Troubling Plans for Florida’s State Parks

LIZ TRACY

PARKS As Gil Smart read a Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) press release about the innocuous-sounding Great Outdoors Initiative, he began to see red flags. As executive director of the Florida-based advocacy group Vote Water, he was alarmed to read that there were plans to build a golf course at Jonathan Dickinson State Park. Since golf courses use a tremendous amount of water and fertilizer, the plans could affect the nearby intercoastal waterway. In fact, the DEP initiative proposed new development at nine state parks, including paving over thousands of acres of protected lands and building pickleball courts and hotels. The sole public hearing on the proposal was scheduled a week after the press release was circulated, in the middle of the afternoon. “It became very clear there was…

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Landscape Architecture (Digital) - 1 Issue, January 2025

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