Toll road approved to cut through Split Oak Forest
The state wildlife agency entrusted with managing Split Oak Forest decided Wednesday to lift protections shielding the 1,700-acre conservation property, clearing the way for the Central Florida Expressway Authority to build its preferred route for a toll road across the publicly-owned lands.
Meeting in Daytona Beach, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission voted 6-1 to set aside objections of environmental groups and accept a deal negotiated by its staff that allows the road-building authority to cut through the forest in exchange for $43 million and a 1,550-acre land donation.
“It’s not as pristine as you think it is,” commission chairman Rodney Barreto said to an audience composed mostly of opponents to the deal, describing development that includes homes, a high school and an industrial park pushing up against the forest. “I’m starting to think this is a great deal for Fish & Wildlife.”
After the vote, boos and shouts of “shame” came from the audience.
The wildlife panel’s vice chairman, Steven Hudson, president and CEO of a family-owned company which has developed over 4,000 apartment and condominium units in Florida, including some in Orlando, cast the lone vote against lifting the conservation protections.
The vote culminated one of the most divisive and consequential environmental battles Central Florida has seen in years. Split Oak advocates had hoped the wildlife agency would steer the proposed toll road, State Road 534, around a forest created 30 years ago with a pledge to preserve it forever.
All but one of the 40 people who addressed the wildlife board Wednesday pleaded for them to reject the deal with the expressway authority and side with the forest’s many advocates.
Among those who came to the defense of the forest were representatives of the League of Women Voters of Orange County, the Florida Wildlife Federation, the Gopher Tortoise Council, the Wildlife Research Alliance and the United States Association of Reptile Keepers, all nonprofits that spoke up on behalf of wildlife.
Some advocates even chastised commissioners for looking at their phones while the public addressed them.
Debbie Rambis, an Osceola County resident and Split Oak defender, said she didn’t see expressway officials at the meeting.
None spoke.
“So I feel like this is a done deal,” Rambis said before the vote. “I hope that I’m wrong.”
Others fretted that opening Split Oak for a road would imperil other conservation lands.
“I think you guys have negotiated a really good deal and I think it sets a really bad precedent,” said Travis Thompson, a Polk County sportsman whose social-media pages describe him as a conservationist and a duck rancher. “But, man, my gut says I don’t like it.”
The lone voice speaking in favor of the road before the vote was Chuck Echenique, executive director of The Future of Hunting in Florida. [He made reference to the fact that the cut-through will occupy just 60 of the forest’s acres, while cleaving another 100 acres from the rest of Split Oak.
“I’m having a hard time understanding why people consider this such a travesty. Anytime we can pick up 1,500 acres for the loss of 60, I’d be all for it,” he said, drawing some groans from the crowd. “It seems like, at least to me, this is a fight at all cost for a very few.” Audubon Florida has also spoken favorably of the land deal, though it did not send a representative to the Wednesday meeting.
The route for the toll road preferred by expressway leaders extends east from near Orlando International Airport across the forest’s southern edge, then further east to vast swaths of land in Orange and Osceola counties that is marked for residential and commercial projects of Tavistock Development Co. and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns 300,000 acres.
Cash offered for Split Oak Forest road deal is tripled to $43 million
The development partners previously had pledged to donate 1,550 acres of undeveloped forest and wetlands adjoining Split Oak to offset environmental harm to the forest from the intrusion of the road. That land contains cypress swamp and longleaf pine forest as well as an abandoned citrus grove and former cattle pasture that are ripe for restoration.
Then, in an agreement revealed Tuesday, the expressway authority pledged $23.9 million for the restoration and management of those acres in Orange and Osceola counties, another $1.25 million to improve forest entrances and “amenities,” and $18 million more to buy additional, unspecified wildlife corridor conservation lands. That pledge tripled the amount of cash offered earlier.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, who serves on the expressway’s governing board, said he had hoped for a decision that would have no impact on the forest. “However, I do believe the negotiated $43 million and 1,550-acre land donation will help to preserve the integrity of this vital green space for our community and ensure the acquisition of additional preservation lands in Central Florida,” he said.
Valerie Anderson, a founder of Friends of Split Oak and a leading opposition voice, said she had no clear next step in mind for fighting the expressway, but her group brought a stenographer to produce a transcript of the meeting, perhaps signaling a legal challenge.
