Parkland, FL USDA Eligibility

Parkland is a suburban city, 42 miles northwest of Miami, in northern Broward County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Parkland was 34,670. Parkland is part of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to 6,166,488 people in 2020.

Parkland’s zoning laws are designed to protect the “park-like” character of the city. There were no stores or traffic lights in Parkland until the mid-1990s and early 2000s when large neighborhood developments (Heron Bay and Parkland Isles) were built. The city of Parkland has been known since its early days for its assortment of park spaces and its emphasis on environmental preservation. For the first few decades of its existence, horses outnumbered the town’s population.

On July 10, 1963 a city charter was passed upon legislative approval after actively supported through the Florida State House of Representatives as House bill 2079, guided through the Florida House with the aid of Representative Emerson Alsworth Esq., from the original idea of a city charter for an unincorporated rural ranch style open spaced town of founder and local farmer, rancher, veteran, and politician Bruce Blount. Early on, Blount put up tracts of his private land, calling his town BBB Ranches, in his original attempts for official recognition. Rep. Alsworth would facilitate this process of approval by adding in the bill the name of the proposed town as Parkland, a description befitting Blount’s initial proposal of an undeveloped town out of the way of the building boon of Broward County. And after a passing vote in July, on August 12, 1963, Parkland was officially recognized as a city of the state of Florida, by C. Farris Bryant, the Governor of Florida. Blount would go on to be the inaugural mayor of Parkland, previously having served as mayor and city commissioner of Pompano Beach.

On February 14, 2018, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the lone public High School in Parkland, Florida became the scene of a deadly mass shooting perpetrated by a former student, Nikolas Cruz. Surpassing the death toll at Columbine High School, the Stoneman Douglas shooting became the fifth deadliest shooting at a school inside the United States overall.

Parkland is located at 26°18′55″N 80°14′26″W / 26.315357°N 80.240444°W / 26.315357; -80.240444. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 12.8 square miles (33.2 km2), of which 12.3 square miles (31.9 km2) is land and 0.50 square miles (1.3 km2) (3.97%) is water. The northern boundary of Parkland coincides with the border between Broward and Palm Beach counties. West Boca Raton, an unincorporated area of Palm Beach County that extends west of Boca Raton’s city limits, lies to the north. Coconut Creek lies to the east, Coral Springs lies to the south and the west is bounded by the Everglades.