Controversial land swap moves forward for an expressway to be built through Split Oak Forest

State conservation officials agreed Wednesday to move forward with a Central Florida land swap that could lead to part of a mitigation area for gopher tortoises and wetlands being used for a road extension.

Over the objections of area residents and local officials, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission directed Executive Director Roger Young to finalize agreements with the Central Florida Expressway Authority that would result in 160 acres of the Split Oak Forest Wildlife and Environmental Area in Osceola County being exchanged for 1,550 acres in the region.

The expressway authority is also expected to provide about $41 million to help manage land going to the wildlife commission and for additional land acquisitions.

Split Oak Forest is a 1,689-acre conservation area in Orange and Osceola counties.

The expressway authority is looking at the land to extend the Osceola Parkway.

The wildlife commission holds what are known as conservation easements on the property.

Commission staff members estimated that about 60 acres of Split Oak Forest would be directly affected by the road.

Commission Chair Robert Barreto said the agency will get about 25 acres in return for each acre directly affected by the road and warned that the expressway authority could seek to acquire the land through eminent domain “and we get nothing.”

Commissioner Gary Lester said the job of the commission isn’t to “manage growth in the state.”

Meanwhile, “We’ve got staff coming to us telling us that this is a net benefit to what we’re charged with, which is fish and wildlife,” Lester added.

But Commissioner Gary Nicklaus said that “before we do anything, it should have the support of the people it’s going to effect.”

Orange County Commissioner Emily Bonilla said the expressway authority needs to reconsider the path of the road.

“The conservation easements established were meant to protect Split Oak Forest in perpetuity,” Bonilla said. “To alter these without considering the full environmental costs and against the explicit will of the people would undermine the very purpose of our agreement.”

The county commission in November sided with voters who in 2020 overwhelmingly backed protecting the forest against the expressway authority’s road plan.

The county commission had previously supported the road plan.