Leaders to privately discuss River Cross settlement offer
Seminole commissioners plan to meet behind closed doors Wednesday to talk about a proposal pitched by Chris Dorworth, the developer of the highly controversial River Cross project, that would settle a pair of lawsuits he has against the county if the 669-acre property is carved out of Seminole’s rural boundary.
Dorworth and his River Cross Land Co. would then submit new development plans to the county for the old pastureland tucked between the Econlockhatchee River and County Road 419, just north of the Orange County line.
Or the land could be annexed into neighboring Oviedo after it is removed from Seminole’s rural boundary, where development is restricted to at least one home per 5 acres.
Asked if they’d support a River Cross annexation, three of the five members of Oviedo’s City Council either wouldn’t say or didn’t respond.
Councilmembers Bob Pollack and Jeff Boddiford said they wanted to hold off commenting on a River Cross annexation until they see detailed plans. Councilmember Judith Dolores Smith did not return calls or emails for comment.
However, Oviedo’s mayor and one council member said they would likely vote against annexing the River Cross property into their city under the current plans for the massive development.
“I would want to know how this would work for the city of Oviedo,” Mayor Megan Sladek
said. “If we’re going to annex, I want to see how it’s going to help the people of Oviedo who are already here and also not harm the environment. It needs to help someone instead of the developer.”
At Monday’s City Council meeting, Sladek said she’s “not interested in bringing anybody into the city for the purpose of intensifying development,” adding that she would not support an attempt by River Cross to use annexation into Oviedo to circumvent the county’s authority.
Council member Keith Britton said he too would hesitate to bring the River Cross property into his city under the current plans.
“That’s a decision that we would have to make if it ever comes before us,” Britton said. “But to be honest with you, I would rather preserve that rural area.”
Sladek and the council members said they had not spoken to Dorworth or his representatives about any annexation plans recently.
Dorworth said there have been “informal conversations over the years but nothing recently” with city officials about annexing into Oviedo.
“I don’t think there’s much point in spending more money evaluating that until said time, as we know what we can do,” he said in a text message to the Sentinel. “When we know we’re out of the [rural] boundary, we can come up with a conceptual plan and discuss what would go well there.”
Wednesday’s closed-door meeting will begin at 2 p.m. Immediately afterward commissioners will open their meeting to the public.
According to Florida’s Sunshine Law, public officials can meet privately to discuss litigation strategy. However, minutes of those meetings are required to be kept, and any decisions or actions must be made at a public meeting.
Seminole commissioners said they could not discuss the River Cross settlement proposal at the advice of the county attorney’s office.
River Cross has drawn fervent opposition from residents, with incumbents on the Seminole County commission who voted against the project in 2018 scoring landslide victories last year despite attack ads against them linked to money from development interests.
In his latest attempt to get the project on track, Dorworth’s River Cross Land Co. sent an email to Seminole on April 1 proposing that the county remove the land — made up of mostly grazing land, old citrus groves and woods — from Seminole’s rural boundary.
River Cross would then submit plans for a community with an average density of no more than two homes per acre — or up to 1,338 residential units in total — and 200,000 square feet of space for restaurants, shops and offices.
That new development would be less dense than his original River Cross plans, according to Dorworth.
The original River Cross plans called for 1,370 residential units — 600 single-family homes, 270 townhouses and 500 apartments — as well as 1.5 million square feet of commercial and professional space.
Seminole commissioners unanimously voted down those plans at an August 2018 meeting filled with scores of River Cross opponents.
Two months later, Dorworth sued Seminole in federal court arguing that the county’s rural boundary, and the commission’s rejection of his development, violate the Fair Housing Act because it has a segregative effect and restricts affordable housing in the area.
Last May, he filed a subsequent lawsuit in state court arguing that Seminole’s voter-approved rural boundary is “vague” and “arbitrary” and should be tossed out. He said in his lawsuit that Seminole County can simply refuse to hear or reject a property owner’s application to develop or have their land removed from the rural area without any specific guidelines or due process.
In his latest settlement proposal, Dorworth also argued his new development would serve as a “transition area” between Seminole’s rural east side and the more urban high-density area west of the Econlockhatchee River.
He added that in the mid-2000s, Seminole and Oviedo signed a joint planning agreement — which has since expired — that singled out the River Cross land as a transition area that should require a greater density than within the rural boundary.