Road board won’t allow interchange for Wekiva

A last-minute and controversial push to build an unplanned interchange along the emerging Wekiva Parkway was rejected Thursday by the region’s toll-road agency at the urging of environmentalists and government officials.

But another road project — a proposed expressway though the Split Oak Forest — was approved for further evaluation that includes negotiations with surrounding landowners. The agency is considering possible routes for extending the Osceola Parkway toll road across the Split Oak Forest Wildlife and Environmental Area, which straddles east Orange and Osceola counties.

Though opposition to the concept is significant, Tavistock Development Co. and Deseret Ranches have offered to conserve nearly 1,400 acres of forest and agricultural land nearby as mitigation for the environmental damage that would result from paving a high-speed road through Split Oak. Tavistock and Deseret are pursuing enormous development in that corner of Central Florida.

Orange County Commissioner Jennifer Thompson, also a member of the Central Florida Expressway Authority board, called for the it to draw from the lessons, debate and legislation that led to approval to build the Wekiva Parkway across the Wekiva River and its web of springs, wetlands and forest. She recalled that former Gov. Jeb Bush more than 13 years ago called for regional agreement that the Wekiva Parkway would be built to protect the river’s fragile environment.

“We can take exactly that statement from years ago and apply it to Split Oak,” Thompson said. “I look forward to finding that solution … so that we can protect the environment and at the same time get this critical transportation piece moved forward.”

When finished in 2021, the Wekiva Parkway system will connect with Interstate 4 near Sanford and State Road 429 near Apopka and complete an expressway loop around Orlando. The parkway is being built by the expressway authority and the state Department of Transportation. Under state law intended to limit the extent of roadside development, just one interchange is allowed between U.S. Highway 441 in Orange County and State Road 46 in Lake County. It is being built at Kelly Park Road.

This year, Lake County Commissioner Leslie Campione stunned environmentalists when she called for another interchange near Mount Plymouth to spare that rural community from traffic cutting through the area to get to the parkway interchanges at U.S. 441 and Kelly Park Road.

Environmentalists braced for the possibility that the interchange proposal would gain momentum at the behest of developers. Instead, and in turn, the city of Apopka and Seminole and Orange counties rejected the idea.

At Thursday’s meeting, Audubon, Friends of the Wekiva River, Apopka Mayor Joe Kilsheimer and Seminole County Commissioner Lee Constantine, a former state senator who shepherded the parkway legislation, urged denial of the interchange.

Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs, a member of the road agency, responded that it would be a violation of many years of public trust to move forward with the interchange.