Biscayne Bay Bans Boats

APRIL FOOLS’ DAY – THIS IS A JOKE

The Miami City Council unanimously approved a new urban plan for the Coconut Grove shoreline at 12:01am today, and the news for sailors is all negative.

With the aim of improving the quality of life and the environment in the Miami area, the State of Florida, the Miami Dade County and the city of Miami have turned to a team of professionals to reshape the landscape. The plan covers two different areas and the goal is to return Biscayne Bay to its natural state, while modernizing the city of Miami’s waterfront buildings. Boats will be banned on the Bay beginning in 2020.

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In the northern part of Biscayne Bay, all naval channels will be refilled and closed. Any parts of the bay modified for human and commercial activities (meaning all of it) will no longer maintained, and once the concrete crumbles all dredged areas will gradually return to their original state: islands, marshes and mangrove forests.

Further south the Biscayne National Park will be expanded, prohibiting any nautical activity. Respect for the environment, the flora and fauna of the bay will be the highest priority.

“It is our duty,” said the spokesman of a newly formed Miami Environmentalists for Restoration (ME-Frst). “We must act now to preserve the delicate ecosystem of the Bay. Actually we must protects four distinct ecosystems: the shoreline mangrove swamp, the shallow waters of Biscayne Bay, the limestone coral keys and the offshore Florida Reef. Every day the Bay is exposed to traffic not only of motor boats, jetskis, and other noisy boats, but also to the invasive activities of sailors and race committees continuously moving marks, setting starting and finishing lines, actively ruining the seabed. It is no longer acceptable for this situation to continue. ‘More mangroves, less boats’ is our motto.”

A large group of sailors, led by Gonzalo “Old Man” Diaz Jr. and Jaime Ramon, will actively fight this legislation, but as of now the future of the Comodoro Rasco and Don Q Regattas (along with the Miami OCR, Barcardi Cup, and Orange Bowl) is in serious doubt after 2019. If this legislation is enforced, all the Clubs in Coconut Grove will be forced to migrate to other areas.

On shore, the waterfront area of downtown Miami, the Financial District, Coral Gables, Brickell and Coconut Grove will be completely redesigned by a team of super famous starchitects: Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Santiago Calatrava and Massimiliano Fuksas.

Lord Richard Rogers, author of the essay “Toward Urban Reinassance”, said that the future city of Miami must have different standards relating to density and separation distances between dwellings, better integration of housing with highways (through relaxation of parking standards and designing the roads around the housing, rather than the housing around the roads), improved non-car transport, and quite simply better quality design of all buildings.

Norman Fosters said “We will design new skypscrapers, with atriums at different levels, forming large sky gardens. These open areas allow more natural light in the buildings, reducing the need for artificial lighting. At the same time it ensures offices on the building’s two other sides a view of either the city or the garden. This is a new concept in building and further develops my ideas used in the Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt.”

Daniel Libeskind is already designing a very tall skyscraper (at 1,500 feet, it will be the tallest building in Miami) with an airstation on top for dirigibles, which will soon be the only aircraft allowed to fly over Miami. And the other starchitects are all very busy with their amazing conceptual projects for the new town.

Another project will be the “Miami SkyCycle.” 100 miles of elevated cycle paths (30 feet wide) will be built, connecting Key Biscayne with downtown Miami and South Beach. The developers of the project estimate that the cycle paths would accommodate 500,000 riders during rush hour and cut 30 minutes off current travel time. (At press time, we could not confirm rumors that Alex Pline plans to adopt this section for use on the Chesapeake Bay.)