Imagine you bought a home by a beautiful but unmanaged park.
The park has been neglected, so no one uses it. There are no paths, benches, or water fountains. No way for people to enjoy it. Not that they wouldn’t if you gave them those things. They just don’t have the infrastructure.
It would be very easy as you look out your kitchen window to forget the original purpose of the park, that parks are for people. You might start thinking of the park as “your” space, an extension of your back yard.
Now imagine the residents of your town received a grant to improve the park. Clean it up, add new amenities. Make it more people friendly to draw more people. One caveat: The City can only use the grant for that park and nothing else. If they don’t use the money, they lose it. So the City starts developing plans for improvement.
Would you, the homeowner, be annoyed? Probably. I probably would. But would you tell the City to give the money back and do nothing with “your” park so you don’t have to be bothered with your fellow residents using their public space?
Would you launch a campaign to forbid the residents of your town from using a park that belongs to them?
Welcome to Beach Drive.
If you’ve followed the Beach Drive saga in Panama City, you know there are two broad camps, those for installing a shared-use trail and amenities from Frankford Ave to 6th Street, and those against. The City of Panama City and many locals are for. Many property owners along Beach Drive are against.
So against, they built a website and launched a campaign called Preserve Beach Drive to stop this project.
For context, a shared-use path is a paved strip alongside a road that lets people walking, jogging, rolling, or biking travel safely away from cars. These paths let residents slow down and enjoy their town without dodging speeding vehicles. You’ve seen shared-use paths in other towns and parks. They are part of the Complete Streets approach to roadway design and are growing in popularity across the U.S.
It would look something like this on Beach Dr.
So we’re clear, this entire path would be within the Florida Department of Transportation right of way and within the jurisdiction of the City of Panama City. The project would narrow the car lanes of Beach Dr. and use that extra space to add the path. The net “width” difference of the whole corridor would change by just a few feet.
This isn’t a takeover of or eminent domain over private property. It’s a better use of public property.
So what’s the beef? Why would people who own property along Beach Drive oppose this beautification? Why would they prefer the current traffic thoroughfare in their back yards to a cute, calm, people-friendly pathway.
In short, the people.
The homeowners don’t want residents using the neglected park behind those homeowners’ houses.
They say there are other reasons, but there really aren’t.
The Preserve Beach Drive folks offer several arguments on their website for shutting down this project. Most are related to environment:
- Trees and Vegetation
- The Wild Habitat and Sea Oats
- Beach Birds
- Lights
The idea is that this 12-foot trail will ruin the natural “Old Florida” environment on Beach Drive. “Perhaps as many as 300 trees” could be slashed, their site says. This would ruin raptor nesting habitat. Shore birds and sea turtles will lose their nesting grounds as well. Glaring road lights will alienate nocturnal creatures, starving them of needed darkness.
They summarize: “With a paved path comes the removal of Beach Drive’s natural habitat.”
Basically, if this path is built, Beach Drive will become a desolate, lifeless badlands.
Luckily, none of this is true.
The City of Panama City commissioned an environmental assessment of the Beach Drive habitat to investigate these claims.
The study lists two protected species that might live on the property, the Eastern indigo snake and the gopher tortoise. If these animals were present, there should be burrows to prove it.
No burrows were found for either creature.
The assessment also addresses shorebirds, specifically the snowy plover, black skimmer, and least tern. Same result: “No solitary nesting sites or seabird colonies were observed within the subject property,” the report says.
But what about the sea oats and other vegetation?
Remember when I said this project would only add a few feet to the existing Beach Drive corridor? That’s why. We aren’t talking about paving the shoreline like an Interstate. This is a sliver of pavement, largely in the existing footprint of the road. The sea oats are fine.
I’m sure in the past, all this (and more) flora and fauna thrived along Beach Drive, but that ship has sailed, probably about the time the “Old Florida” habitat where the Beach Drive homes are was ripped out to erect their McMansions in the first place.
Also note that most Beach Drive homes enjoy lush, carpet-y green lawns. The turf lawn is one of the more caustic environmental harms in modern society. A lawn is, as writer Michael Pollan describes, “nature under totalitarian rule.” Sterile. Barren. Anti-natural. None of this enters the Preserve Beach Drive “habitat” discussion.
If Beach Drive property owners truly cared about the plovers, they would rip out their lawns and make them into sand dunes. As it stands, it’s more likely Lake Caroline will be polluted not by the yuppie moms and weekend beach sitters who will use the path, but by Scott’s Weed & Feed.
Lights: This concerns me too. With the advent of LED roadway lights, many neighborhoods have experienced the blare of too-bright lights. But LEDs have also brought unprecedented controls to roadway lighting. They can be dimmed and/or shielded so they are calibrated just for the road. Also, this project would likely include low-slung “pathway” lights, not the airplane runway bright ones like on the Hathaway Bridge. We should work together to advocate for smart, thoughtful lighting on Beach Drive.
Trees: Let’s tussle about trees. Seriously. I don’t need to explain to fellow Hurricane Michael veterans the importance of and our emotional attachment to old trees. But lots of lies have been told.
The City has not designated a single tree for removal. The City has not said exactly what trees would be planted along the path. I have my problems with the City, but they have not launched a conspiracy to decimate our trees.
I think we should preserve old, healthy native trees along Beach Drive. I think any new plantings should be native to our area and should help replenish the “Old Florida” vibe and habitat. I will be vocal about that and support that position.
But look me in the eye and tell me the current trees along Beach are the shining glory of our town. We can do better, and better can be negotiated. Doesn’t mean we shut the whole thing down.
If the City were proposing to carve a new road through a tract of virgin Florida mixed hardwood, I would likely oppose it. But this is not that. This is repurposing existing infrastructure to make it better for more people.
Oh, and you may have heard that if we don’t use the grant money on this path, that money can be used elsewhere in the city, on potholes maybe.
False. This simply is not true. If we don’t use this grant for this path, it goes back to the state and will end up in someone else’s community. It cannot be used to fix that pothole or replace that lift station.
Commissioner Josh Street explains in this great Facebook post.
Neither lights, trees, money, nor snowy plovers are the hold up here.
It’s the people.
“A 2nd sidewalk much promoted by the City will bring many more people into a quiet neighborhood,” the Preserve Beach Drive site says.
There’s the nut. Accessibility. All those people.
The site continues: “People will bring litter and noise. In addition, they’ll bring barbeque grills, six pack floaties, tents and dueling tunes.”
Redneck Riviera East.
I actually empathize with that sentiment. I do. I like my quiet neighborhood too, with chickens in the yard. But my home borders cow pasture. I purposely did not buy a home in a neighborhood that backs up to one of the more stunning public spaces in Bay County. They did.
People can make mess. People can make noise. And this will create a maintenance and enforcement job for the City that they should be held accountable to honor.
That just means we raise our standards and work together to maintain them as we grow, like we’re doing in other parts of our town. I’ll be right there with you yelling at Quality of Life if they don’t empty the trash cans.
People can behave. And care. And nurture. It’s our job to create that kind of space on Beach Drive, not the beach behind Spinnaker.
No one is proposing to take or misuse your space. This is the public better using its space.
Most Panama City residents do not have and cannot afford boats. They don’t have waterfront property, and most waterfront property is private. Bay County is 26 percent water and all of us have a right to use it.
We are growing as a city, in size and stature. We’re maturing. We’re standing to our full height and gaining confidence. And we are, one by one, reimagining our shared spaces.
We’d like to walk along Beach Drive.
To the Preserve Beach Drive folks, I’m sorry your neighborhood is changing in a way you dislike, I really am. I imagine it’s uncomfortable and scary. This is not the Panama City you grew up in or remember from childhood or thought you would have at your front door.
But you live next to one of our premier public spaces. Beach Drive is a park. Believe it or not, we want the best for it, just like you.
After all we’ve been through as a town, surely you understand why more of us want to enjoy the best view in Bay County, like you have all these years.
Kevin
Qwirkery 
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