A Waterfront Vision for the Treasure Coast — Let's Not Repeat Someone Else's Mistakes

Opinion | TC Sentinel Editorial Board

There is a moment in every waterfront redevelopment project — a narrow, irreversible window — when a community gets to decide what kind of place it wants to become. The Treasure Coast is standing in that window right now.

The Hope Florida waterfront project has generated genuine excitement across Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River counties, and rightly so. A well-designed waterfront development can anchor an economy, restore public access to the water that defines this region's identity, and create the kind of gathering place that pulls a fractured community together. We want to believe that is what is coming. We have seen enough to know that wanting is not enough.

The Jersey Shore example looms large — and it should. Dozens of coastal communities from Asbury Park to Long Branch spent decades and hundreds of millions of public dollars on waterfront redevelopment projects that promised transformation and delivered instead a patchwork of stalled construction, private encroachment on public space, and skylines that serve investors rather than residents. The pattern is depressingly familiar: bold renderings, ribbon cuttings, then a slow retreat from the commitments that made the project worth building in the first place.

Proponents of the Hope Florida project will argue, fairly, that the Treasure Coast is not the Jersey Shore. The scale is different. The regulatory environment in Florida has matured. Local stakeholders, including Martin County planning staff and community advocates who have fought for Indian River Lagoon restoration, have more tools to demand accountability than their counterparts did in earlier eras of coastal development.

That is true. It is also not a reason to proceed without structured safeguards.

What this editorial board is asking for is straightforward: binding public-access guarantees written into every development agreement, not aspirational language buried in a preamble. Independent environmental review — separate from any consultant hired by the developer — to assess lagoon and shoreline impact before a single permit is issued. And a transparent financing structure that shows Treasure Coast taxpayers exactly what public dollars are at risk and under what conditions.

Stuart Mayor Becky Bruner and her counterparts in Fort Pierce and Vero Beach have an opportunity to set terms that protect the public interest rather than ratify whatever a developer puts on the table. That opportunity diminishes with every concession made in a pre-application meeting the public never sees.

The waterfront belongs to all of us. The decisions being made about it right now do not always feel that way.

Treasure Coast residents who want a voice in this process should attend their city and county commission meetings when waterfront development items appear on the agenda, submit written comments to their local planning departments, and ask their elected representatives one direct question: Where is the written guarantee that the public keeps its share of the shore?

That question, asked loudly and often enough, is the difference between a riverfront we are proud of in thirty years and one we spend thirty years apologizing for.

This article was generated with AI assistance using publicly available information. It was reviewed and approved by a human editor before publication. TC Sentinel uses AI writing tools in accordance with FTC guidelines.