The Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Acquisition and Restoration Council, ARC, is about to decide which properties the state should focus on acquiring and setting aside for conservation next year. The group meets to vote on Florida Forever projects at 9 a.m. Fri. in Tallahassee.
ARC members will consider a variety of proposals Friday. Some seek to conserve new, currently unprotected areas of land. Other proposals before the council seek to adjust existing project boundaries, usually by adding in new parcels of land.
One of the new project proposals is for Hi-Oaks Ranch, a privately-owned swath of nearly 670 acres of land in east Seminole County, just over the Orange County line. The property lies within the unincorporated Chuluota area and abuts the Econlockhatchee River, an Outstanding Florida Water designated for special protection by the state.
“It’s really one of the largest remaining undeveloped, privately owned properties in the county,” Seminole County Parks Director Richard Durr told ARC members during a public hearing Thursday afternoon.
Members of the county’s new Seminole Forever land acquisition program discussed the Hi-Oaks Ranch property earlier this year. It made the top of the county’s wish-list of areas to protect.
“This would expand public access for recreation and further preserve this land for Seminole County in perpetuity,” Durr said.
Acquiring the Hi-Oaks Ranch property would allow the state to fill in a major piece of the Florida Wildlife Corridor that is currently unprotected, Durr said. Those unprotected pieces of land are also known as “opportunity areas,” making up about 8 million acres within the state-designated Corridor. In all, the Corridor stretches across 18 million acres.
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Another proposal ARC members will consider tomorrow is one from Volusia County, seeking to extend the current boundaries of an existing Florida Forever project. That massive project, the Volusia Conservation Corridor, spans more than 80,000 acres across Volusia and Flagler counties. The state has already acquired more than 62,000 acres of land for it.
Now, the county hopes the state will agree to help expand the Volusia Conservation Corridor through the Tomoka Farms Project, a 411-acre property in all. Volusia’s pitch is for the state to acquire 293 acres of it, and the county would acquire the rest.
“Volusia County is also interested in becoming the land manager for the entire 411 acres,” said Chief Land Acquisition Manager Tim Telfer. “We think there's a great opportunity to build an incredible trailhead and get more people out onto this conservation land here.
Another key piece of Friday’s ARC meeting will be the ranking process, when council members vote to rank each selected project in order of conservation priority.
Real estate attorney Keith Fountain urged the council to prioritize six, specific “landscape-scale properties” already selected for conservation. Three of the projects are in the Ocala to Osceola Conservation Corridor. The other three lie within the Upper Kissimmee River Basin, which Fountain said is an especially critical area of the state to protect.
“This is the frontline to protect one of our state's most critical conservation landscapes from the sprawl coming out of St. Cloud and the greater Orlando metropolitan area,” Fountain said.
Members of the public can listen in to Friday’s meeting by registering for the webinar online.
