Orange leaders decide against confrontation over Osceola toll road

Orange County leaders Tuesday decided against adopting a “no-build” resolution objecting to the proposed Osceola Parkway extension into Orange.

Mayor Teresa Jacobs argued that the board may have to “retract” such a message if a more palatable alignment for the toll road emerged that didn’t have similar “adverse affects” for Orange County.

“I think we’ve made clear we have concerns about this [current] alignment,” Jacobs said.

Appointed Osceola transportation leaders want to extend the toll road, and their preferred path currently spills into parts of Orange County and Orlando. The goal is to relieve future traffic in the rapidly growing but ecologically sensitive border between the two counties.

As proposed, however, it could split neighborhoods and run through sensitive lands. The plan being studied would build on the existing12-mile Osceola Parkway and start an extension from west of Boggy Creek Road, and build it eastward about 10 miles past Narcoossee Road.

Public pressure has been mounting from residents, builders and home sellers for Orange leaders to take a tougher stand against the current proposed project. None of them knows what the future holds.

County Commissioner Jennifer Thompson, who represents the area, asked for a resolution that formally urged that the Osceola Parkway extension not be built in Orange. Commissioner Fred Brummer pushed for a quick voteona no-build message to be “emphatic about it.”

But backers of the tollroad expansion urged Orange to back off the nobuild resolution.

Instead, Jacobs promoted an alternate resolution vote next week allowing Orange to have final say on any road project into the county.

Orange’s resolution would also “express concern” with the current road alignment, demand more communitymeetings in Orange, and allow the new Central Florida Expressway Authority to review the project.