Martin County has made measurable progress toward preserving its western lands, but county leaders were told this week that some gaps remain as the county works to balance growth and its natural character.
The assessment came during a review of the county’s Western Lands Study and earlier planning efforts, reviewed by Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. The council examined decades of land-use studies and how effectively their recommendations have been carried out.
Thomas Lanahan, executive director of the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, pointed to recent large-scale developments as examples of how the county is moving towards preservation goals.
“They were changed in 2024, yielding Atlantic Fields, which has 1,500 acres of development, with 70% of that preserved as open space, and Colusa Creek Ranch, 3,900 acres with 91% preserved as open space,” Lanahan said.
Those projects followed amendments to the county’s Rural Lifestyle land-use policies, which were adopted in 2022 and revised in 2024. The approach emphasizes clustering development while preserving large contiguous areas of open space, a model planners say is more compatible with long-term conservation goals.
Lanahan said county initiatives funded through the voter-approved Martin Forever sales tax have also helped move preservation goals forward.
“They identified progress using sales tax revenue through Martin Forever to preserve land, discouraging development without infrastructure, you have good policies for that, and investing in septic sewer conversions, which the counties put a lot of money into, a lot of effort,” he said.
Still, Lanahan said that preserving land is not just about acreage totals, but how those lands function together ecologically. Fragmented conservation areas, he said, are less effective than connected ones.
“That is important with preserved areas, especially from a wildlife and plant life perspective, is linkage among them,” he said. “A whole series of little islands separated by development are not as effective as those areas clustered together or adjacent to each other, so that the animals can flow from one place to the other.”
The review traced county planning efforts back more than two decades, including the 2020 Vision for a Sustainable Martin County, the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, the Martin–St. Lucie Regional Land-Use Study and multiple rural lands and development pattern studies. While many of those plans led to land acquisition, water-quality improvements and stronger design standards, others stalled before being fully implemented.
Among the shortcomings cited were the lack of a transfer of development rights program, limited incentives for agricultural preservation, incomplete adoption of smart-growth tools such as infill incentives and form-based codes, and the absence of a unified system to track sustainability metrics countywide.
Lanahan said the county should put its efforts into fine-tuning the initial recommendations of past and current studies.
“This is a big takeaway,” he said. “The county does not need another western land study. You don’t need it now. Instead, look at the strategies that have already been identified in the numerous studies that have been done, and see if you want to take up and move any of those further.”
He credited Martin County with steps other local governments have struggled to take, particularly in defining an urban-rural boundary and concentrating growth.
“You have taken steps here that other places have not taken on managing growth and concentrating growth in an urbanized area and preserving a rural area,” Lanahan said. “Put your money where your mouth is on land acquisition, which is very effective, and I would say is long-term the most effective tool for preserving that boundary.”
The presentation also compared approaches used in other states, including agricultural zoning paired with transfer of development rights programs, large-scale public land acquisition funded through dedicated revenue sources, and purchase-of-development-rights programs that compensate landowners for keeping property in agriculture. Planners noted that the most effective models tend to combine multiple tools rather than relying on a single policy.
Greg Braun, executive director of the Guardians of Martin County, who also worked on 2024 Western Land Study, asked the board for further state cooperation.
“We need to get back to the state of Florida and express our support for better funding for Florida Forever, the Florida Communities Trust Program, Rural and Family Lands,” he said. “There are a bunch of things like that that we would like to see you move forward with.”
AS the county looks ahead, Lanahan outlined priorities that include formally integrating past studies into enforceable policies, establishing measurable sustainability indicators, strengthening agricultural preservation tools, and improving public accountability through performance dashboards.