© Bob Jagendorf

Orange County Mayor Richard Crotty and three other county commissioners, Mildred Fernández, Bill Segal and Linda Stewart have signaled agreement with advocacy by Audubon of Florida and the Orange Audubon Society that three massive development projects in eastern Orange County should be rejected. The three commissioners are all candidates for Crotty's position as Mayor. Crotty will leave office next year due to term limits. The political line-up largely assures that developers of these large projects will have a tough time in the future, regardless of which candidate gets elected.

Over the last 1.5 years, Charles Lee, Audubon of Florida's Director of Advocacy and Sharon Robbins, Conservation Chair for Orange Audubon Society, have appeared at numerous meetings held by Orange County and the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council to raise substantive concerns about each of the projects. The projects are:

• Innovation Way East, a mixed-use development that includes about 8,000 proposed homes and condominiums and 1.2 million square feet of office, commercial and industrial space.

• Camino Reale, including 4,000 proposed homes and 1.6 million square feet of office, commercial and industrial space.

• Rybolt Park, which plans for 5,000 new residences, as well as a 1.1 million-square-foot research park, and more than 1 million square feet of office and retail.

Charles Lee, Audubon of Florida's Director of Advocacy noted that each of these projects has in common the fact that the Econlockhatchee River Ecosystem would be at risk of serious impacts. Further, he points out, none of these developments is designed in such a way as to have "redeeming qualities", such as major set asides of conservation land to be protected in perpetuity in conservation easements.   While the Rybolt project did cede about 700 acres to conservation in a sale to the St. Johns River Water Management District last year, it also proposed a controversial bridge over the Econlockhatchee.  "Generally", Lee stated, "we are advocating that at least 70% of important wildlife habitats such as those in the Econlockhatchee River ecosystem be set aside under permanent easements by developers. These three projects fall far short of that."

Commitments by the Orange County Mayor and all of the Commissioners currently seeking the Mayor's office to oppose these projects also suggest that recent legislative decisions concerning urban transit and the "Sunrail" project in Central Florida will begin to impact development decisions.

In order for commuter rail to work properly, Orange County development patterns will need to be re-oriented. "A dense concentration of residential and commercial development will need to be encouraged along the commuter rail line", Lee indicated.

In the long term, Audubon hopes that the official opposition to sprawl developments in the eastern part of the county begins a trend toward concentrating growth along the rail line in previously developed portions of Orange County.

Read a recent Orlando Sentinel article on this issue.