This story was originally published on the Biscayne Times.
NORTH MIAMI — North Miami resident Ursula Castañeda often spends time at the Elaine Gordon Enchanted Forest Park — a 22-acre swath of nature located in the heart of the city.
The popular park, where special events and programs are held throughout the year, features scenic trails, subtropical plants, and a barn that offers pony rides. It also boasts a petting zoo with goats, chickens and pigs, gardens, and grill stations. An LGBTQ monument — among Miami-Dade County’s first — was installed there in 2017.
“This is my kids’ backyard,” Castañeda, a park volunteer, said of her three children, ages 11, 9 and 4. “It’s pure…raw nature.”
But now Castañeda and other regular park-goers have become increasingly concerned about the city’s years-long neglect of the facilities, lack of basic maintenance and improvements that they say are diminishing enjoyment of the park, which is named after Elaine Gordon, a longtime member of the Florida House of Representatives, Democrat and fervent supporter of women’s rights who died in 2000. She helped secure the funding to establish the park in the 1980’s.
Both of the park’s two picnic shelters remain closed for public rentals, according to the city’s website, their roofs covered by plastic tarps. With its roof in danger of collapse, the West Shelter has been fenced off and curious passersby are greeted with a “Keep Out” sign.
In addition, the park has been plagued by difficulty in removing massive piles of manure from horses in the barn and the lengthy closure of its Community Center, which has classrooms and had often been used by schools.
North Miami resident Leon Sylvain, who has been frequenting the park for over 20 years, said the broken down condition of the picnic shelters makes him feel “unsafe.”
“Look at the roof,” Sylvain said in disgust, adding, “That place right there [the East Shelter] is the dirtiest place you’ll find in a park in the whole world.”
The ongoing picnic shelters’ closure left park-goer Cleeford Thomas wondering what the structures were.
“Well, it’s not [a picnic shelter] anymore,” Thomas, who has been visiting the park for the last several years, said of the West shelter. “This has been closed for quite some time.”
In the past, the picnic shelters were rented out to host parties and events and were a source of revenue for the park. Today, they are “closed until further notice,” the website says. Castañeda said the picnic shelters have been unavailable for bookings since 2023.
Councilmember Kevin Burns, who represents North Miami District 1, where the park is located, said the West shelter is fenced off because the structure isn’t stable.
“It’s too dangerous to walk underneath it,” Burns, a former North Miami mayor, said in an interview, adding that the East shelter has experienced water leaks, but the structure is “not in a position to collapse.”
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Burns said the City Council approved funding to fix the shelters, but “the money just sat there.”
“This is ridiculous,” Burns said, “that the city had these two shelters, that are really popular when they are running, closed down.”
North Miami’s 2025-2026 budget shows that funding for the Enchanted park has been raised to $463,000 for the current fiscal year, an increase of about $255,000 over the prior year. The funds are to be used to “provide daily maintenance, supervision, programming, and operation” of the park facilities.
The budget also says that one of the city’s “major projects and initiatives” for the park is completing a 40-year certification, which documents describe as an electrical upgrade to comply with Miami-Dade County safety standards. The cost was estimated at $240,000.
North Miami officials are keeping mum. Parks and Recreation Interim Director, Yama Paillere declined an interview request, an aide said. Mayor Alix Desulme did not respond to an interview request by deadline for this story. City Manager Theresa Therilus and Senior Assistant John Lorfils did not respond to several attempts by phone and email to reach them.
“It’s not a difficult job,” Burns, a Realtor in South Florida, said of repairing the shelters. “It’s a very simple roofing job.”
In addition to the dilapidated picnic shelters, the park also has been facing problems removing manure left by the horses in the shed. It piles up behind the barn and during hot weather the animal waste can release significant levels of nitrogen that can kill nearby oak trees, some more than 100 years old.
“That is a waste hazard,” said Sara McDevitt, who serves on the board of “Friends of Enchanted Forest NoMi.” The nonprofit group advocates for the park by promoting volunteer activities and hosting meetings with city officials to discuss budgeting strategies for the park’s maintenance.
McDevitt noted what she called “distress and concern within the community” with the condition of the park.
Burns said the huge manure pit is at least four-feet deep and 100-feet wide. He noted that an oak tree, surrounded by the waste, had died.
Burns said after a waste removal company left years ago, he arranged with his own hauler to take on the job. “We have to get that done,” said Burns, referring to the proper and regular removal of the manure.
There also have been problems with the park’s Community Center, which McDevitt said had been closed for several years.
Due to the lack of maintenance, the center’s roof was left deteriorating and once a contractor was finally hired to fix it, significant amounts of mold were found, lengthening the timeline for repairs.
Burns said the Community Center has just reopened.
He also said a contractor has been hired to fix the picnic shelters and the work will start within the next four-to-six weeks.
“It’s been that story for a couple of years,” a doubtful Castañeda said, noting previous announcements of upcoming repairs that never happened. “It’s sad, because this is a very special place.”
For her part, McDevitt said, “It’s a commitment that the city needs to make to its parks and its residents. The community is frustrated and tired of having poorly maintained things in our city.”
The story was originally published by Caplin News, a publication of FIU's Lee Caplin School of Journalism & Media, as part of an editorial content partnership with the WLRN newsroom.
