Osceola takes lead studying land in deal for Split Oak road
Following a state agency’s decision to allow a toll road in Split Oak Forest, the conservation property’s fate now shifts to Osceola County staffers behind closed doors for an indefinite period that offers no window for public involvement.
With its 4-0 vote to permit the road and the donation of 1,550 acres as compensation, the Florida Communities Trust said Split Oak owners Orange and Osceola counties must provide, among many items, an environmental site assessment and a plan for how the forest would be cared for.
Osceola County has assumed the task of the environmental assessment, and county spokesperson Mark Pino said no deadline has been set for addressing the list of requirements by the Trust for Split Oak Forest.
“This entire process is going to take many months,” Pino said, “starting with establishing an understanding of FCT wants.”
A 1.3-mile stretch of the 1,700-acre Split Oak Forest in east Orange and Osceola counties is targeted for construction of a toll road sought and subsidized by Tavistock Development Co. and its partner Deseret Ranches for their enormous rollout of subdivisions in east Osceola.
As compensation for the proposed road intrusion, Tavistock and Deseret would donate 1,550 acres of conservation lands in an irregularly shaped parcel that adjoins Split Oak and sweeps to the east and north.
That offer was decried by many speakers April 20 at the Florida Communities Trust meeting in Tallahassee as a shame, as poorly understood or as not as ecologically valuable as the 60 acres of Split Oak that would be paved and another 100 acres that would be separated from the forest.
The Trust holds some authority but not ownership for Split Oak, according to the agency’s attorney, because it provided Orange and Osceola a grant and loan in the 1990s to buy the property.
The counties now own the forest jointly and rely on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to manage it as a non-hunting wildlife refuge, which is being pinched on its south end by accelerating development.
Pino said the county is preparing to hire a consultant to write the environmental assessment that the Trust demanded.
The toll road proposed for crossing the southwest corner of Split Oak is an extension of the Osceola Parkway and is a project of the Central Florida Expressway Authority based in Orlando.
While all of the road impact would be within Osceola’s portion of the forest, the largest share of the 1,550 acres offered as a donation, or more than 960 acres, are in
Orange County.
In a 2020 election, 86% of Orange voters said the county should protect Split Oak from development.
As Osceola proceeds with an environmental assessment, Orange County will not be part of or have any say in that effort, according to county officials.
In a memo Monday to county commissioners, the manager of the county’s Environmental Division, David Jones, said that future actions may include decisions on whether to accept a donation of land and whether to revise agreements for management of Split Oak.
“At this time, there is not a definitive timeframe for when these items may come to the Orange County Board of County Commissioners,” Jones said.
An evaluation of the 1,550 acres was performed in 2019 by Breedlove, Dennis & Associates Inc. of Winter
Park, a company that specializes in work on behalf of developers and was hired by Tavistock for the Split Oak assessment.
The firm’s report states that the toll road would destroy or harm nearly 120 acres of forest or other dry habitat and about 40 acres of wetlands.
Of the 1,550 acres identified for a donation, the report states, 489 acres are potential habitat for gopher tortoises and 909 acres are wetlands that rank high in value, according to evaluation criteria used statewide.