04/09/2025
What has made Navarre special for so many years is its small town feel, pristine beaches, and small local businesses.
A majority of locals have been misled, however, thinking that our goal of incorporating Navarre was to urbanize it. In fact the goal was the opposite — to establish Navarre zoning, Navarre building ordinances, and comprehensive Navarre planning that would have slowed development and made developers adapt to our local way of life.
Now, many locals are shocked by how much overdevelopment is happening. We are seeing massive corporate gift shops, tolls bridges, and more neighborhoods forced into already congested areas. A local asked me what incorporation could have done about this (see below).
Too many people think that somehow Navarre can preserve itself without locals taking significant action. They assume that simply reshuffling county politicians or complaining in Milton’s public forum will slow development. They don’t want to pay for local representation, Navarre zoning laws, or Navarre building ordinances even though they want Navarre to be preserved.
Meanwhile outside interests are showing up in force and they will happily decide Navarre’s future and take advantage of the county’s generic laws. This will result in locals bearing the costs of low infrastructure and urbanization while monied interests sell Navarre to tourism for their own gain.
I wish there was a scenario in which Navarre’s beauty preserved itself magically and without any work, cost, or effort. But preserve is an action verb. It requires work, funding, sacrifice, and dedication.
And if Navarre wants a local code and ordinance system that limits development, there’s only one way to get it. The choice is clear — Navarre can either pay for local control, or Navarre will be destroyed by overdevelopment.
Right now we are unfortunately seeing the latter.
