St Petersburg resident Caroline Chomaniacs at Honeymoon Island State Park in Dunedin on Aug. 27, 2024. (Photo by Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix)
The Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee unanimously advanced legislation on Tuesday that would prevent the construction of hotels, golf courses, and pickleball courts in state parks.
Republican Sen. Gayle Harrell filed SB 58 in response to the widely criticized plans unveiled last summer to build such amenities in at least nine parks, prompting protests across the state and a bipartisan backlash.
The bill, known as the “State Park Preservation Act,” requires the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to notify the public 30 days before a public hearing about a development plan or updates within a state park. As public revulsion mounted against its “Great Outdoors Initiative,” the department announced, and later canceled, simultaneous meetings at the state parks where it planned to build the amenities.
“This is my bill. It came right out of what happened this summer. Jonathan Dickinson State Park is in my district, and I was appalled when this whole thing came forward, and I made the promise that the first bill I would file would be a parks preservation bill,” Harrell told the Florida Phoenix in an interview.
Rep. John Snyder is the House bill sponsor.
Harrell joked that the House bill got two committee references but that her bill has been referred to three committees.
“It will be a race to the floor,” Harrell said laughing.
‘Good aspects,’ but …
Environmental groups thanked the senator for filing the bill but urged the lawmakers to make it stronger, including adding state forests and wildlife management areas to the public land it would protect. Seventy environmental groups and businesses submitted a letter to the lawmakers outlining their concerns.
“There’s a lot of really good aspects to this bill we’d like to support, but there we have some concerns that the language may not be quite tight enough,” said Gil Smart from Friends of the Everglades. “It’s like we’re trying to build this brick wall to keep out inappropriate uses, but we might not have quite enough mortar to fill in between the bricks, which could let some stuff through.”
Smart said his and other groups would prefer if the bill contained specific prohibitions against developments causing material disturbances to the parks.
Distancing himself
Meanwhile, Gov. Ron DeSantis is still trying to distance himself from the whole idea of such developments, despite a report last week from the Tampa Bay Times that his chief of staff James Uthmeier had met with the founder of the Folds of Honor veterans’ charity that pitched the golf course idea for Jonathan Dixon State Park.
“There was never anything that was that was proposed at all, and we’re not proposing anything,” the governor said during a press conference on Feb. 3. “I mean, there have been people that had asked for this stuff to be in there, but we’re not proposing any of that.”
When asked whether she has been talking to the governor’s office about the proposal, Harrell said, “I haven’t heard a word.”
Senior reporter Christine Sexton contributed to this report.