Built a Sustainable Florida

As Florida continues to grow, the natural areas that make the state unique are often squeezed by the pressures of development. With Florida's population expected to surge to 17 million residents by the turn of the century, the Governor's Commission for a Sustainable Florida, chaired by Lt. Governor MacKay, was charged with crafting a plan to ensure that resources would be available to future generations. The Commission began Eastward Ho!, a drive to re-energize urban infill areas and stop the encroachment of development into the Everglades.

The Eastward Ho! Brownfields Partnership created the nationally recognized Sustainable Communities Demonstration Project. In 1998, five communities — Boca Raton, Martin County, Hilisborough/Tampa, Ocala and Orlando — were in the second year of the project.

In addition, the Sustainable Communities Network, originally comprised of the 28 communities who applied to be part of the demonstration project, provided an ongoing roundtable of ideas and initiatives for communities to draw on.

With Florida's continued growth, the Chiles/MacKay administration made it a priority to ensure green space is part of the growth balance. The administration expanded the reach of land acquisition programs such as the Florida Communities Trust and Preservation 2000, a trust fund dedicated to the purchase of sensitive lands throughout the state, by funding the existing Monroe Keys Land Authority and creating the Green Swamp Land Authority to help local governments acquire land in areas of critical state concern. From 1993 through April 1998, the trust facilitated the purchase of 22,224 acres of land at a cost of $194 million. Half of that money comes from the near dollar-for-dollar match of local governments.