City committee hears Southwest Streetscape Master Plan to expand urban tree canopy in canopy‑poor neighborhoods

The City of Miami Climate Resilience Committee on the evening reviewed the Southwest Streetscape Master Plan, a multi-year effort to expand street‑tree canopy, reduce urban heat and improve stormwater performance across 13 neighborhoods in roughly 6.7 square miles of the city.

The Curtis and Rogers Design Studio team presented the plan’s inventory and recommendations. Robert Curtis, a landscape designer with Curtis and Rogers, said the team collected data for more than 25,000 trees in the project area and ran hotspot analyses to identify canopy‑poor and high‑priority zones. “We collected data for over 25,000 trees in the project area,” Curtis said.

Committee members were shown maps combining hydrology, land surface temperature and social‑vulnerability indicators; those overlays identified the northern project area in East Little Havana as the most canopy‑deficient, with about 8% street‑right‑of‑way canopy coverage, while some south‑central pockets had roughly 20% coverage. The designers found palms made up about 30% of inventoried trees and that many mature trees were planted in inadequate soil volumes, limiting longevity.

The plan recommends protecting existing canopy, improving growing conditions, replacing…