Governor Ron DeSantis says he never approved a controversial plan to expand access to state parks to include things like pickleball courts, golf, and lodging.
Speaking in Polk County on Wednesday, DeSantis said he would rather not spend money on this project and that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection is going back to the drawing board.
“Since I've been governor, we've added over a quarter of a million acres to conservation land. We’ve established a Florida Wildlife Corridor, so we've done a lot of stuff on the state parks,” he said. “If there does need to be improvements, we're not going to take away any green space..”
The plan called “The Great Outdoors Initiative” prompted protests across the state, and drew widespread criticism from members of the public, Florida lawmakers and advocacy groups like The Nature Conservancy.
“My hope is that DEP [Florida Department of Environmental Protection] will see that these suggestions, recommendations, proposals, weren't necessarily the best that they could have presented, and they'll go back to the drawing board and truly start a public process that allows the public to suggest what do they want for their state parks,” said Greg Knecht, the Executive Director of The Nature Conservancy in Florida
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection said Friday it would delay the public meetings originally scheduled this week to discuss the proposal and reschedule them for sometime the week of September 2.
Those nine simultaneous public meetings FDEP had originally scheduled for Tuesday, August 27 still appear on the state agency’s calendar as “rescheduled,” and no alternative meeting times have been set.
In addition to how the initiative was presented, Knecht said there’s another question that the public should be asking: whether it sets a precedent.
“If it happens here, and it's not necessarily your favorite local state park, what's stopping it from happening at those that are closer to Central Florida, like Wekiva Springs, for example?” Knecht said.
Aside from directing FDEP to go “back to the drawing board,” DeSantis said the feedback being received is a part of a different story.
“This was done intentionally, given to a very left-wing group to try to create a narrative that somehow, the State Park is going to become a big parking lot or something like that,” DeSantis said. “That's obviously a phony narrative, and was never true to begin with. But, nothing has been approved, and they are going to go back and listen to folks.”
Draft Unit Management Plans for each of the nine state parks involved in this year’s initial “Great Outdoors Initiative” proposal can be found at FDEP’s website.
