Toll agency to hold public meet on Split Oak Forest road plan
The region’s toll-road agency will hold a public meeting Thursday evening about a controversial proposal to extend an Osceola County highway across Split Oak Forest. An extension of the Osceola Parkway would arc into Orange County near Orlando International Airport and then bisect Split Oak Forest, which was bought for preservation in the mid-1990s.
Audubon Florida advocacy director Charles Lee has urged group members to oppose the road as a “destructive plan” that “would cut through some of the last viable Florida scrub jay nesting areas in Orange and Osceola counties.”
Several environmental groups are fighting the concept as a threat to forest and wetlands and as a betrayal of early conservation efforts amid rapid growth.
The meeting will be in the cafeteria of Lake Nona High School at 12500 Narcoossee Road from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. There will be a dedicated parking area — away from parking for a football game — accessible from Weldon Boulevard.
Those who attend can speak to agency staffers and leave written comments.
They also can email comments to conceptstudies@cfxway.com.
Split Oak Forest has been shielded from most human activity. Camping, cycling and hunting are prohibited, and the daily capacity is fewer than 200 hikers.
Also at stake is the expansion of the Central Florida Expressway Authority, which now operates 118 miles of expressway in Orange County. Next year, the agency will absorb the Osceola County Expressway Authority, which proposed the route across Split Oak Forest. In preparing for the merger, the Central Florida Expressway Authority is studying the viability of the proposed extension of the Osceola Parkway across Split Oak and of three other proposed road projects in Osceola.
If the agency deems any of the four projects as necessary and financially doable, then a new round of public hearings would occur for each. Authority spokesman Brian Hutchings said it could be “a halfdecade or more” before any final decision is made.