The Central Florida Expressway Authority has filed an eminent domain claim against Orange County, in pursuit of access to about 24 acres of county-owned conservation land the agency says is necessary to build its toll road planned through Split Oak Forest. A hearing is set for early June.
The agency’s governing board voted 7-3 last summer to declare about 44 acres of Orange County land as necessary for building State Road 534, including 24.3 acres of environmentally-sensitive land. Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and Commissioner Christine Moore, plus Brevard County Commissioner Katie Delaney, voted against the declaration.
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CFX seeks to own outright just under three acres of the total, 24.3 acres of environmentally-sensitive land. That 2.83-acre parcel is located within Eagles Roost, a protected Green PLACE property located in south-central Orange County.
Eagles Roost is home to the Back to Nature wildlife refuge, which wouldn’t be affected by the CFX acquisition, according to Orange County.
For the remaining roughly 21 acres of land, the agency seeks easements, which would allow for CFX to access and use the land while Orange County maintains ownership. A conservation and access easement covers just under 20 of those acres, which lie within the planned development of Eagle Creek.
The eminent domain claim marks the latest development in the long, winding and often bumpy process of developing the toll road: one piece of a larger project CFX says is critical for improving transportation in the region.
The Split Oak Forest context
Approved plans for SR 534 call for just over a mile of the road to cut through the south end of Split Oak Forest, a nearly 1,700-acre nature preserve in Orange and Osceola counties that was set aside back in the 1990s for “perpetual conservation.”
The road is set to intersect a portion of the forest in Osceola County. It’s a route that’s already been hotly contested for years, due to Split Oak’s layers of existing conservation protections from state and local agencies.
Originally, though, the road was planned to more drastically affect Split Oak Forest, according to plans approved in 2017 by the now-defunct Osceola County Expressway Authority. Those plans would’ve had SR 534 coursing diagonally through the forest in both Orange and Osceola counties.
“It was with this proposed alignment where the term ‘splitting Split Oak’ was born,” said CFX Chief of Infrastructure Glenn Pressimone, speaking at the CFX governing board’s Feb. 12 meeting.
Once CFX took over, Pressimone said, “stakeholders were clear: reduce impacts to Split Oak as much as possible.”
Speaking at the Feb. 12 meeting, Christopher Maier, a CFX governing board member appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis, touted the agency’s efforts to mitigate environmental concerns with the project. In exchange for the 60-acre easement the agency seeks within Split Oak Forest, CFX has secured 1,550 acres of nearby land to be donated for conservation.
“This isn't a trade-off. It's a conservation gain,” said Maier. “We're talking more than 25 acres protected for every acre needed for the project.”
Some of those 1,550 acres of donated lands were previously entitled for development, Pressimone said.
“When you combine the donated lands with existing split oak Forest, Moss Park and isle of pine preserve conservation lands, you end up with more than 5,100 contiguous acres of protected lands,” Pressimone said.
Environmentalists have taken issue with that framing, though, arguing the donation land is not high-quality and that it can’t make up for the revocation of supposedly “perpetual” conservation protections granted to Split Oak Forest. Many worry the loss of any of those protections could set a dangerous precedent, putting conservation lands elsewhere at risk.
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Split Oak began as a “mitigation park.” It was intended to serve as habitat for the threatened gopher tortoise, to offset damage caused by development to other gopher tortoise habitat in the region.
CFX Vice Chair and Seminole County Chairman Andria Herr said she’s walked through Split Oak Forest, as well as some of the lands secured for donation by CFX.
Of those lands CFX is offering to donate, Herr said: “It is not (pristine). But it is probably as pristine as Split Oak was when it came into preservation, and it will be (pristine) once we put all this money toward it.”
In exchange for the partial release of conservation easements from the forest, CFX has also committed to investing $24 million for the restoration and long-term maintenance of the 1,550-acre donation, as well as $1.2 million for Split Oak itself.
The land now at stake
The additional 24.3 acres of conservation land now targeted by CFX is located within Orange County, outside of — but not far from — Split Oak’s borders.
Orange commissioners have said they only learned last year that CFX had its sights set on those 24.3 acres, including the parcel of land at Eagles Roost.
Initially, an Orange County spokeswoman said commissioners were indeed informed, back in 2019, that Eagles Roost was part of CFX’s “preferred alignment” for its planned toll road. But the following week, the spokeswoman walked back that assertion, sharing a statement that reads in part:
“The discussion (in 2019) centered almost entirely on Split Oak Forest. Eagles Roost was never mentioned, nor was there any indication that the preferred alignment would require land previously acquired for Eagles Roost.”
Earlier this year, CFX sent Orange County a written offer of $2.3 million for all 24.3 acres of land in which the agency has interest.
That offer was an initial, required step in the eminent domain or “taking of land” process, through which governments and other authorities can use to acquire land deemed necessary for a public purpose. In this case and many others, that public purpose is a road.
On Jan. 13, Orange County commissioners voted 3-4 against entering pre-suit negotiations with CFX. Commissioners also voted 4-3 to challenge CFX’s eminent domain claim in court.
RELATED: Orange County will reject CFX’s offer to buy conservation land near Split Oak
At that Jan. 13 commission meeting, Senior Assistant County Attorney Debra Babb-Nutcher said the county’s odds of defeating an eminent domain claim are very low. “We won't win, because we are an inferior entity (to CFX).”
Those public statements frustrated several county commissioners, including Commissioner Kelly Martinez Semrad.
“Our county attorney went on public record during a discussion at a public meeting, and said that they did not think that they could win the case in court,” said Martinez Semrad, who’s called for the county to hire outside legal representation for the case.
“If we can't figure out the legal recipe to protect Split Oak Forest, (which) has a charter amendment — a GREEN Place purchase, sustained with our money this whole time — a promise in perpetuity for the people — if we can't protect that? We can't protect anything,” Martinez Semrad said at the Jan. 13 meeting.
Commissioner Mayra Uribe said she agrees the county should hire outside legal counsel to handle CFX’s eminent domain claim.
“If I have my attorney telling me to not even fight for what the will of the voters are, or fight to even attempt to get this corrected — that's not a good thing,” Uribe said.
In 2024, Orange County voters approved a charter amendment requiring a supermajority vote from county commissioners in order to dispose of or change the use of any “county protected lands.”
‘Listen to the people’
In a statement shared last week, Orange County said it doesn’t comment on pending litigation, but that it is aware of the lawsuit filed by CFX.
The county does plan to retain outside legal counsel to handle the eminent domain claim, according to a Feb. 2 memo from Mayor Jerry Demings.
Demings, who also sits on CFX’s governing board, voted at the Jan. 13 commission meeting in favor of negotiating with the agency, and against challenging the agency’s claim.
But at the CFX board meeting on Feb. 12, Demings defended the commission’s vote to challenge the highway authority — as well as the voices of the project’s opponents who have weighed in over the years.
“I think government works best when it does have the opportunity to listen to the people,” Demings said. “I believe that when you hear some of the input from the people, you end up, with their input, making better decisions.”
The project as currently planned is stronger, Demings said, due to all the public feedback received on the SR 534 project — including from its critics.
“We should avoid litigation, whenever possible. I think that's in the best interest of government,” Demings said. “But I also see, constantly, where our state preempts local government authority from making decisions on behalf of the people, and we are closest to the people.”
An order of taking hearing, which is part of the eminent domain legal process, is set for June 3.
Central Florida Expressway Authority is one of Central Florida Public Media’s financial sponsors, but has no editorial control over any of its coverage.
