Neighbors don't want a school at Villa Woodbine

You probably have seen the #STOPGroveGridlock banners all around the Grove. This is a grass roots effort by neighbors to keep Carrollton School from taking over the Villa Woodbine location and turning into a school.

Eleven banners went up Monday and the last six went up Tuesday evening. Sixteen of them are 3' x 10' in size.

Smaller ones will go up on Tuesday, too and on Bird Road and Grand Avenue they will have a total of 26.

There is a petition against the school calling for residents "advocating for the climate resilience of our coastal community and protect the Historic Preservation Overlay District of the Villa Woodbine site."

The petition goes on to say: "Deny approval of Carrollton’s proposed elementary school for 336 boys and 50 faculty at Villa Woodbine located at 2167 South Bayshore Drive. The site is located less than 150 yards from Ransom Everglades Middle School and directly across the street from Kennedy Park.

"STOP Grove Gridlock! This an unnecessary development, since there are 17 schools located in Coconut Grove serving over 6700 students when the Grove has approximately an area that is 5 square miles and 21,000 residents.

"The impact to the City of Miami’s neighborhoods is even greater traffic bottlenecks that will impose an immense burden on our quality of life, with gridlock causing increased pollution and toxic traffic fumes, and the loss of our most personal measurable resource, our time and money. Especially for the residents of Coconut Grove – where school traffic congestion is already crippling.

"Removing over half of its 220 trees will destroy Villa Woodbine’s lush tree canopy, green space and the site’s protected historic and natural resources. The footprint SF of new construction will be 8 times larger than the Villa, and will add over104,000 SF of non-pervious surface. These factors pose a grave hazard to the resilience of an already delicate coastal corridor area and will likely create flooding of surrounding properties.

"Approving a new school at the historic Villa Woodbine property at 2167 S Bayshore Drive poses risks to the City of Miami that we cannot afford!"

You can sign the petition and buy banners here: bayshoreingrove.org