Showdown at the Yarborough Ranch: Will developers or the public buy this piece of Central Florida?

For environmentalists and conservationists, the 1,314 acres of pastureland tucked near the banks of the Econlockhatchee River in east Seminole County have value that dwarfs their size: They form a critical, as-yet-unpreserved piece of a statewide wildlife corridor that runs from north Florida to the Everglades.

Owned by the cattle-ranching family the Yarboroughs for nearly 150 years, the land is dotted with ponds, wetlands and old-growth forest. Deer, bobcats, bears, eagles, snakes, and waterfowl have shared the expansive Yarborough Ranch with grazing cattle and cowboys.

But about two decades ago the Yarboroughs were granted the right to build 300 homes on the ranchland that lies within Seminole’s rural boundary just east of Snow Hill Road near Geneva, and now the family says it is ready to cash in. That has touched off escalating calls for the public to buy the land first — and the decision on how to proceed seems imminent.

Seminole County has asked the state’s Florida Forever conservation program to buy the land, whose estimated cost exceeds $30 million. If the state denies or holds off on the purchase in the coming weeks, then three Seminole commissioners — barely a majority of the five-member board — have preliminarily agreed the county should foot the bill.

On Tuesday, county staff are scheduled to update commissioners on the state’s plans. Commissioners also may discuss giving the Yarboroughs $3.4 million — a sort of down payment — to hold off a sale to developers for another year.

“This opportunity just cannot be let to slip by,” said Charles Lee, director of advocacy for Audubon Florida. “And even if someone is not as concerned about the importance of a wildlife corridor as much as Audubon is, there are plenty of people that live in rural settings who want to keep that lifestyle intact. And their ability to live that dream is going to be challenged if this property is allowed to be developed.”

The Yarborough ranch is relatively small when compared to the large tracts of preserved land surrounding it — including the Little Big Econ State Forest, the Chuluota Wilderness Area and the Charles H. Bronson Wildlife Management Area — that also form sections of the wildlife corridor.

Animals use such corridors to nest, hunt, breed and migrate, maintaining healthy populations of their species, said Lee. He argues that even 300 homes on 1-acre lots — as plans call for — would be disruptive to a preserved corridor of contiguous undeveloped land.

As an example, he pointed to the high concentrations of eagle nests in the area, including on the Yarborough Ranch.

“Typically, birds do a lot better when they are flying over large natural areas,” Lee said. “So whether it walks or flies, the wildlife corridor is an important asset and component of wildlife persisting in Florida.”

Seminole Commissioner Lee Constantine noted that conserving the Yarborough property also would protect the nearby Econlockhatchee River, a nearly 60-mile long waterway that flows north from Osceola County, through east Orange and into the larger St. Johns River in east Seminole.

“It would be a big win for the entire state of Florida,” Constantine said of protecting the land. “You don’t have that many opportunities where you have a willing seller. And there are so many positive environmental impacts to doing this.”

David Bear, president of the non-profit Save Rural Seminole, said the roads, traffic and noise generated by a subdivision of hundreds of homes clustered together would be “an impediment to the corridor functioning.”

“We want these animal populations to be able to move north and south along the wildlife corridor,” he said “No one is saying [the proposed development] is an impenetrable wall. But it impedes the functioning of a corridor.”

Members of the Yarborough family could not be reached for comment. Their real estate agent David Axel said Friday that the Yarboroughs’ “preference is preservation,” and that he and the family are “having confidential discussions with the state” on a possible purchase.

But in the end, he said, the Yarboroughs desire is to sell — and they have kept “willing buyers waiting in the wings.”

Commission Chair Jay Zembower says he understands the Yarborough’s motivations, noting the family would like some return on their investment going back generations.

“In Central Florida, we’re no longer a place where we raise cattle,” Zembower said. “It’s become an area where we raise housing developments, because there are so many people moving to Florida…So if you don’t buy it now, you will not ever be able to afford to do it 10 or 20 years from now.”

But Commissioner Amy Lockhart at a December board meeting said she wants to wait until the state’s Florida Forever Program weighs in on the purchase, a decision scheduled for March, before the county moves forward.

“I don’t think we have the money,” she said.

The pressure to resolve the ranch’s future has been building for years.

In the mid-2000s, the family — who once owned nearly 8,000 acres of ranchland in the area — entered into an agreement with the state of Florida and Seminole to sell 5,187 acres to the St. Johns River Water Management District for $30 million.

Environmentalists statewide cheered the sale, which included two miles of frontage property along the St. Johns River and five miles along the Econlockhatchee River.

At the time, however, the state did not have the money to purchase the remaining 1,314 acres. So as part of the deal, the Yarboroughs were granted development rights for the homes on a portion of their remaining property, which they have since continued to operate as a cattle ranch.

In December 2022, Seminole’s planning and zoning board approved a preliminary subdivision plan submitted by Pulte Homes Co., one of the largest residential construction firms in the country, to build 300 houses on 1-acre lots on the Yarborough Ranch, just south of Old Mims Road

But then, in April 2023, county commissioners agreed to ask the state’s Florida Forever program to acquire the 1,314 acres, staving off the Pulte development. This came months after the Yarboroughs had offered to sell their property to the county for $34 million, but then pulled back the offer.

Two appraisals commissioned by Seminole last October showed the land is worth about $35 million.

Richard Creedon, vice president of the Geneva Citizens Association, is among east Seminole residents who have long fought against developing the Yarborough Ranch property.

Building that many houses would deplete the underground Geneva bubble that provides potable water to homes in the area, he said. It also sits within Seminole’s voter-approved rural boundary where residential development is otherwise restricted to either one home per five acres or 10 acres.

“If you allow this to be developed, it would be like sticking a dagger into the heart of all the other properties that have been bought for preservation,” he said.

mcomas@orlandosentinel.com