We’ve seen this movie before. In this article I describe three resident petition initiatives in Boca Raton, Florida from recent years. The residents designed all three petitions to prevent the city from unilaterally selling/leasing public land for private use. Boca Raton brands itself as the “City within a Park”. The city’s 49 parks, miles of beaches, etc., motivated many residents to move here, and they don’t want to see that degraded.
Change
Sydney J. Harris has a relevant quote for this situation. “Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.” When residents feel that their lifestyle amenities are threatened and city representatives do not respond to their requests, they turn to a more direct form of democracy – the petition.
Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.
Sydney J. Harris
Three Boca Petition Initiatives
Over the past 15 years, residents have executed petition initiatives regarding attempts to commercialize three parcels of public land that they felt should be for public use. The parcels are Ocean Strand, Wildflower and Memorial Parks. In all three cases the ordinance language covers more public land than just the parks as developers and the city were also proposing commercializing several public lands. Here is a description of each of the three petition initiatives.
Ocean Strand Park
This parcel is located at 999-901 NE Ocean Strand Dr, Boca Raton, FL 33431. This is on the west side of A1A between Gumbo Limbo and Spanish River Parks. The article “Another Development Proposed for Boca Raton’s Ocean Strand” describes why residents started their petition drive.
In 2010, a group of residents called Keep Your Boca Beaches Public collected 1,522 audited and certified petition signatures to prevent the commercialization of Ocean Strand. After a lengthy legal battle which the residents won, the city decided to designate the Ocean Strand parcel and all city-owned land east of the intracoastal waterway for recreation only. This avoided a referendum on the ordinance. Details are in Ordinance 5228.
Wildflower Park
This parcel is located at 551 E Palmetto Park Rd, Boca Raton, FL 33432. This is on the intracoastal waterway just NW of the Palmetto Park Bridge. The article “Wildflower Past, Present and Future” has the background on Wildflower Park.
Unlike the Ocean Strand situation, the Boca Raton city council ignored the residents’, 1,728 audited and certified petition signatures. This triggered a referendum scheduled for November 8, 2016.
The results of the referendum overwhelmingly favored preserving all city-owned lands along the intracoastal waterway for recreation purposes. This includes Wildflower Park.
The article “Overwhelming Mandate! 67% Yes….33% No” has details on the results of the referendum.
Memorial Park
This park is located at 150 Crawford Blvd, Boca Raton, FL 33432 which is part of the downtown government campus north of Palmetto Park Road. The article “SAVE BOCA: It’s Gonna Make You Mad.” describes Memorial Park history as well as the recent government campus development proposal.
Note that the government campus development proposal has gone through several iterations from that described in the above link. The City of Boca Raton updated its web page on the project here: Downtown Campus Redevelopment Project.
To halt the current city council from leasing public land to a private developer for 99 years, a resident group named Save Boca submitted 7,700 petition signatures to stop the government campus development. The petition language also prevented the city from selling or leasing more than .5 acres of public land without a vote by the residents.
On October 1, 2025, the Palm Beach County supervisor of elections confirmed that 6,201 petition signatures passed audit and were confirmed sufficient to have the issue presented to the city council for a decision.
The city council decided to not implement the charter change described in the petition. The city council substituted its own ballot questions on the subject for the March 10, 2026, municipal election. Ballot: E583 – Municipal Election – Sample Ballot.PDF
Summary
This article provides information on three recent resident petition initiatives – Ocean Strand, Wildflower and Memorial Parks. Details include petition signature counts and the outcomes of the initiatives.
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