Town Manager Alex Rey proposed adoption of the town-wide Beautification Master Plan at the January 14 Town Council meeting based on resident feedback surveys and professional recommendations from the town’s architectural firm and staff.
The master plan includes concepts for Gateways, Intersections and Roadway locations throughout the town along with other recommendations for neighborhoods and parks.
With a commitment to become the most uniformly beautiful municipality in South Florida, the town embarked on a renewed urban beautification planning effort in late 2012 and selected Bermello Ajamili and Partners, Inc., as the Landscape Architect for the project.
During the process, town staff worked with the architectural firm to inventory the town’s green spaces and roadways, create concepts to beautify those areas, and develop a document that was in line with the community’s vision for what the town should look like in the future.
The process culminated with a citizen outreach effort which collected over 110 resident surveys that assisted with finalizing the selection of key concept area in the plan.
For Gateways, 66 percent of residents responding selected Sylvester Palms in medians, with groundcovers and specialty paving.
For Intersections, 65 percent of residents responding selected Alexander Palms in medians, Medjool Date Palms in walkways, groundcovers and specialty paving.
For Roadways, 49 percent of residents responding selected Oaks in medians, and Oaks and Silver Buttonwoods in walkways. (An alternative to roadway changes would be to not immediately impact the current canopy and pursue the burying of underground power lines or wireless electrical technologies along N.W. 67 Avenue.)
Other elements of the plan include improvements to neighborhood roads incorporating medium sized shade trees such as Gumbo Limbos or Silver Buttonwoods, improvements to cul-de-sacs incorporating medium sized shade and palm trees such as Sabal Palms or Silver Buttonwoods and adding groundcovers, improvements to the underpass at Miami Lakes Drive and Palmetto Expressway incorporating landscaping and painting the columns/slope areas using easy to maintain graffiti/stainresistant paint, and improvements to parks incorporating lighting, utility screening, new trees, improving walkways and providing a consistent look of park furniture.
Rey said the plan could be fully implemented over a five to ten year span. The town has budgeted $300,000 this year to begin the plan with the development of three new gateways and roadway landscape improvements.