From Liability to Community Asset: A Stormwater Park Blueprint for Miami
- Aaron DeMayo
- Jun 2
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 7
What if the answer to Miami’s flooding wasn’t just underground pipes, but neighborhood parks?
In North Miami, a small park is making a significant impact. Known as the Good Neighbor Stormwater Park, this once-flood-prone lot is now a model for how cities can convert repetitive loss properties into public spaces that protect, heal, and bring neighbors together.
Reimagining Flood Zones as Community Assets
Like many coastal cities, Miami faces the compounded challenges of aging infrastructure, climate-intensified storms, and inequitable access to parks. In response, North Miami pursued a quiet but powerful shift: buying out properties that repeatedly flood and turning them into parks that soak up stormwater and serve the community.
The winning design by DEPT. in the Keeping Current competition from Van Allen Institute, envisioned a landscape that does both: detains runoff during storms and provides shade, beauty, and recreation year-round.
A Neighborhood-Led Transformation
Completed in 2020, the park was designed in collaboration with local agencies, designers, engineers, and nonprofits. What makes it especially replicable is its reliance on voluntary acquisition—a method that avoids the trauma of eminent domain and lets residents opt in. DEPT. envision future phases that adapt to the patchwork of urban reality, the park isn’t just one big green space, but a network of smaller parcels woven together.
“The diagrams make clear that voluntary acquisition doesn’t have to be linear or contiguous. It can work on one lot at a time.”
Planning With Intention
The City of Miami Stormwater Master Plan (2020) supports this approach. It recommends the voluntary acquisition and removal or relocation of structures in areas with chronic flooding as a way to reduce community-wide flood risk.
“It may be appropriate to consider purchase and removal, or relocation, of properties, wide structures and infrastructure…”— City of Miami Stormwater Master Plan, Executive Summary.
Multiple Benefits in Vulnerable Neighborhoods
The plan also highlights how stormwater parks with public access provide broader benefits—including health, equity, and livability—particularly in areas with limited park space.
Inland, low-lying properties may be challenging to adapt, as they often face 'upstream or downstream' challenges, and implementing the Stormwater master plan requires a phased approach. It is not always practical or affordable for the City to immediately begin large-scale projects in low-lying, vulnerable locations, given the extent of the needs. The map below, from the Stormwater Masterplan, shows the estimated depth of flooding under 100-year, 72-hour Design Storm conditions.
Alignment with Park Access Goals
Property Acquisition can allow for stormwater to be held, which may reduce flooding on neighboring low-lying properties, while also providing a public amenity in the form of a park. This aligns with the City's Park Masterplan goal of providing access to parks within a 10-minute walk of all residents. District 4 currently has the lowest percentage of residents with access to a park within a 10-minute walk, at 58%.
Cost Efficiency and Long-Term Savings
Investing in voluntary property acquisition for stormwater parks can save the City of Miami money over time, especially when compared to the high costs of gray infrastructure upgrades in flood-prone areas.
Lower capital costs: Creating green space on vacant or underutilized lots is likely more cost-effective than building large-scale drainage infrastructure, particularly in low-lying neighborhoods that are far from outfalls where engineering solutions may be prohibitively expensive.
Avoided damages: Removing vulnerable homes from repetitive loss areas helps avoid future FEMA claims, insurance payouts, and emergency response costs.
Grant alignment: Property acquisition for resilience can be funded through federal and state grants, such as FEMA’s BRIC program or HUD’s CDBG-DR funds, reducing the City’s financial burden.
Dual-purpose design: These parks serve not only as stormwater management tools but also provide public health, recreational, and equity benefits, thereby increasing Miami's value per dollar spent.
A National Precedent: Conway, Arkansas
While North Miami’s Good Neighbor Stormwater Park demonstrates how smaller, scattered lots can be adapted for stormwater retention and public use, the Martin Luther King Jr. Square Water Quality Demonstration Park in Conway, Arkansas illustrates how this strategy can be applied at a larger scale.
This example integrates stormwater infrastructure into a more expansive public space that includes:
A central plaza with shade trees and movable seating
Public art and a sculptural focal point
Stepped seating and informal gathering areas
A children’s play zone with slides
Native plantings and a restored creek channel throughout
Conway’s approach reflects the same core values—flood mitigation, equity, and neighborhood activation—but adds greater program diversity and cultural expression, showing what’s possible when stormwater parks are designed as everyday civic spaces.
Opportunities Already on the Market
As of this writing, multiple properties within or adjacent to high-risk flood zones are actively listed for sale. This presents an opportunity: the City could acquire these parcels voluntarily, with willing sellers, before additional development increases risk or cost. Aligning this with the Stormwater Master Plan could help Miami act proactively, rather than reactively, as storms worsen.
Should We Make This Miami’s Strategy?
Do you think the City of Miami should prioritize its budget next year for property acquisition to prevent flooding? We will be discussing this on Tuesday, June 17th, at the City of Miami Climate Resilience Committee. You can join in person at 6:00 PM at City Hall or watch the live stream. Make a public comment in person, or submit online.
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