Orlando-area conservationists turned up in force Monday, packing an Osceola County public-comment meeting as a long-simmering fight over a proposed toll road through Split Oak Forest heated up again. The Central Florida Expressway Authority has already moved past the drawing-board stage and, in February, filed an eminent-domain claim against Orange County for conservation parcels it says are needed for State Road 534. An order-of-taking hearing is set for early June.
At the center of the dispute is a one-mile stretch of the planned SR 534 that would cut across the southern boundary of Split Oak Forest and a slice of neighboring Eagles Roost Park. For hikers and conservation advocates who regard Split Oak as a rare ecological refuge, the concern is not abstract. The preserve holds increasingly scarce scrub habitat and sheltered species such as the gopher tortoise and the Florida scrub-jay, so every acre feels like a high-stakes fight.
Project backers describe SR 534 as a limited-access tollway that would link State Road 417 near Boggy Creek to points east, with two travel lanes in each direction and seven interchanges along the route. As reported by ClickOrlando, members of the Save Split Oak campaign used Monday’s meeting to urge Orange and Osceola counties to pull back their support for the road, warning that it would fragment wildlife habitat and encourage sprawl. Campaign manager Lee Perry told officials the land should “stay the way it is,” while hiker Glenn Knight cautioned that the proposed route could “destroy the park.”
Eminent-Domain Fight Heads To Court
According to Central Florida Public Media, the Central Florida Expressway Authority filed its eminent-domain action in February seeking access to roughly 24 acres of Orange County conservation land, with an order-of-taking hearing scheduled for June 3. Before that filing, the agency’s governing board had already deemed about 44 acres essential for the project, including property within Eagles Roost Park, and offered Orange County about $2.3 million as an opening step toward purchase…