Mark WoodsJacksonville Florida Times-Union
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I've never had a specialty license plate before. But I recently decided to get one of the Florida plates that has the nose of a red kayak heading down a river, a turtle on a log, a heron in flight, the sun rising or setting in the distance.
"Explore Our State Parks," it says.
I got this plate, which reminds me of some of my favorite places in Florida, to support our state parks. I did not get it to support state hotels and golf courses. We have plenty of those outside of the parks.
But here we go again.
The State of Florida likes to brag that we have the best state parks in America; that our 175 parks attract nearly 30 million visitors and produce billions of dollars of economic impact; that our state park system keeps winning national awards and preserving, as the slogan says, “Real Florida.”
But you know what they say, if it ain’t broke … do bulldoze it to make way for golf courses, pickleball courts and 350-room hotels.
Sorry, I know I basically repurposed what I said years ago, after then-Gov. Rick Scott kept looking at our state parks and picturing ways to make more money off land that was just sitting there, all natural, with old trees and water and wildlife. Most memorably, he envisioned fairways and sand traps, new golf courses in every corner of a state that already had the most golf courses in America.
That didn’t happen. Turns out that idea didn’t go over too well with people already trying to run golf courses — or with Floridians, in general.
But here we go again.
This time it’s Gov. Ron DeSantis, trying to hurriedly ram through dramatic changes to nine state parks — including taking part of Anastasia State Park in St. Augustine and building pickleball courts and a disc golf course, along with a large hotel in the maritime hammock near the ocean.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection announced the plan Monday — well, some of the plan — with a press release about the launch of the Great Outdoors Initiative to “increase public access, recreation and lodging” at Florida’s state parks.
Public meetings were scheduled around the state for next week, eight of them all at the same conveniently inconvenient time (3 p.m. Tuesday). According to a leaked memo, the Office of Park Planning was instructed to play pre-recorded presentations at these meetings, receive feedback and not answer questions — setting the stage for it to roll to approval next month.
Judging from the reaction so far, it won’t be that simple.
On Friday, DEP postponed all of the meetings, saying that "due to the overwhelming interest" it was looking for new venues to accommodate the public.
When the news of the plans first started breaking — and a long list of groups all over the state quickly began rallying in vehement opposition — I kept getting people sending me details about it. And I kept thinking two things about the proposal: A) it sounds very familiar and B) it was a bad idea before, and it’s a bad idea now.
Start with the golf courses. That’s a particularly bad idea — partly because of how much land it takes to build a golf course, partly because Florida isn’t exactly hurting for golf courses. Even after a period when more golf courses were closing than opening, we still have more than 1,200 courses, many of them open to the public.
In 2011, Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Martin County was one of the places the state wanted to have a Jack Nicklaus-designed course. That didn’t happen then. It’s still a beautiful, sprawling park that protects one of Southeast Florida's largest contiguous areas of natural habitat. But this proposal includes taking more than 1,000 acres and creating two 18-hole courses and one 9-hole course there — a place with nearly 50 golf courses within a 20-mile radius.
In this proposal, other state parks would get new pickleball courts. Because it's really hard to find pickleball courts in Florida, right? As that sport has exploded, according to pickleheads.com, more than 5,000 courts have popped up all over the state.
Pickleball courts do take up less space than a golf course, but they come with something larger than their size: their sound.
The New York Times recently did a story with a headline that said, “Pickleball noise is driving everyone nuts.”
So it’s one thing to introduce that to a city park or country club alongside the tennis courts. But to add it to state parks?
Visit Florida’s state parks and listen to the chirping of the birds, the rustling of trees, the crashing of waves and — coming soon! — the pop-pop-popping of pickleball.
And then there are the “lodges” — a quaint word that belies what is being proposed.
A 'lodge' bigger than many hotels
I’ve said before that I’d welcome adding some more cabins to some of our state parks. So it would be hypocritical of me to say I’m opposed to any lodging.
But this isn’t just any lodging. To put 350 rooms in perspective, just south of Anastasia State Park, there is an Embassy Suites with 217 suites. A little farther south there’s a Hampton Inn with 100 rooms.
This isn’t a matter of adding some cabins or small lodges. It’s adding one of the larger oceanfront hotels/lodges in Northeast Florida. And it isn’t just the size. It’s the location.
Could an oceanfront "lodge" be quite popular at Anastasia State Park? Absolutely. So why stop there? How about Talbot Islands State Parks? Sure, there is plenty of lodging up the road on Amelia Island. But maybe the future could include a big hotel where right now, according to the Florida State Parks website, there are “ancient dunes, pristine beaches and a secluded barrier island.”
That’s one more reason this proposal is a bad idea. It’s a terrible precedent.
Even Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis called it a “slippery slope" — part of what was, by the end of the week, a remarkable groundswell of bipartisan blowback.
Small dot on map hides big impact
Back in 2017, I wrote a column about going for a walk on the Anastasia beach with Chris Farrell of the Northeast Florida office of Audubon. He wanted to show me how that summer Anastasia was home to the largest colony of Least terns — a bird whose population had dropped by nearly 90 percent in the last 50 years — we’d had in the area in years.
When I heard from Farrell this week, it was because Audubon was among those sounding an alarm about threats to the state parks and, in particular, Anastasia.
Among Audubon’s thoughts and concerns: “Displacing maritime hammock — an imperiled habitat that supports native and migratory songbirds — for pickleball courts and a giant lodge is unconscionable.”
He noted that the rudimentary maps show the potential location of the lodge within the southern stand of maritime hammock — and that this same maritime hammock is described in the "Park Significance" section of the park's management plan as "one of the largest contiguous stands of the globally rare maritime hammock along Florida's east coast."
And while there is a dot on the map that illustrates where the lodge might go, it doesn’t give a sense of the footprint of everything involved.
“The small dot on the map hides the real impact of the proposal,” he said.
He noted that it doesn’t make sense when there are thousands of hotel rooms near the park and two pickleball courts across the street from it. He said it’s not clear what is driving these proposals “but it sure isn’t based on local needs.”
Floridians have spoken clearly again
When it comes to Anastasia State Park, it’s hard to get more local than the Surf Station.
In 1984, Tory Strange started the surf shop in an Amaco station conveniently located near the entrance to the park.
He’s often said that one of the keys to his business succeeding was that location.
Now, with the Surf Station about to celebrate its 40th anniversary next weekend, he can sell to the entire world via the internet. But the location still is a good one. And putting a big hotel in the state park probably could mean some more local business. Not that Strange looks at it that way.
He’s among the locals who’s quite upset about the proposal.
“This isn’t about being anti-golf course or anti-hotel or anti-pickleball,” he said. “This is about protecting our limited natural environment.”
That was his initial reaction. And I thought it summed things up nicely. But a bit later he said he wanted to add something even stronger, which I think sums up how upset some are about this.
“The meeting that is to take place about this … the people that are proposing it better back down and make major changes to these radical proposals,” he said, adding that they will be voted out if they don’t. “I predict that’s what will happen if destruction of our state parks is ram-rodded through over the objection of the citizenry. The vast majority of people are against major developments inside our state parks.”
So if you’re among the people against it, what can you do?
The same thing Floridians did in the past. Contact your state representatives. Sign the petitions. Show up for the rescheduled meetings (likely the first week in September).
In 2011, state lawmakers quickly withdrew bills about the proposed golf courses after they were deluged by calls, letters and emails. Then-Rep. Patrick Rooney Jr. said, “Floridians spoke very clearly.”
Floridians have spoken very clearly again.
Now the question is whether this governor — and the state agency with "environmental protection" in its name — will actually listen.
mwoods@jacksonville.com
(904) 359-4212
