Don't know the area, so I don't have an opinion, but I just wanted to point out an equivocation about parks (especially state parks), that if not spelled out, can be the source of much of the consternation.
That is, what function do we want parks to serve?
Parks as wildlife refuges: the environmentalists here seem to be making the 'park as last refuge of nature' argument, and that seems to be one of the functions that I see for parks generally. Obvious examples include
Great Basin National Park,
Pinnacles, and
Joshua Tree (though the
Mohave National Preserve has likely done more for that species). In this type of park, developing a golf course is almost universally a bad idea as we would be asking local flora to compete with the genetically-designed-to-out-compete grasses we've developed over the last hundred years. In this situation, and again I don't know the local ecology, but seeing significant wildlife areas west of the park makes me less concerned than I would normally be about a development.
Parks as conservation of uniquely beautiful natural features: many if not most of our natural parks are primarily set aside for this reason. You look at
Yosemite, which
contains a golf course, and you immediately know that it is set aside not for wildlife (while they may benefit), but for the uniqueness of the beauty of the valley it sits in. The same for
Yellowstone,
Grand Canyon,
Zion, etc. While controversial, I see no reason that golf courses cannot be added to these types of places, assuming that is what people want. This is likely the argument for course in places like Jasper and Banff.
Parks as recreational retreats: I think this is what people want in parks, even if they pretend otherwise (see: mountain bike trails at the park in question). It's also often in complete contrast to the natural environment that people associate with parks. We only need to look at the facade of nature that exists in most urban parks to understand this; e.g.,
Golden Gate Park, once simply dunes and a few oak trees, is now a bustling garden for myriad non-native species, thriving on trucked in soil, which has wildly reduced the habitat for the native sand-dwelling creatures. The most obvious example of this for our purposes here is
Bethpage State Park, which is almost exclusively for recreation, primarily golf.
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I think this conflation of ideas into a single word can complicate the debate in what is the appropriate use for any given park. While every park has a bit of mixed use, if the primary function of the park is well defined it would better facilitate any discussion of expanded use for the park in question. Here in SF, there was much consternation an attempt to add artificial lighting and turf to Golden Gate Park as removing the natural state and habitats of the park, which was thankfully disregarded as the people making that argument had no idea what they were talking about. This fact also made the redesign of GGPGC much easier as the main argument there was a move toward the original natural state of the park by removing the imported soil and non-native trees that had placed there decades ago.
The existence of Sharp Park in the Bay Area has obviously run up against the fact that it must now exist as a wildlife refuge, as development along the coast has removed the habitat of a couple threatened species. This complicates the operations of the course, but, ironically, the fresh water the course provides to the lagoon is probably the only reason it still exists.
I wish the folks in Jupiter luck, but I do find it pretty wild that the state is proposing adding a golf course to a park that is literally surrounded on all sides by golf courses... including Tiger Woods' private three-hole practice facility on Jupiter Island, and he is hardly the only person with visible golf facilities on the island.