FWC to assess Osceola Parkway Extension's path through conservation area

Stream FOX 35 News Live

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Next week, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is expected to discuss a proposed project that would lead to a highway extension through part of the Split Oak Forest Wildlife and Environmental Area in Osceola County. 

Commissioners will be asked on Tuesday about how to proceed with plans for the Central Florida Expressway Authority’s Osceola Parkway Extension. Split Oak Forest is a 1,689-acre conservation area in Orange and Osceola counties and provides habitat for things like gopher tortoises, FWC says. 

It abuts other public and privately owned conservation lands and two lakes. The commission has managed the area since 1994 through an agreement with the counties which had acquired the land. 

The highway extension would go across 1.3 miles of Split Oak Forest, directly affecting 60 acres and indirectly affecting 100 acres, according to a presentation about the proposal. Melissa Tucker, the commission’s director of Habitat and Species Conservation, wrote in a memo that staff members have been working on alternatives to minimize the effects. 

That could include the counties donating conservation land adjacent to Split Oak Forest in exchange for conservation easements needed for the road.