This year, residents of the High Pines and Ponce-Davis areas have expressed their interest in becoming part of the City of Coral Gables. Given that the City of Coral Gables surrounds this area on three sides, the city has spent the year trying to gather the impressions of the residents. On March 27, the application to annex the High Pines and Ponce Davis areas was approved by the City of Coral Gables in order to submit to Miami-Dade County after having two community meetings since April 2017 to present the initiative of the annexation to the residents while also gathering their opinions.

The City of Coral Gables received 651 signed petitions with 60 percent of registered voters in favor of the annexation, according to the city’s website. With the area becoming part of Coral Gables, comes many new benefits. Some of these benefits include faster response times by police and fire-fighters. The average police response time for emergent calls in Coral Gables is five minutes compared to 10 minutes for the county. Additionally, there will be a more frequent and convenient waste service compared to the county’s service which collects trash every two weeks. If the application for the annexation is approved by the county, the City of Coral Gables has plans to renovate parks, infrastructure and landscape.

“The benefits that come with the annexation of the High Pines neighborhood would always be great to have, but I don’t find them to be very necessary. We already live near beautiful parks and the infrastructure is already in good shape. Although a faster police response would be great as break-ins do occur around the neighborhood, I feel there are other neighborhoods already within Coral Gables that could use their attention more than us,” senior Kyle Reynolds said.

The residents of High Pines and Ponce-Davis, who now belong to unincorporated Miami-Dade County, may have a lot to consider when agreeing to the annexation. While Coral Gables has plans to upgrade the area, the residents may prefer to remain unclaimed by any city.