Hialeah board approves school plan to expand into park. Council will make final decision

In a surprising reversal, Hialeah's Planning and Zoning board has approved a proposal to allow a charter school to expand further into a public park, in a controversial move some residents who live near the park have emphatically opposed.

The project had been tabled three weeks earlier after five of the seven board members, including the chair, voiced concerns about the loss of green space to further development. Wednesday night, the board approved the expansion in a 6-1 vote.

The proposal from City of Hialeah Educational Academy, owned by the giant charter-school company Academica, is looking to expand from 1,000 students enrolled in grades 6-12 to another 250 kids.

The charter school has been leasing a portion of Slade Park, 2590 W. 76th St., from the city since 2008, when former mayor Julio Robaina approved the project. In the last 17 years, the school has constructed three buildings on a corner of the park.

The current expansion proposal seeks to add two more buildings: a career and technical education center and a gym.

The proposal will now go the city council for a vote, scheduled for Dec. 10.

Numerous residents have voiced their opposition to the proposal at board meetings, online comments and in letters.

One of them, Miriam Barrios, lives just two blocks away from the park on West 72nd Place. She uses the park daily and is strongly opposed to the school's proposed expansion. Her attempt to join Wednesday's board meeting on Zoom was unsuccessful.

"I've lived here for 30 years. The school has already expanded twice. When will it stop? This is a residential area, and it's crowded enough as it is," Barrios, who sent a letter to the Planning and Zoning Department opposing the expansion, told the Miami Herald.

"Hialeah doesn't have decent parks anymore, and the ones we do have are being overtaken by construction," she added. The school, she said, was originally built in an area where "it shouldn't have been."

If the council approves the expansion, the new facilities would be built on what is now a multipurpose playing field. The plan also includes converting a second multipurpose field into a soccer pitch, along with three pickleball courts and additional parking. That would leave only one of the park's three fields unaffected.

The charter school's proposal seeks to take over approximately four of the 13 acres currently occupied by the park.

The main justification Academica presented through its lobbyist, Hugo Arza, is that the school needs to secure a specific area for students "for safety reasons." Arza said that students currently have to cross the park's fields and parking to access facilities like the library, recreational center and various sports courts. The expansion, he said, would eliminate this need.

The expansion proposal aims to take over two multipurpose fields owned by the city. The school promises it would allow residents to have access to the new facilities during nights, weekends and summer months, when the school is closed.

Wednesday evening, Arza brought 280 students, parents, and teachers to the board meeting, in stark contrast to the four concerned residents in attendance who spoke against the expansion.

The crowd erupted in applause when Principal Carlos Alvarez entered like a rock star. The overwhelming student presence appeared to change the zoning board's perspective, which at the start of the meeting had appeared uncertain about a decision.

In the prior meeting Alvarez said that the fields the school wants to expand into are seldom used by residents.

But Barrios told the Herald that the fields are in constant use after 5 p.m. each day. "I walk here every day, seniors walk here every day, and my parents, both cancer survivors, use the park regularly," she said. "It's not true that these fields aren't being used."

Parents, students and a security guard from the charter school spoke about the need for expansion, claiming security reasons, improvement of quality of life and better use of the space.

Nicole Carras told the board she is a Hialeah resident and charter school student. She said that the multipurpose fields are limited to use for softball, in contrast to the expansion plan, which would add a soccer field, a running track, pickleball courts, and an indoor basketball gym.

But Jose Azze, a longtime resident and advocate who worked for 30 years in the Hialeah Park and Recreation Department and served as the director of Slade Park in 2012, told the board that city residents are "in desperate need of park space. We have very few parks."

Under the school's proposed expansion, he said, the only remaining field would be a field that can only be used for baseball, limiting the ability to play other sports.

Another opponent of the expansion, former mayoral candidate Juan Santana, warned that the preservation of Hialeah is at risk. "What it was, is no longer. This is a public space, and by allowing this, we're opening a whole can of worms that could have far-reaching consequences for the future."

Arza, the school's lobbyist, defended the proposal, saying communities evolve and that sports needs change. "Repurposing a field to be utilized by residents is progress," he said.

Eddie Santiesteban was the only board member to vote against the expansion Wednesday night, in contrast with the the meeting three weeks earlier, when other board members, including John Ulloa, Abdel Jimenez, Julissa Henriquez and Chairman Diego Perez Jr., had made it clear they were uncomfortable with the idea of giving up parkland for a school expansion.

Henriquez, who in the prior meeting felt that the expansion question should be place on the ballot for voters to decide, was one of the six members who approved the proposal Wednesday to take away two multipurpose field from residents.

Santiesteban, on the other hand, arguing that the increased student population would worsen traffic, already a major issue for local residents.

"Right now, the area we're talking about is a nightmare," Santiesteban said. "Families and students living in the neighborhood already complain about traffic every single day."

He added, "The quality of life for these residents is deteriorating as the school expands. Adding 250 more students means at least 200 more cars coming in and out of the neighborhood for drop-offs and pickups."

Santiesteban also expressed concern over the loss of green space, which was the main reason the proposal wasn't approved on Oct. 23.

"I don't agree with taking away green space to build facilities that people can't even use during the day," Santiesteban said. "There are taxpayers, like my dad, who don't have kids in school but want to walk through these areas, and now it'll be gone."

Hialeah is one of the three Miami-Dade municipalities with the smallest urban tree canopy , according to AN Miami-Dade County Urban Tree Canopy Assessment report issued in 2021.

Board member Henriquez asked whether, in the future, it would be possible to tear down the buildings and restore the area to a park if the city decided to, considering that the charter school is located on city-owned land. "Is that a possibility?" she asked.

Alexander Magrisso, Assistant City Attorney, responded that the lease agreement would include termination clauses. However, there is no current lease agreement for the school's current use of park land.

The most recent lease agreement, which expired on June 30, calls for the school to pay the city an annual base rate of $550 per enrolled student, totaling $550,000. Additionally, the school pays a usage fee of $202,605.31. If the city council approves the school's expansion proposal, it would generate an additional $137,500 for the city's budget.