Lauren Ritchie: Counties must stop ignoring Four Corners.
Watching growth in Four Corners is like seeing a giant cocoon crack open to reveal — what? A beautiful butterfly? A miles-wide flesh-eating bacteria? Who knows? Four Corners is where four counties — Orange, Osceola, Polk and Lake — meet about 20 miles west of Kissimmee in Osceola. Twenty years ago, it was pretty much the middle of nowhere.
Today, it’s home to, well, a whole bunch of residents who are kind of bewildered and often feel — rightly so — neglected by local government because they live in a far-flung part of Central Florida. Residents often don’t know their jurisdictions and local officials struggle to deliver services.
“I had to learn that I was a Four Corners’ resident of Lake County,” said Jose Gonzalez, a technician for CenturyLink who pastors a church there. “If I was to do a poll, 85 percent of the people think they’re Clermont residents, and they’re not. “All I’ve been doing the last four or five years is trying to say that we can’t be defined unless you help define us.” Don’t hold your breath, Jose. Orange County Commissioner Betsy VanderLey summed up the situation best:
“It’s hard to define — the growth is extremely significant,” she said. “But it’s kind of amorphous.”
Indeed. Four Corners is far from the heart of any of the four counties, and none of them seems to care much about what goes on in the hinterlands. They have been like bad parents who birth children who are then left to scrabble themselves into adulthood as best they can.
Estimates place the population of 92 square miles of Four Corners at close to 90,000 this year, more than twice the size of Altamonte Springs in Seminole County. That doesn’t include droves of tourists staying in thousands of hotel rooms and shortterm rentals and who are on the roads and in the restaurants there every day — but aren’t counted as “residents.”
And it just keeps growing — as law enforcement is well aware.
Lake County Sheriff Peyton Grinnell is asking county commissioners for four more deputies in October to patrol that specific area in Lake.
“We’re getting killed on the car burglaries, on people looking for a quick grab in the apartment complexes,” he said. “And traffic is always the No. 1 complaint down there.”
No wonder he calls Four Corners “down there.” From his office in Tavares — the middle of the county — the heart of Four Corners is 54 minutes south.The north tip of Lake is an hour north.
Grinnell said the sheriffs have worked joint operations and have agreements to cross each other’s borders, but that’s about it.
One of his goals is to figure out how people think of themselves
and to get an effective Neighborhood Watch program underway.
“We have to get a better presence so we’re not just reactive,” Grinnell said.
His challenges there mirror those of the rest of government struggling to serve people who are paying the same taxes as everybody else in the county.
Meanwhile, Four Corners continues to grow like a gooey blob, smothering key roads and dripping into the more rural areas. And the counties that are supposed to serve people there are letting it happen without any kind of plan to work together.
“The need is now,” said VanderLey, whose district takes in Four Corners.
Many of the folks who live in the area are employees of the theme parks — they’ll often remark that they live at “Disney’s backdoor.” There are huge apartment complexes — one that is assessed at $21.3 million in Lake was the single biggest construction project on the county’s tax roll last year.
Traditionally, Four Corners has been populated by residents who tended to come and go — without demanding services. That’s changing, and it’s why the counties need to start working together to serve the area.
“Residents are starting to identify more personally with the area and are beginning to plant roots,” said Robert Chandler, Lake’s Economic Growth director. “They’re desiring more services
“How do we bring a sense of community? Either allow us to become the Four Corners city, or stop telling us, ‘You guys need to figure this out.’ ” Four Corners resident Jose Gonzalez
and more amenities consistent with a quicklygrowing family community.”
That’s true, Gonzalez said, but at the moment, they’d settle for a little basic infrastructure — a school to relieve the overcrowding at Sawgrass Bay Elementary where 1,400 students are jammed into the public school, a little lighting for the busiest roads, maybe a park, public transportation. Residents of the other three counties have their own lists.
The desire for one thing is coming true: South Lake Hospital is building a freestanding emergency room in the heart of the area — at U.S. highways 27 and 192 — and it’s to open by the end of the year. Still, Four Corners needs help. “How do we bring a sense of community? Either allow us to become the Four Corners city, or stop telling us, ‘You guys need to figure this out,’ ” Gonzalez said. “We need to find the right people to come together and start making this happen.”