Land Preservation Bond Program Overview 2007

The Safe Parks and Land Preservation Bond Program, whose mission has been to assess, advise and aid in the acquisition and protection of the last remaining County lands, has entered into its final phase. The County Commission’s goal to “protect and restore important public lands, natural habitats and water bodies in Broward County” has been furthered through the expenditure of approximately $390 million out of the $400 million Safe Parks and Land Preservation Bond monies appropriated in 2000. (The remaining $10 million is being allocated in a competitive process as projects are completed and recognized for funding.) Presently, 92 sites comprising some 927 acres have been purchased with another 110 acres secured as County Parks. The development rights of another five sites totaling 64 additional acres have also been saved from development. The County will see the benefits of this program for years to come, as new natural areas, passive parks and neighborhood playgrounds are completed and opened to the public. Please review our 2007 annual report to see a sampling of the year’s accomplishments.

As this program winds down and the final sites are purchased, staff will begin the transition to the Land Stewardship Program. This program will assist in the ecological restoration, development and management of these acquired properties, ensuring that the requirements of the interlocal agreements for the operation and management of Bond Sites are being met. Additionally, through grants that are being developed for implementation next year, ecological restoration of prioritized Natural Lands and capital development of Green and Open Space sites are being encouraged and promoted.

Celebrating Success:

• Newly Opened Sites
• Habitats Preserved Through the Land Preservation Bond Program Upland Ecosystems
• Freshwater Wetlands and Aquatic Ecosystems
• Coastal Ecosystems

Newly Opened Sites

Cypress Conservation Park -- Conservation Land Site 105

Cypress Conservation Park is a 6.38-acre remnant cypress strand swamp located in the City of Lauderdale Lakes. The site is south of Oakland Park Boulevard and west of N.W. 49th Avenue and was dedicated on July 16, 2007. Few cypress strand swamp sites remain in Broward County. Development, water table shrinkage, and introduction of invasive exotics have eliminated stable cypress communities from most urban areas in Broward County.

Cypress Conservation Park has been restored by the removal of invasive exotic vegetation and replacement with native plant species indicative of the South Florida cypress swamp and/or bottomland forest community. Protection to the habitat includes a passive recreational trail for enjoyment and outreach education.

Richardson Nature and Historic Park Conservation Land and Green Space Site 91

The Richardson Nature and Historic Park is located in the City of Wilton Manors and was opened to the public on September 18, 2007. The site combines the preservation of approximately one acre of shoreline vegetation associated with the South Fork of the Middle River and two historic structures. Mangrove communities are rich habitats for wildlife, especially manatees and wood storks, both observed in the site, and classified as endangered or threatened by both the state of Florida and the County. Preservation efforts for this site include enhancing and maintaining the native shoreline community, looping a 280 feet channel to the interior of the mangrove, and replanting of saline tolerant native plant species to stabilize the shoreline berm.

The Richardson Nature and Historic Park also contains two historic buildings: a garage with an apartment built in 1926; and the main residence built in 1938. Both buildings will be preserved and maintained by the City of Wilton Manors as a cultural center.

Veterans Park - Open Space Site 79

Veterans Park is located at 200 N. 46th Avenue and Tyler Street in the City of Hollywood, and it is 0.97 acres in size. The site has been developed with play area, water feature, picnic shelter, multi-use trail and native plant species that attract birds and butterflies. Dedicated in June 13, 2007, to the men and women that have served this country in our armed forces, Veterans Park provides recreational opportunities to the public while increasing community pride and interaction.

Habitats Preserved Through the Land Preservation Bond Program Upland Ecosystems

Cypress Creek Scrub Preserve

In Broward County “healthy” scrub habitats are mostly found in protected areas. One such habitat is preserved in site CL 78D “Cypress Creek Scrub Preserve.” The preserve is 8.3 acres and located in the City of Fort Lauderdale, at the northeast corner of Cypress Creek Road/N.W. 62 Street and N.W. 21 Avenue. This site is a small remaining fragment of one of the most interesting and most imperiled plant communities in the United States, scrub habitat. Scrub habitat is part of a very old ecosystem found only on coastal and inland dunes left by retreating seas and less than 30 percent of the original scrub cover remains protected in Florida.

Scrub habit is found at the highest elevations of Broward County, and the security against flooding that these high patches of sandy land provided to the early settlers, make them highly desirable urban development lands today. The soil, characteristically sandy and acidic, drains water very quickly; there is no organic matter component within the soil making scrubs chronically low in nutrients. Only very specialized plant species adapt to this harsh environment, a characteristic that increases endemism i.e. species that occur in one place and nowhere else. Among them are dwarf oak tree species, paw paw, staggerbush and Florida rosemary.

The vegetation at Cypress Creek Scrub Preserve is characterized by both sand pines and scrub oaks, with a subcanopy of saw palmetto, dwarf scrub oaks, and hog plum. In the sand patches it is easy to find many herbaceous plants and lichens species. Some portions of the preserve have a prolific non-native plant component and associated debris.

The high fire frequency in scrub habitat, a constant that allowed a low and open landscape with a mosaic of scrub species in different stages of succession, also helped in the natural eradication of invasive exotic species. Although fire remains an important management tool, the proximity of the site to urban areas makes it unlikely that prescribed fire will become a viable option for this preserve.

Helene Klein Pineland Preserve

Helene Klein Pineland Preserve is a 13.18-acre pine flatwood situated at the northwest corner of Hillsboro Boulevard and Lyons Road in the City of Coconut Creek. Although the term “flatwoods” includes some very different vegetation communities, all flatwoods are flat lands with sandy soils moderately well drained. All have an open overstory of pines which allows for considerable amounts of sunlight to reach the forest floor, and an understory of saw palmetto, low shrubs and grasses.

In northern Broward County, flatwoods dominated the landscape; many changes occurred though since the arrival of the first settlers: agriculture, fire suppression as well as urban development. With time, the pressure for urban development in the northern portion of the County has only increased, especially in the City of Coconut Creek. Very few stands of flatwoods are left protecting the endemic south Florida Slash pine ecosystem in Broward County; and Helene Klein Pineland Preserve is a great example.

Historically, fire has been a major driving mechanism to maintain the stability of flatwood communities. In Broward County however, due to the proximity of urban development, flatwoods have not had prescribed or natural fires for an extended period of time. A condition evident by the various persistent oak trees in the edges of the site and the amount of fuel, in the form of dried vegetation, spread on the site floor. Oak trees are intolerant to fire and would not be present on this site if the fire regime was more characteristic of a “non urban” pine flatwood community. For that reason areas to the edges of the site have ecological characteristics of both pine flatwood and oak hammock while the interior of the reserve is a “genuine” south Florida pine flatwood community. Management activities for this preserve involve removal of exotic vegetation and debris, and possibly reestablishing a proper fire regime to control successional species and exotic vegetation.

Pine Island Ridge Addition

Restricted to south Florida, hammocks are true tropical forests filled with epiphytes, orchids, bromeliads and ferns. This community occupies the very few patchy elevations in the most eastern border of the Everglades in south Florida, a characteristic that gives them the “island like” shape of evergreen broad leaved trees surrounded by marshes. Many are associated with pinelands or are the last stage many pinelands will reach if fire is suppressed. Conservation Land Site 403A Pine Island Ridge Addition is a 1.33-acre hardwood hammock, located in Town of Davie to the north of Pine Island Ridge Park.

The site has great potential for connectivity with one major Conservation Land: Pine Island Ridge. Soils in hardwood hammocks are well drained and have a dominant tree cover of live oak, gumbo limbo, satin leaf, wild tamarind, strangler fig and mastic. Pine Island Ridge Addition has a fair representation of live oaks, but as with other Florida ecosystems, drainage efforts of the early 1900s affected the area. The reduction of the water table of the surrounding lowlands made the area available for development and priceless for human habitation, since floods would no longer reach these areas. In more extensive hardwood hammocks the abundance of large trees makes for a closed canopy that influences the amount of understory plant species. Among the understory species are wild coffee, marl berry, mulberry and white stopper. One management objective for the site is to restore part of the understory vegetation common to the area. Tropical hardwood hammocks are notably deficient in herbaceous species except at the edge of the hammock or where there is a canopy gap. Epiphytes on the contrary are abundant and well established. Common in many hammocks, and present here at Pine Island Ridge Addition, are resurrection ferns, tillandsia species, and climbing vines.

Freshwater Wetlands and Aquatic Ecosystems

Whispering Woods

Wetlands, the areas of transition between land and water, are one of the world’s most productive ecosystems, an important natural resources yet one of the least understood. Wetlands have been compared to tropical rain forests and coral reefs in the number and diversity of animal and plant species they support and the role they play in maintaining ecological balance. Although wetlands dominated South Florida landscape until the end of the 19th century, the “dream” of reclaiming land from this swampy habitat cleared a large percentage of the wetlands that covered south Florida. As a consequence the characteristic plant element emerging from shallow waters was greatly affected.

In the mid 1980s, a plan to restore wetland ecosystems started a new trend. Florida Counties, under the direction of the Everglades Restoration Plan started conservation efforts, mitigation projects and the reconstruction of wetland areas. In Broward County, wetlands range in size from tiny, isolated patches to larger systems such as the Everglades water conservation areas, and from wet all of the time to almost dry all the time. “Whispering Woods” OS-02, is an 11.36-acre site located in the city of Coral Springs that in 2004 was rezoned from commercial zone to Open Space. The property functions as a buffer to Whispering Woods, a residential community to the north and to the Red Lichen Sanctuary, a mixture of cypress and flatlands habitat to the west side.

A wetland restoration program will create 3.34 acres of wetlands, while the remainder of the site will be managed as a recreational park with some native tree cover and an understory of shrub species. Wetlands do not have to be part of a larger system to be valuable. Isolated and intermittent wetlands provide important habitat for many wildlife species such as frogs, lizards, snakes and turtles; rest stops for migrating birds; and filtering zones for water contaminants. Fresh water wetlands, with soils poorly drained, low and flat, may also have a tree element. These areas are called wet prairies, bogs, cypress swamps and sloughs. The lengthy flooding and the poor drainage of the soils are the most important characteristic for the plant species composition. Grasses and sedges are commonly present in this habitat and saw grass is very common in many wetland habitats in south Florida. The controlled use of fire, or the chance event of a fire, can play a role in keeping pioneering wooded species away.

Shooster Cypress Preserve

Shooster Cypress Preserve is a type of forested wetland, important as a conservation land since it is one of only a few freshwater swamps on inventory in Broward County. It represents a remnant portion of a historic inland swamp described by John Davis in 1943, with cypress and a mix of other wetland species like red maple, and pond apple. Common subcanopy and ground layer vegetation include coco plum, Carolina willow, elderberry, whitevine, royal fern, and bracken fern. In the site there are also protected air plant species of the genus Tillandsia spp. Edges of the site are overrun by exotics like Brazilian pepper, guava, and bishopwood while the interior of the site remains an important cypress swamp habitat.

These communities are dependent on water level fluctuation upon the ground, which is dependent on rainfall amounts and surface runoff during rain events. Areas surrounding the site are artificially elevated for flood control; therefore rainfall flows into this lower lying site. One interesting physical characteristic at Shooster Cypress Preserve is a noticeable gradient from north to south. The lowest part of the site is located near the southwest corner, resulting in an especially interesting vegetation characteristic of long hydroperiod wetlands. Initial management activities include removal of exotic vegetation and debris; and installation of a perimeter fence and boundary signs to discourage dumping.

Coastal Ecosystems

North Fork Riverwalk

Mangroves were common on the western and southern coastline and on the offshore islands around south Florida. However, the dredging of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) and the opening of new inlets to the ocean, created environments more suitable to mangroves. As a result, mangroves became common along both sides of the ICW and in some places formed wide fringes over a mile wide, supporting marine food chains and serving as habitat and nursery grounds for many species of birds, fish and other wildlife. Currently however, only the very southern counties continue to have vast mangrove preserves.

In Broward County, West Lake Park’s 1,500-plus acres of coastal mangrove wetlands is one of the largest urban parks in Florida. It is rich in native vegetation and wildlife, including many threatened and endangered species. The rest of the county’s urban landscape of canals and seawalls has small fringes of mangroves that continue to provide habitat and refuge for native fauna. One such site is 141A – “North Fork Riverwalk” a two-acre mangrove and pond apple riparian community. It is located along the southern bank of the North Fork of the New River, north of Broward Boulevard and east of N.W. 18th Avenue in the City of Fort Lauderdale. This site is an important addition for shoreline stabilization and nutrient filtration.

Hollywood North Beach Addition 1 & 2

Conservation Lands 353 and 447 are 2.8-acre and .54-acre coastal primary and secondary beach dune-maritime hammock habitat additions to the 62-acre State-owned Hollywood North Beach Park (HNBP). Preservation of shoreline habitats like the ones above is important. Preservation ensures beach maintenance, protection of seabird and sea turtle nesting habitat as well as protection of plant species like sea grape, beach cordgrass, and joewood among others. Natural vegetation in coastal habitats (primary dunes more than the secondary dunes-maritime hammocks) must be well adapted to wind and water disturbances, to saline environments and must be fast growing species, to survive the always changing sand matrix. Since plant species grow at the same pace that the sand builds up, any disturbance in the sand matrix most likely affects the stability of the entire habitat. To illustrate the aforementioned statement: heavy foot traffic can damage vegetation by shifting sand and root systems, destabilizing the existent plant community. Management efforts include removal and control of exotic and invasive plants; and, replanting of native species by recruitment and seedling. To maintain and protect sea bird and sea turtle nesting habitat, Site CL 353 includes an environmental education program focused upon coastal ecology and monitoring.