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I can remember riding down Old Cutler Road when I was a kid, sitting in backseat of my dad’s car. We’d ride with the windows open, especially on a cool, early summer evening. There was nothing that could ruin those drives. Well, until my brother Michael would yell, “Skunk!”
Then the pungent smell of acid, sulphur, rotten eggs, and death would stab at our nostrils. We’d rush to crank up the windows as our eyes teared up. And it was always in the same place — the wooded area on the east side of the road across from Matheson Hammock Park.
The area on both the east and west sides of Old Cutler Road were donated to the County by pioneer William Matheson in 1930. The eastern half was slowly developed with a marina, a sheltered beach, and stone cabanas. It also had a strict leash law for dogs.
The west half — 52 acres — remained wooded and wild, with a small parking lots and a dirt trail into the center of the pine forest. Although the leash law covered the west half of Matheson Hammock like in the east, it was observed more in the breach than in the observance.
This funky dog park was one of the greatest secrets the locals have kept. You have to know where to look. Coming south on Old Cutler, you had to take a right onto Kendall Drive and then drive up to the gated guardhouse on School House Road. The guard waved everyone through. After all, it was a County park. But that was before COVID-19 and the lawsuits.
The surrounding area is called Hammocks Parks and there is a Hammocks Park Homeowners Association. It’s not the kind that residents are compelled to join. Residents do it voluntarilyto preserve the way of life you can enjoy in a neighborhood where the homes range from $5 million to $10 million. And the traffic brought in by the outsiders and the hoi polloi upsettedthem greatly. They’d prefer that this area be recognized as “their” neighborhood. But in the same breath they will assure you that they are not being elitist. It’s just that everyone has a place they belong in and outsiders don’t really belong here. Even if Matheson Hammock is a County park.
How elitist are the residents of Hammock Parks? They voted to put a special tax to pay the guardhouse and pay the salaries of the guards. The guards couldn’t keep anyone out, but they could stop cars long enough to log in their license plates.
Miami-Dade County is attempting to make better use of Matheson West. There are plans to make just three acres of the pineland into an off the leash dog park. The entrance on School House Road will be for maintenance vehicles only. The parking lot will be paved and expanded and at least some of the trails will be made wheelchair accessible. The native vegetation will be enhanced and invasive species will be rooted out.
Keep in mind that Coral Gables doesn’t have a dog park of its own, while Pinecrest has one and the upstarts in Palmetto Bay have two dog parks. (Back in the day, the area now known as Palmetto Bay was thought of as Coral Gables’ servants’quarters.)
The lawsuits have been flying. Some residents claim the County began work without the proper environmental review. Hammock Parks residents don’t want Matheson West to be improved for fear it will attract the wrong kind of people into their area. Coral Gables dog owners want the dog park to be only for dogs with a Coral Gables pedigree. Disability rights groups and attorneys want the entire area to be completely wheelchair accessible, something that is difficult to do when the goal is to return the area to its natural state.
It’s all going to end up back before the County Commission which will have to sort through all the conflicting claims. The skunks are largely gone from the area, but there is still something that stinks in Coral Gables.
