Mike Vogel
January, 14, 2025
In 2000, Broward County voters went to the ballot box to decide whether to spend $400 million on land preservation. Broward and Miami-Dade are sometimes used as bywords in less developed parts of Florida — as in, we don’t want our community to be another Broward or another Miami. The local Sun Sentinel back in 2000 described the referendum as an attempt to preserve “some of the last bits of native land remaining before they are devoured by development.”
As it happens, Broward had plenty more “last bits” of native land than the 1,100 acres the county eventually purchased for preserves, parks and pools. Fully 63% of the county (481,774 acres) can’t be devoured by development. It ranks seventh highest among Florida’s 67 counties for percentage of land in conservation. Miami-Dade ranks third.
Overall, 31% of Florida — 11 million acres — is in conservation through national parks, military installations, or state and local government ownership. The state owns another 321,492 acres for purposes other than conservation — plus another 237,000 (as of a 2019 rough estimate) owned by the state transportation department for rights of way, future roads, the 475-acre SunTrax testing facility in Polk County and other uses. Plus, there are thousands of local park, school and other governmental sites.
Government is Florida’s largest landowner.
The extent of government ownership is a boon to the environment. The government appetite for land also will decide how much of the state remains in agriculture, the size of the tax base, who bears the tax burden and how densely packed people will live and how multistory their housing. Given that conservation-buying plans call for government ownership of half the state, “significant policy questions arise,” the Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research noted in its latest annual assessment of Florida conservation lands. One question the assessment poses: “At what point does the volume of conservation land acreage alter the pattern of economic growth as expanding metropolitan areas are forced upward instead of outward? Is this change acceptable to policy makers?”
Under Gov. Ron DeSantis and recent Legislatures, land acquisition has accelerated. The 1000 Friends of Florida group says the Legislature has put $2 billion into conservation acquisitions in recent years. To conserve land, government can purchase it outright. It also can pay farmers and ranchers to forever forfeit future development rights. Such conservation easements are simultaneously a land preservation and agricultural preservation tool. In 2023, according to the “Lay of the Land” land-sales report from real estate firm SVN Saunders Ralston Dantzler, government secured ownership or easements in 151 deals for more than 120,000 acres — 187.5 square miles — for $359 million, a 51% increase in transactions from the year before and a 232% increase in acres.
“Private land ownership is usually best because owners have a vested interest in taking care of their own property, making it productive, using it for recreation and protecting its ecology,” says Bob McClure, president and CEO of the James Madison Institute, a Tallahassee-based, limited-government organization. He says there’s a state role in protecting “unique environmental jewels” such as the state parks and “the balance lies in what is the state capable of managing well versus what can private enterprise manage better” while protecting pristine and environmentally sensitive areas.
Conservation shaves 1.75% off the county tax base statewide and 1.45% off the school tax base, shifting $383.8 million in county taxes and $292.9 million in school taxes to other property owners or foregoing the money, according to the Legislature’s annual assessment.
More conservation buys are coming. In November, Clay, Lake, Osceola and Martin voters approved raising a total of $348 million for conservation buys, bringing to 12 the number of Florida’s 67 counties to start or extend conservation buying programs in recent election cycles. The state government’s long-time conservation programs call for conserving another 3.22 million acres while the state’s newer, overlapping Florida Wildlife Corridor conservation program wants to preserve 7.88 million more acres. In March, DeSantis, in announcing a state acquisition of 28,000 acres for conservation, said, “Florida continues to lead the way in land conservation and protecting our natural resources.”