TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state's environmental agency faced bipartisan backlash over a proposal to develop golf courses, pickleball courts, and hotels at state parks.
Now, a Republican lawmaker wants to make sure those ideas are squashed for good.
Sen. Gayle Harrell filed a bill Wednesday that would focus recreation at state parks on trails rather than courts and cabins instead of hotels.
The bill would also require more public notice and the ability to comment on park projects after the Department of Environmental Protection tried to quietly proceed with plans for the “Great Outdoors Initiative” in August.
The department had planned a single hour of public hearings near the nine affected parks. Opposition to the initiative transcended party lines, as top Republican legislative leaders and members of Congress, including U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, raised questions, along with Democrats and environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the Cleo Institute.
Harrell's bill would ban golf courses, tennis courts, pickleball courts, ball fields and similar sporting facilities at state parks in favor of “conservation-based public outdoor recreational uses" like hiking, boating, camping, swimming, kayaking and bird-watching.
It would also prohibit the construction of overnight facilities larger than a cabin that sleeps six.
DeSantis eventually backed off the development plans for parks.
The bill is drawing support from Javier Esteviz, the Political and Legislative Director for Sierra Club Florida.
"We were already going into this session with this being our number one priority, making sure that we stopped it in the summer, and we keep it from coming back. So this is a great day," he said. "It means that the state of Florida continues in its history of really caring about conservation of our natural resources. Let that be our state parks, or all throughout the everglades."
Daniel Huber is a volunteer with the Suncoast Sierra Club, and the Chair of the Environmental Studies Department at the University of Tampa.
He says the parks are more than just a place to relax among nature.
"If there are recreational activities that can be done literally anywhere in the state of Florida, then it doesn't make sense to carve out protected habitat in order to provide access to those recreational activities that you can do literally anywhere."
He adds protecting that land means protecting the whole state.
"They provide clean water, carbon sequestration, all of these things that people don't typically think of as having value, but ultimately, really do have economic value. And we depend on all of these things."
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