Florida lawmakers are taking aim at a botched plan that would have brought golf courses and pickleball courts to nine state parks last year.
Under the failed plan, Anastasia State Park in St. Johns County would have seen pickleball courts, disc golf, and a 350-room lodging establishment built there.
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Floridians across the state took to the streets to oppose the development plans last year, including Logan Cross with the Sierra Club of Northeast Florida.
“The uproar was statewide, and they backed off on that effort,” Cross said.
Even though Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection canceled the plans, state lawmakers are pushing legislation to prevent any future development that could impact the natural beauty of Florida’s state parks.
“With your favorable support today, we’ll make sure that for generations to come, our state parks are preserved for the sanctuaries that they truly are,” bill sponsor State Representative John Snyder (R-Palm City) said.
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Snyder’s bill would prohibit the construction of golf courses, tennis courts, pickleball courts, ball fields, and other similar sporting facilities on state park lands.
It cleared its final House committee Tuesday with unanimous and bipartisan support.
“Our state parks are more than beautiful places to visit, they’re classrooms without walls, sanctuaries for all wildlife and also sanctuaries for people, too,” State Representative Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando) said.
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The bill now heads to the House floor.
The Senate version still has two more committee stops, and doesn’t currently include language as strong as the House version.
But Cross said he’s hopeful lawmakers will send the House version of the bill to the Governor’s desk before session wraps up in early May.
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“I think they really have become aware that there is nearly universal support for this type of thing, and I think it would have been foolhardy from them to not really make an effort to move along this legislation,” Cross said.
The Governor would still need to sign the bill if it passes.
Cross said there’s some optimism he would, given he canceled the development plans in response to the public outcry last year.
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