BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. — Broward County commissioners unanimously voted to reject a request from a landowner seeking to remove about three acres of mangroves in Dania Beach from the county’s environmentally sensitive lands map to make way for a 62,000-square-foot warehouse.
Commissioner Beam Furr said the land should remain protected.
“We needed to keep that. We need to keep as much open land as possible, given sea level rise,” Furr said. “We have environmentally sensitive lands listed for a purpose. There’s a reason that they are there.”
The parcel sits east of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and just south of Port Everglades, near a sanctuary for wild vervet monkeys.
Dr. Missy Williams, founder of the Dania Beach Vervet Project, said the mangroves are used by wildlife.
“To go in and bulldoze over the animals that live there -- I just couldn’t fathom the cruelty that it takes to do something like that,” Williams said.
Williams founded the sanctuary in 2016. It houses rescued vervet monkeys and also serves as a refuge for the wild colony that roams nearby mangroves.
“Why do you need to destroy environmentally sensitive lands for a warehouse?” Williams said. “We’re saturated in Broward County. We don’t need another warehouse.”
Williams joined residents and environmental advocates who packed the commission chambers to speak against the proposal.
“There’s no justification for removing,” she said.
“Paving over the wetlands and mangroves in Dania Beach would be the dumbest and ill-conceived, poorly thought-out idea ever,” resident Staci Lee said.
The Dania Beach City Commission previously voted 4-1 in October to keep the protections in place. Dania Beach Mayor Joyce L. Davis also attended the meeting.
“This is not a question of being anti-development,” Davis said. “This is a question of it being the highest and best use for these lands.”
You can read the objection below:
The landowner claimed the mangroves were degraded and said the property is zoned for commercial use.
The developer requested the county remove the protected status to help speed up approval of the warehouse project.
Attorney Edwin J. Stacker, representing the developer, said the plan would preserve more than an acre of mangroves and remove invasive species.
“We are actually preserving and enhancing the wetlands on the property with the site plan that will ultimately come back to the city,” Stacker said.
You can see the proposed ordinance below:
However, there is no scientific evidence showing the mangroves are degraded.
The wetlands appear dry because South Florida is experiencing an unusually severe and widespread drought, but the area remains active wetlands and the mangroves are still alive and hydrologically connected.
Mangroves play a key role in coastal resilience, protecting communities from sea level rise, storm surge and flooding, while also providing habitat for wildlife, including threatened and endangered species.
“I’ve seen the animals that live there, and I know what it looks like,” Williams said. “They describe it as degraded, and it’s not.”
Despite the county’s decision, the project isn’t over.
Phillip Singleton, another attorney for the developer, said the team is now exploring other options, including a possible land swap.
“Right now, we’re trying to work to get a land swap or other conversations to see, okay, what can get done?” Singleton said. “Because we purchased the land for the intent of building the warehouse, because it was zoned for commercial use.”
Williams said she plans to keep fighting the proposal.
“You can never take your eye off the ball,” she said. “Out here in Florida, we’ve learned that the developers are just consuming the state as a whole, and you can never turn your back, I’m going to follow this until it’s actually officially terminated.”
Representatives for the landowner said they will continue seeking approval for the project, noting the property was purchased in 2019 from Nova Southeastern University because it was zoned industrial.
They also said if the county wants to truly protect the mangroves, it should consider buying the property back.
You can see the proposed project below:
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