By Coral Gables Gazette staff

The future of a proposed dog park on University Drive across the street from the Coral Gables Library will be heard by the courts next week, with a staunch bloc of nearby residents objecting to the park and claiming the city never lived up to promises not to build the park in the past.

Several resident members of the University Green Neighbors Association have repeatedly said that Gables Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson and others promised them they would not move forward with plans for a dog park if the residents objected. But when the city commission first voted in favor of the dog park through a resolution last year, those same residents –  the ones who live closest to the dog park and would be most affected by its creation – say they were unaware of the city’s renewed plans to build a park for pups.

That lack of notice became a central argument of the dog park opponents’ lawsuit filed to try and stop the dog park in its tracks. Whether it succeeds, at least one commissioner wants to prevent the situation from ever happening again.

What the resolution would require

Commissioner Melissa Castro is sponsoring a resolution for Tuesday’s City Commission meeting that would require city staff to mail notice to property owners within 1,000 feet before the commission takes action on any new proposed park development or major park enhancement project.

Her resolution states that while parks are valuable public assets, new park projects and significant enhancements can have major impacts on surrounding neighborhoods, and nearby residents should have an opportunity to voice their opinions before the commission acts. The mailed notice would supplement, not replace, any other legally required notice.

Rooted in the University Drive dispute

The proposal stems directly from the controversy surrounding the planned 40,000-square-foot off-leash dog park at 520 University Drive, where residents have argued they received no meaningful notice before the commission approved the project by resolution in November 2025.

That complaint has remained a central theme of both neighborhood opposition and the pending lawsuit. Residents contend they only learned about the proposal after it had already been approved, despite living immediately adjacent to the site.

During subsequent public hearings, several neighbors cited statements from city officials that because the property was already designated as parkland, no special neighborhood notice was required before changing it to another park use.

Even after the initial commission vote, the notice issue continually bubbled up with some residents complaining they didn’t receive subsequent notices about the park project, including one announcing a city-sponsored town hall meeting held in February to discuss the proposal. Although the city distributed flyers advertising the meeting, several nearby homeowners said they never received them, reinforcing their belief that outreach efforts failed to reach many of the people most directly affected.

Castro has consistently questioned both the process and timing surrounding the dog park. Last month, she unsuccessfully sought to postpone a related zoning amendment until the litigation is resolved, arguing the city should not continue changing the property’s legal status while the courts are still considering whether the original approval was valid. She and Commissioner Ariel Fernandez ultimately voted against advancing the zoning change.

A measure complicated by the lawsuit

Whether Castro’s new notification proposal gains two more votes remains uncertain.

Although framed as a transparency measure for future park projects, commissioners may be reluctant to adopt it while the city is defending itself against allegations that it failed to adequately notify neighbors about the University Drive dog park. Approving the resolution could be viewed by opponents as an implicit acknowledgment that previous notification procedures were insufficient, even though the city has consistently denied any legal wrongdoing in court filings.

The city maintains that the dog park resolution complied with applicable law and disputes the allegations raised by the plaintiffs.

Supporters of the dog park, meanwhile, have emphasized that the project enjoys broad citywide backing. Hundreds of residents signed petitions favoring additional dog parks in Coral Gables, although many supporters live elsewhere in the city rather than in the immediate neighborhood surrounding the proposed site.

What happens next

The legal fight continues next week. A Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge has scheduled an evidentiary hearing Monday on the residents’ request for a temporary injunction that would halt any further city action on the dog park before Tuesday’s scheduled second reading of the zoning amendment.