COLUMN: We have paved enough paradise! It's time to curb overdevelopment

I find it distressing that in the dozen years since I moved here I’ve seen such rapid and extensive damage to the beach, and the worst part is no one seems to care — least of all the county commissioners that are responsible for balancing out the various factions that compete for the use of our lands.

I sacrificed and paid a lot of money so that I could live on the beach.

While I continue to pay taxes that go up, the quality of my neighborhood and the value of my home go down. I had no idea that I would be pitted against commercial interests that seek to take the beach for their financial gain and leave it bruised and battered every summer.

I naively assumed the county would step in to protect it from overdevelopment and preserve it for future generations to enjoy. What I’ve seen however in the few short years I’ve been here doesn’t bear this out.

The Okaloosa county convention center was built against the people’s wishes. The Destin Airport was augmented to handle more jet traffic in a “backroom deal.” Mattie Kelly’s estate was developed not in accordance with her wishes. Walton County tried to sneak by a concrete parking lot covering the last open stretch of Miramar Beach.

Big-money wants to evict the charter boat fleet from Destin harbor.

And now again in my neighborhood, Walton County wants to lay down an extra lane of asphalt right near the top of the dunes on the beach to park cars and then build their ridiculous plastic “boardwalk!”

Imagine going year after year to your favorite  beach on the Outer Banks of the Carolinas or the coast of Maine and then one year you return to find it has been paved over. Well that’s what’s happening here.

If there really was a need for more asphalt, it would have been obvious a long time ago.

People have been coming to the beach here and parking their cars for 25-plus years with no problems. The reason they come here is because it is such a beautiful place, and paving it won’t make it any more attractive or functional to anyone except for those people who think that sand and sea oats are messy and dirty.

Those people would be better off going to the pool.

Asphalt paving will, however, severely impact the environment and weaken the shoreline’s ability to resist erosion.

Sea oats, whose roots penetrate far down anchoring the sand which causes the dunes to form, are nature’s way of building up the shoreline and protecting it from waves and storm surges.

Unbeknownst to many is the fact that sea oats do not grow close to the water, but actually grow fullest and tallest on the backside of the dunes away from the water facing north. This is why paving along the edge of the dunes will be particularly detrimental to the ecology.

The state just got through paying millions to dredge sand from offshore and pump it on to the beach  to widen it.

Now, Walton County wants to narrow the gap by widening the highway.

Even a low-category hurricane landing hundreds of miles from here could leave the boardwalk a tangled mess and the asphalt in large chunks oozing oil into the water.

There is simply no justifiable reason to put asphalt this close to the shoreline nor a boardwalk that does nothing to improve the beach.

The adage that “you can’t stop progress” certainly is a truism — and nowhere more so than in Florida.
Highest and best use of real estate is necessary of course, but some things should just be held sacred. And the few remaining undeveloped portions of the Emerald Coast deserve this status.

Paving over Miramar Beach just to park extra cars to sell a few more grouper sandwiches or rent a few more umbrellas failed last year because it was a bad idea. And the people let the county know it, even though they should have known it themselves.

So much for leadership ... .

We can’t expect government and business to do it on their own their own. Build, baby, build is a pretty persuasive siren. But there needs to be more public input.

The county doesn’t ask us if we want them to pave paradise to put up a parking lot — they just do it!

They know what’s best for us ... right? They do take out a tiny advertisement in some north county newspaper that nobody reads and post it on some impenetrable Web site. But public input is not solicited nor wanted. Joe Sixpack doesn’t have much swing at the county seat, nevertheless his sentiments deserve consideration.

Take the average person who moved here to be near the beach or all the locals who grew up here watching everything develop purely to separate the tourist from his wallet. Both would probably agree that we’ve got enough grouper sandwich and jet ski places on the beaches, and maybe we need to think about giving it a rest.

So is it really a good idea to tear out the grass and bulldoze the dunes, to lay down an extra lane of asphalt and a plastic walkway to make Miramar Beach look like a tidy little strip mall? I think it’s such a bad idea there’s no need to think twice.

It’s just time to finally put this part of the county’s highway “beautification” project on the shelf — for good!

If you have comments or ideas contact Cecilia Jones, county commissioner, South Walton County District No. 5 at: joncecilia@walton.fl.us

Charles Fuqua is a Miramar Beach resident, who is passionate about the environment.