save a park while integrating a concrete-dependent tennis center into a development site?

Steve Wright and Heidi Johnson-Wright
Miami