Florida developer Mori Hosseini denies seeking favoritism from DeSantis for path to homes

Editor: This story has been updated to add additional information about the history of the Pioneer Trail interchange project and local government support.

For more than 10 years, residents along the winding rural New Smyrna Beach two-lane Turnbull Bay Road have posted yard signs in opposition to a symbol of a future they'd rather not see.

The Pioneer Trail interchange with Interstate 95 where New Smyrna Beach meets Port Orange − a project in the works for decades − kept on keeping on, though, and here, in 2023, it appears set to be built.

The state Department of Transportation late last year dropped $92 million into the Pioneer Trail bucket, the Washington Post reported Thursday. The Post wrote that according to state documents, the funding "through the (Gov. Ron) DeSantis administration" expedited the project by more than a decade.

The Post story framed the funding − from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 − around the relationship between Volusia County homebuilder Mori Hosseini and DeSantis, who's bidding for the Republican nomination for president.

Hosseini has a long history of funding DeSantis' political career, including allowing the governor to use his private plane and loaning a pricey golf simulator to the Governor's Mansion months after DeSantis' 2019 inauguration. Meanwhile, in 2021 DeSantis reappointed Hosseini to the University of Florida Board of Trustees, which he chairs.

Jessica Ottaviano, a spokeswoman for the DOT, said in an email Thursday that both the Pioneer Trail project’s contract award and construction dates "are anticipated to be announced in the near future."

Hosseini denies seeking favors

Hosseini, as chairman and CEO of ICI Homes of Daytona Beach, has a lot invested in Woodhaven, a burgeoning housing and commercial development just to the northwest of Pioneer Trail at I-95.

However, the Post reported it reviewed 2,700 pages of documents from 2020 and 2021 obtained in a public-records request that shows Hosseini and DeSantis have a working relationship but there was no mention of the Pioneer Trail project.

Hosseini, who did not talk to the Post, denied seeking favoritism in an interview with The News-Journal on Thursday.

"I have never, ever in my life gone to any governor and asked for anything. Not a governor, not a speaker of the house, not a Senate president, nothing about me. Nothing about my projects," Hosseini said.

Hosseini said he bought the land for Woodhaven in 2005, long after the Pioneer Trail interchange project was on local transportation plans.

As to his dealings with elected officials, Hosseini said he has solicited help for institutions he supports, including the University of Florida, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and Daytona State College.

"I take care of my community and my students of this state," he said.

Jeremy Redfern, the governor's press secretary, tweeted several attacks against the Post and its reporter, Michael Scherer, including a digitally enhanced photo of Scherer dressed as a circus clown. He called the story a "nothing burger."

History of controversies

The Pioneer Trail interchange has been in the works for nearly 40 years. In 1985, a Volusia Coastal Area Transportation Study included an I-95 interchange in the area, while in 1995, the predecessor to the River To Sea Transportation Planning Organization included the project in a 25-year plan. For nearly as long, some locals have expressed concerns.

Concerns about urban sprawl were voiced in 2001, six years after the sale of Spruce Creek Ranch to a group that would ultimately develop Venetian Bay, a New Smyrna Beach golf community with more than 2,000 homes.

Initially supportive, the New Smyrna Beach City Commission, voted in 2007 to oppose the project after hearing from residents, including one who said it would lead to ruinous "mini-marts, gas stations, and crime."

The commission later voted to support it.

Also in 2007, the Port Orange City Council voted in favor of the project, which was later debated at a transportation planning organization meeting, but it remained in the long-range plan after a 16-2 vote and has since been supported by local governments.

Then, in 2021, Volusia County Chair Jeff Brower held a press conference with environmentalists to protest a maneuver that he said is in violation of a federal court opinion requiring such projects to be assessed under the Federal Environmental Policy Act. He continued his objections in an interview Thursday.

"It's a shame," Brower said, expressing concerns that the new interchange is on land that is part of the Spruce Creek watershed, which feeds into the environmentally sensitive Indian River Lagoon.

The lagoon, which resides within six coastal Florida counties and is home to more species than any other estuary in North America, has suffered a loss of seagrass, which has led to spikes in manatee deaths in recent years.

In May, a group called Save Don't Pave Spruce Creek, issued a news release calling for a halt to the interchange.

Derek LaMontagne, the campaign's researcher, and a local conservationist, said FDOT has amended its plans since public hearings in 2018 and 2020, with a greater footprint at a higher cost.

“The price tag has tripled since the initial public meeting in 2018, to over $120 million dollars, and much of this cost is due to extra construction projects being added which have nothing to do with an Interchange,” he said. “Based on the permitting website, it looks like the FDOT has secretly added three new and unrelated parts to the project, including two new developer road stub-outs and a roundabout. These parts were never presented at a public meeting and we feel they are a ‘poison pill’ which should make even supporters of the interchange question why this is getting pushed forward."

Traffic relief sought

Advocates for the project have argued there's a need for improved transportation infrastructure to serve the thousands of homes that have sprouted in the area over the past two decades, with more on the way.

The closest I-95 interchanges at Dunlawton Avenue to the north in Port Orange and State Road 44 to the south in New Smyrna Beach have seen building congestion.

Ottaviano, the DOT spokeswoman, noted that the Federal Highway Administration approved a Volusia County/Port Orange report justifying the need for the interchange. Also, traffic analyses done in 2017 and 2018 estimated a 12% decrease in traffic volume at the Dunlawton interchange and a 14% reduction at the State Road 44 interchange.

"As we refine project plans this data is subject to change as these were early estimations done prior to the pandemic and do not account for the rapid growth the area is currently experiencing," she wrote in an email.

The Pioneer Trail interchange is among many in Florida needed to keep up with the surging population, Ottaviano added.

Longtime traffic engineer Maryam Ghyabi-White said Thursday she advocated for the ARPA funding to be used for Pioneer Trail because its design was ready.

There are other interchanges along I-95 where the public is clamoring for improvements, including U.S. 1 in Ormond Beach and LPGA Boulevard in Daytona Beach. But Ghyabi-White said Pioneer Trail was the only one that was near shovel-ready.

Ghyabi-White is Hosseini's sister but she said she derives no income from ICI or Hosseini's other companies, while her company's work has exclusively served public projects for decades.

Over the years, she said she has spoken out against the level of development, particularly in the Port Orange-Dunlawton area. After Rick Scott became governor in 2011, while Florida recovered from the Great Recession, he eliminated state oversight of the kinds of major developments that Port Orange and New Smyrna Beach have seen, she said.

"Local governments were not prepared to deal with developments of regional impact," she said. "And local governments don't have the money to address infrastructure, so the only money we can get is from the state."

Now that overdevelopment is Volusia County's reality, transportation infrastructure is a necessity, she said.

From Williamson to Woodhaven: New $15M road opens, development soon

Priorities and Practicalities: 'Critical' LPGA stretch at I-95 unfunded; could federal government's billions speed it up?

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Mori Hosseini, a developer, denies I-95 interchange favors from DeSantis