City commissioners in Miami voted last month to allow an encampment of 50 - 100 “tiny homes” for homeless people to be developed on Virginia Key Beach Park, a place where many locals enjoy recreational activities.

The encampment will reportedly be set up at the back of the park, between the park’s bike trails and the Virginia Key Outdoor Center, which rents kayaks and paddle boards, according to NBC Miami.

This is a public park. This a park where the people of Miami come,” owner of the Virginia Key Outdoor Center, Esther Alonso, told NBC Miami, calling the island “a poor man’s retreat.”

Alonso also told the outlet she expects to lose her business and is concerned for the fate of her employees.

Critics of the city’s move fear the encampment could prevent locals from wanting to come to the island.

One local bike rider was surprised by the city’s plan and feared it may negatively impact the island’s ability to attract people looking to do something outdoors.

Oh man, I mean I want them to have a place to stay, but I just feel like there is so much action and attraction for everybody. The bikes and the canoes and I feel like it’s going to take away. It might take some people ... it might scare them away to come over here,” Carlos Alfonso told NBC Miami.

Virginia Key Beach Park Trust Executive Director Guy Forchion said the city’s move doesn't improve the safety of residents seeking to spend time in the park or the homeless people themselves.

We’re talking about a population that really needs a lot of services,” Forchion told NBC Miami. “We’re roughly 2 miles from Rickenbacker Causeway, which is where public transportation does touch.”

There is an online petition to stop the encampment, but according to NBC Miami, the city has said it will move forward with the plan.

“This is about land like no other natural area in Miami,” Alonso said, according to The Miami Herald. “Nobody wants a homeless encampment in their backyard, so we’ll put it in everybody’s backyard, in a gem of a public park. It would not be a good co-existence situation. You can’t have a bunch of homeless men around teenage girls in bikinis.”