Rocky road: COVID-19 delays parkway extension through Split Oak

Image
  • The Osceola County Parkway extension through Split Oak has been delayed because of toll collections affected by COVID-19. PHOTO/FLICKR
    The Osceola County Parkway extension through Split Oak has been delayed because of toll collections affected by COVID-19. PHOTO/FLICKR
Body

The movement to stop a controversial road from being built through Split Oak Forest could get a boost thanks to COVID-19.

With fewer drivers on the roads during the pandemic, toll collections have dipped dramatically, forcing the Central Florida Expressway Authority to delay several projects, including the Osceola Parkway extension through Split Oak Forest.

The extension of Osceola Parkway would run nine miles east, from State Road 417 into sprawling agricultural land under development by Tavistock Development Co. and the building arm of the Mormon Church’s 300,000-acre Deseret Ranch.

Toll road authority board members will vote on a budget next month that proposes postponing the project by 10 years, pushing construction back to 2034.

It’s a win for Friends of Split Oak Forest, a grassroots organization that’s been railing against the project for three years. But the group isn’t exactly celebrating.

“Friends of Split Oak isn’t going anywhere. We’re not letting up,” said the group’s founder, Valerie Anderson. “They say they shelved the project, but they can bring it back anytime.”

The group has lobbied CFX to build around Split Oak Forest since its inception. But in December, the agency approved an alignment that eats up about 160 acres of the 1,700- acre forest.

Friends of Split Oak has also lobbied the Orange and Osceola county commissions to reject approvals needed by the agency to move forward with the project, mostly to no avail.

Anderson said tracking the project will be harder now that it’s been postponed, even as CFX continues refining the road’s design and acquiring right of way land.

“Once the project is off the books, they can do whatever they want out of public sight,” she said.

CFX officials have said that the Osceola Parkway extension could be moved up again if revenue rebounds from the pandemic faster than expected.

Osceola and Orange counties jointly purchased Split Oak 20 years ago with help from the state to offset the impacts of development in the once rural area now booming with new homes, businesses and traffic.

The deal stipulated that the land would forever remain a conservation area open to the public. However, officials from both counties and CFX have said regional transportation needs trump environmental concerns.

The developers have offered to donate 1,500 of conservation land adjacent to Split Oak to help assuage concerns about cutting into the forest, but activists contend it’s not a good deal because much of it is wetlands, which limits both wildlife and recreation.

The Florida Communities Trust, part of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, seemingly holds the ultimate decision on whether the toll road can cut through the forest.

The trust awarded a $5 million grant to Orange and Osceola counties to purchase Split Oak in 1992, which was then paid back from money collected from developers through environmental mitigation credits.

The deal between CFX and the two counties to use part of the public conservation area for the road must be approved by the trust.

Split Oak Forrest also was established in conjunction with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Improvements to the land, including prescribed burns, have allowed populations of gopher tortoises, Florida scrub jays and Florida panthers to thrive in Split Oak amidst the rapid development in the area.