© 2024 WLRN
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Florida drops proposal for golf on wilderness land amid demands to preserve state parks

Paddlers on the Oleta River in Oleta River State Park
Florida State Parks
/
Crawford Entertainment
Paddlers in Oleta River State Park, one of nine state parks where Florida parks officials have proposed adding pickleball courts.

State plans to add golf, pickleball or hotels to Florida parks — created to preserve remnants of the state’s once untamed wilderness — are being revised after withering criticism spread online and at protests over the weekend.

Calling a proposal in Martin County to build golf courses at Jonathan Dickinson State Park “noble,” state officials nonetheless agreed to drop the plan after the veterans group behind it backed off.

“Serving God and Country is our daily goal. That was the spirit for the idea to bring world class public golf to southeast Florida, and donate all proceeds to support military and first responders’ families,” Folds of Honor, a nonprofit started by a Oklahoma Air National Guard lieutenant colonel, said in an email sent to reporters over the weekend.

READ MORE: Plans to jazz up state parks with pickleball, golf and hotels are met with outrage

State officials have postponed meetings originally scheduled at the parks for Tuesday until next week, but have not yet set times. In the meantime, the public can log comments at FDEP's online survey.

Meanwhile, protesters who remain worried over state plans, will rally at three parks on Tuesday.

“They’re supposed to be doing resource driven recreation. It has to come from nature,” said Catalina Lemaitre, who’s helping organize a rally at Oleta River State Park in North Miami Beach at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. “This is completely not in alignment with their own mission statement.”

The call for golf courses, along with hotels, pickleball courts or frisbee courses at eight other state parks sparked outrage last week when details were leaked by a retired state worker after the state quietly announced the plans on Aug. 19. Park management plans that must be updated every ten years typically undergo tedious reviews, but meeting notices suggested that while attendees could make comments, no questions would be answered.

Conservation groups, including Sierra Club, Friends of the Everglades, Audubon Florida and 1000 Friends of Florida, started letter-writing campaigns and online petitions. By Friday, even the state’s Republicans turned against the most ambitious proposals for golf courses at Jonathan Dickinson State Park, firing off a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis and signed by the party’s congressional delegation and county commissioners.

“An hour-long meeting on a weekday afternoon when most people are at work will not suffice,” they wrote.

Nicklaus Companies, founded by golfer Jack Nicklaus, even chimed in, issuing a statement Thursday saying the company only learned of the proposal through news reports. More than a decade ago, a proposal by state lawmakers to team up with Nicklaus to bring golf courses to the 10,500-acre park also drew outrage.

“A prior proposal put forth by legislators in 2011 was abandoned in the face of understandable environmental and community concerns. In any event, such concerns should be addressed in an open and public process,” the statement said.

Nicklaus, 84, resigned from the company two years ago.

On Sunday, Folds of Honor announced it was pulling out and FDEP said it would take golf courses off the list. But protest organizers say they remain worried.

“Despite reports that backers have nixed their plans to build golf courses at Jonathan Dickinson State Park, we should not rest easy,” said Friends of the Everglades executive director Eve Samples, who’s organizing a protest at Flagler Park at 2 p.m. “The other 8 state parks are still vulnerable.”

FDEP has declined repeated requests to explain how the proposals came about. Typically, management plans are compiled and reviewed by a ten-member advisory committee called the Acquisition and Restoration Council that oversees not just parks but the wide array of state-owned lands. The committee includes other state agencies affected by plans, along with local officials and conservation groups.

State parks are generally purchased to preserve environmental or cultural resources, so have to be managed to preserve those, said John Fumero, a land use attorney in Boca Raton and former general counsel for the South Florida Water Management District.

But threading the need to attract visitors and preserve wilderness can be a challenge, he said.

“Florida historically has done a great job of acquiring lands for conservation purposes, but that's only half the battle here. Then the state has to allocate funds to manage and improve those lands,” he said. “There is a massive backlog of underfunded and under-managed state lands.”

He pointed to J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management Area, purchased by the state in the 1940s, as an example.

“It's about 60,000 acres dominated by [invasive] melaleuca. It's a melaleuca forest, large parts of it. And it's a stunning regional wetland area,” he said. “It would take tens of millions of dollars [just] to begin to remove the exotic species that are choking out the native vegetation.”

Amenities at start parks that generate income could start to pay for some of the maintenance backlog, he said.

“There's a right way to do it and there's a wrong way to do it. I think this can be done in a stepwise, responsible fashion where siting these facilities is a critical part of the process,” he said.

But park lovers like Lemaitre worry pickleball and frisbee are not the answer.

“Our kids know these parks intimately. My son can describe how the mud cracks after a rain and the kinds of rock and trees because they build forts there. These are not parks where we don’t already find recreation,” she said. “Our hope is that maybe from this debacle, [state planners] realize Floridians know their parks well. People who use these parks, we love them just as they are.”

This story has been updated to clarify that Jack Nicklaus resigned from Nicklaus Companies in 2022.

Sign up for WLRN’s environment newsletter Field Notes to receive our insider’s guide for living in South Florida’s changing landscape. Get original reporting and recaps, with context, delivered to your inbox every Friday. Subscribe here

Jenny Staletovich is WLRN's Environment Editor. She has been a journalist working in Florida for nearly 20 years. Contact Jenny at jstaletovich@wlrnnews.org
More On This Topic