By Marvin G. Cortner
Editor

Because a wetland acreage survey was incomplete, the Osceola County Commission Monday delayed for 30 days buying the Tohoqua property for the county’s land conservation program.

The negotiated selling price with property owner Orlando-based Neptune Road Investments is $9,495,000. In addition, the county had agreed to pay closing costs not to exceed $10,000, plus spend up to $300,000 to evaluate drainage issues and to draw up a management plan for the site.

Without the month extension, the due diligence period for the deal would have ended Tuesday. Staff had recommended the county terminate the land purchase, and if it didn’t, to then reduce the acreage to be purchased and cut the price by $50,000.

In the deal, the county would buy 302 acres but obtain a total of approximately 370 acres, with the difference being some of the land the developer has to set aside for green space in the already-approved Tohoqua development of regional impact. The total number of single-family homes planned in the development would be reduced by 1,000 as part of the sale agreement.

Neptune Road Investments officials had said there are at least 30 acres of wetlands on the property.

Commissioner Brandon Arrington insisted that the county delay the purchase until the South Florida Water Management District completes the wetlands survey, since the designation would dictate what kind of management plan the county would devise for the property.

“To me, it’s about how much usable land we are buying … it’s about me being responsible to taxpayers,” Arrington said.

Arrington said he doesn’t have a problem with the purchase price as long as there is enough upland area that isn’t going to be under water that can be used for passive recreation that justifies the negotiated price.

Commissioner Ken Smith wanted to proceed with the sale despite the wetland questions, given what he said were the county’s failed efforts in the past to obtain land in this area of the county, which at one time was part of the Partin Ranch.

“We may never again be able to secure as large a piece of land as this, especially between the cities of Kissimmee and St. Cloud,” Smith said. “It would preserve a portion of lakefront. I hope we will not miss out like we did six or eight years ago. This is ideally situated for passive recreation, it protects environmentally sensitive land and it is between the two cities.”

Commission Chairman Fred Hawkins Jr. sided with Arrington, saying the county could not decide how to use the property until a wetlands determination had been made.

“I’d rather have staff on board for this,” Hawkins said. “The wetlands issue is a large hang-up for me.”

Jim McNeil, a real estate attorney representing the property owner, said he did not believe a final wetlands determination – which would involve detailed testing of soils and surveys of vegetation – could be obtained from the water district in 30 days but that it could obtain an “informal determination,” which would be a worst-case estimate of the maximum amount of wetlands the site might contain.

McNeil said completing the detailed survey is complicated because a portion of the property has been artificially drained by pumping for decades. The attorney also said his client “can’t stomach” any more spending for “more engineering studies.”

“At what point would this be a no-go,” McNeil asked, referring to the final wetland acreage the county would accept for the negotiated sales price.

Commissioners in the end voted 4-0 (Commissioner Michael Harford was absent) to extend the due diligence period – which the property owner agreed to – to allow further meetings with the water district and to allow a property appraiser time to evaluate different wetland acreage scenarios in terms of the land’s value.

Prior to the final vote, two motions on the land deal failed on 2-2 ties, with Hawkins and Arrington voting to hold out for the wetland survey and John Quiñones and Smith voting to move forward without it.

Funding for the land conservation program, often referred to as SAVE (Save and Value Environment), is generated by a quarter of mill property tax approved by voters in 2004.