Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission is expected to vote Wednesday on whether to release conservation land to allow a toll road to be built through Split Oak Forest.
The vote will determine the future of a proposed Osceola Parkway Extension that will stretch from State Road 417 to I-4.
The forest has been in conservation since the early 90s.
The commission’s staff presentation details ways to try to lessen the impacts this project will have on the forest.
Read: Osceola County battles Orange County over new plan for Split Oak toll road
The presentation list “offsets” like purchasing over 1500 acres of land to add to the forest in exchange for the toll road project. Staff also noted adding millions more for rehabilitation and management of the land and upgrading entryways of the forest. It totals more than $40 million for the deal— triple what it was.
Valerie Anderson with Friends of Split Oak says it seems like agencies throwing money at the problem– instead of protecting the promised conservation land.
“No amount of money to purchase land near split oak is going to mitigate that,” Anderson said. “They can put, you know, a couple million here, a couple million there, but it’s not high ecological quality. And what we’re doing is, we’re going to end up in a place with lower genetic diversity of scrub days, lower diversity of gopher tortoises, and more negative human wildlife interactions.”
Read: ‘Don’t split, Split Oak’: Orange County to stay the course, continue protecting Split Oak Forest
Meanwhile, homeowners around Split Oak say the route through the forest may be better than the previous proposal. It was set to take out as many as 16 homes. Central Florida Expressway Authority says because the area has grown significantly over the past several years, the previously proposed route would affect as many as 113 homes today.
“What it boils down to keeping Split Oak Park or taking 20 homes. There’s no turtle out there paying the taxes that I paid,” said Mike Fischetti.
FWC is set to meet Wednesday beginning at 8:30 at Embry Riddle in Daytona Beach.
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