By Coral Gables Gazette staff

A neighborhood association and a Coral Gables resident have asked a Miami-Dade judge to stop the city from acting on its planned off-leash dog park at 520 University Drive, seeking to head off a July 7 City Commission vote that could remove a key zoning restriction tied to the site.

The emergency motion for a temporary injunction, filed June 15, by the law firm Homer Bonner Jacobs Ortiz & Dimond on behalf of the University Green Neighbors Association and resident Jose Val Cohen, asks the court to bar the city from taking any action under Resolution 2025-452 — the November 2025 measure authorizing the dog park — and from proceeding with development at the property.

The plaintiffs are asking for relief on or before July 6, the day before the commission is scheduled to consider final approval of zoning changes affecting the site.

The filing sharpens a conflict that has been moving on two tracks at once. While the litigation proceeds, the city has been advancing an amendment to a 1972 ordinance that restricts the property to overflow parking — the very restriction the neighbors say blocks the dog park. The commission approved that amendment on first reading June 2 by a 3-2 vote, with a second and final reading scheduled for July 7.

The plaintiffs contend the city is rushing to remove the obstacle before a court can rule on whether the underlying resolution was legal. The city says it is following the formal process the neighbors themselves demanded. The city disputes the plaintiffs’ claims and has separately moved to dismiss the case. The accusations described below are the plaintiffs’ characterizations as stated in their filing.

What the neighbors allege

At the center of the motion is the contention that the city is moving to build the dog park before the court can test the legality of the resolution that started it.

The filing argues the city’s own conduct gives away its position. “The City all but concedes Plaintiffs have a substantial likelihood of success in proving that the Resolution is invalid,” the motion states, “for they would not be rushing to amend the ordinance otherwise.”

The amended complaint advances several claims for voiding the resolution, while the emergency motion also argues that development would cause irreparable harm if the court does not intervene.

The plaintiffs argue the measure was an ordinance in substance, not a resolution, and therefore required the notice and hearing procedures Florida law reserves for zoning ordinances. They allege a Sunshine Law violation in the notice given for the November 2025 hearing. They invoke the 1972 ordinance, Ordinance 1952, which rezoned the parcel for overflow parking for the Coral Gables Library and War Memorial Youth Center and contains a reverter provision returning the land to single-family use when that parking is no longer needed. They also argue county and city codes bar standalone off-leash dog parks.

The ordinance’s reverter provision resembles restrictions at issue in other city property disputes, including the city’s separate, ongoing matter with the War Memorial Youth Center Association across the street. In the section addressing dog ordinances, the motion also cites a lyric from Tom Waits’ “Cold, Cold Ground.”

On irreparable harm, the plaintiffs assert that the site’s mature trees, vegetation and wildlife would be lost if the park is built.

The motion also presses three sharper allegations: that Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, the resolution’s sponsor, should have recused herself but refused to do so; that the plaintiffs suspect the city may have improperly polled Planning and Zoning Board members before a May 20 hearing; and that the city waived customary grace periods so the ordinance amendment would take effect immediately. Each is the plaintiffs’ assertion; the city has not answered them point by point in court.

How the city responds

Asked to respond, City Attorney Cristina M. Suárez said in a written statement that the city “disputes the claims and allegations asserted by plaintiffs,” and pointed the Gazette to two court filings and to the commission’s June 2 discussion of the ordinance amendment.

Those filings lay out the city’s case in detail.

In a motion to dismiss filed June 11, the city argues that Resolution 2025-452 is a true resolution — a directive to staff to plan a privately funded project, with no change to the zoning map — and therefore is not subject to the ordinance notice rules the plaintiffs invoke.

The city argues the 1972 reverter clause is not self-executing and cannot bypass the formal, quasi-judicial procedures required to change zoning, which is why it is now amending the ordinance through that process. It contends the property’s existing Special Use zoning already permits city parks.

On the Sunshine Law claim, the city says the November agenda was published Nov. 13, that a “time certain” on an agenda means an item will not be heard before that time rather than precisely at that time, and that a Jan. 13 meeting — where the plaintiffs appeared and presented a petition of more than 100 signatures — was independent final action that cured any earlier defect.

As for the May 20 mailing the plaintiffs call suspicious, the city says zoning rules required notice 13 days before the June 2 reading, so it had to go out that day regardless of the board’s recommendation.

In a separate motion for protective order, the city asks the court to pause discovery until the dismissal motion is decided, citing Florida cases that allow a stay while a potentially dispositive motion is pending. The city calls the plaintiffs’ requests — nine interrogatories and 29 document requests reaching back eight years to 2018, and seeking records about dog parks at other locations citywide, donors and named local media outlets — overbroad and unduly burdensome.

The city’s position drew a sharp split on the dais June 2. A motion by Commissioner Melissa Castro to defer the amendment until the litigation is resolved failed 2-3 before the amendment itself passed on the same split, with Castro and Commissioner Ariel Fernandez opposed.

Anderson, who declined to recuse herself, framed the amendment as vindication of the neighbors’ own demand. “This is the process that’s required,” she said. “We’re following the process.”

Suárez told commissioners the litigation had cost the city $10,763 in outside legal fees since March.

What comes next

No hearing on the emergency motion had been scheduled as of publication.

The plaintiffs have asked the court to rule by July 6. The commission’s second reading is set for July 7.

The amended complaint seeks a declaration that Resolution 2025-452 is void and a permanent injunction against development at 520 University. The city’s motions to dismiss and to stay discovery are specially set for hearing Aug. 3, and trial in the underlying case is scheduled for December.