As a lifelong Miami resident living just blocks from the Design District, I have a deep appreciation for the rare sense of place, natural grandeur and shade that made Dacra’s Oak Plaza an internationally recognized, award-winning development. However, despite strong city and county policies, the 150-plus-year-old oaks are gone.

The trees were not dug up to be replanted elsewhere, but literally hacked to splintered bits.

Where is our respect for the shadows, the sounds, the sights of canopy trees that make walking, bicycling, and wandering so richly rewarding? Where were the pink permit-required tags one would have expected to see weeks prior? My neighbors and I are left to mourn the last remaining natural beauty in this historic heart of old Miami, and to ask: How could anyone let this happen?

Kathryn Moore, Miami