You have to scroll down into the Transportation Planning Organization’s Dec. 15 agenda backup (they say it is at page 40, but is really at page 76) to find out what’s happening with the controversial eastern leg of the Central Polk, Parkway.

This is a proposed toll road that would potentially loop someday from State Road 60 on the south side of Winter Haven through rural areas of northeast Polk County to reach Interstate 4 somewhere near the interchange with another toll road that loops along Orlando’s western suburbs.

If you think the route to Orlando on I-4 congested now, just wait a few years. It will be a lot worse if these plans come to fruition.

Although there is the obligatory disclaimer that the decision on whether to construct these roads will require analysis per Florida law, it is hard to imagine that the Florida Department of Transportation and its allies in the development and road-building lobby would propose to spend $918.9 million (that’s almost $1 billion) on engineering and environmental studies and right of way acquisition on a road project they have no intention of constructing unless the state is amazingly fiscally irresponsible.

What is really interesting is that the rationale for this road project is partly to relieve congestion on U.S 27. There is quite a bit of local traffic on U.S. 27 that area residents contend could be relieved if only the section of U.S. 17-92 between Haines City and the Osceola County line were widened to four lanes.

In the latest funding proposal, that project has been defunded. It may be no coincidence that much of the undeveloped land along that segment is marginally developable, if you believe in coincidences.

This project was shelved several years ago because it was considered not economically feasible. Times and politics change and urban sprawl is on the rebound as the economy improves.

Besides, the Polk County growth plan is subject to change at any moment to allow more and denser development. The cost of providing services will come later.

State growth management laws were tossed out the window years ago and transportation and any other kinds of concurrency have become museum artifacts.

Prepare for the worst.

Polk County commissioners voted 5-0 Tuesday to deny approval for a race track on former ranch land near the shore of Lake Walkinwater, the county’s largest lake.

The proposal drew opposition from area residents, including the manager of the ranch next door whose owner sold the applicant the land. A recurring concern was the noise the facility would have generated, which they said would diminish their peace and quiet, nearby livestock operations and a nearby bald eagle nest.

The land also lies in an area designated as part of the Florida wildlife corridor that connects tens of thousands of acres to public and private conservation lands.

Several years ago county planners, notably Erik Peterson, presented a rosy picture of an alleged soil recycling and manufacturing plant on the outskirts of Lakeland called BS Ranch.

County commissioners bought the hype and approved the permit. They have regretted it ever since.

They should have known better than to trust someone who started a business without getting proper permits, but that’s the way things are done in Polk County sometimes.

There were constant odor complaints that kept county code-enforcement staffers occupied for years and eventually ended in a legal fight and the state environmental permitting agency’s conclusion that this wasn’t such a great project after all.

That brings us to Tuesday’s appeal hearing before the County Commission over a proposed private race track in a rural area adjacent to Lake Walk-in-Water east of Lake Wales.

According to the county staff report, Peterson assured the applicant this was a doable project when he first put out feelers before investing his money.

But the staff report accompanying Tuesday’s hearing raises red flags for anyone paying attention.

It states “little improvement is needed to make this site suitable (for its proposed use)” I guess that depends whether “little” means an asphalt race track, a dirt track, associated buildings and retention areas and facilities to contain fuel spills.

The staff report concludes there is no problem with incompatibility with surrounding land uses. The voluminous comments from area property owners seem to belie that claim.

The staff report states there are no plans to alter the natural drainage patterns after earlier confirming that the land drains toward the lake.

Additionally, the county staff seems to be confused about the location of the property, noting repeatedly that it would require permits from the Southwest Florida Water Management District when in fact the property lies well within the boundaries of the South Florida Water Management District. The applicant’s consultant made the same mistake at the Planning Commission hearing.

Beyond that, there are other questions.

Why is this not spot zoning?

Why isn’t the applicant required to submit a binding site plan to ensure lakeshore habitat is protected or amend the land-use change to impose a conservation land use on that portion of the property?

The applicant may claim correctly that he made a substantial investment in the property to achieve his dreams.

However, that seems to be his problem, not the County Commission’s.

The state’s first Springs Protection Zone was approved this week by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for Nichols Spring and its spring run to the Withlacoochee River in Sumter County, according to an agency press release.

Nichols Spring is a second-magnitude spring that is surrounded by land owned the family of former Florida Sen. Charles Dean, an advocate for spring protection in Florida.

The action came after state officials had determined that anchoring, mooring, beaching and grounding vessels along the shoreline had caused damage to vegetation in and around the spring. Those activities will be prohibited in the protection zone.

This will not prohibit public access to the spring and will not restrict the use of rafts or inner tubes, FWC officials said, vessels will have to be moored outside the protection zone.

The controversy over the potential development of Creek Ranch near Lake Hatchineha has taken an unexpected turn.

Owner Harold Baxter has applied for consideration to seek the state’s purchase of a conservation easement over the property.

His application is scheduled to be discussed by the state’s Acquisition and Restoration Council when it meets Dec. 8 in Tallahassee.

The property lies in a corridor that contains thousands of acres of public and private conservation lands north and south of the ranch.

Marian Ryan, conservation chair for Sierra’s Ancient Islands Group, plans to testify in favor of the proposal.

The property has been the subject of intensive public discussion after the longtime cattle ranch was purchased by Baxter, a local developer, and was announced as the site of a housing development and a new high school.

Area residents objected to putting a new high school in what they contend is an important wildlife corridor. There have been documented sightings of Florida panther and Florida black bear nearby.

Residents and at least one area property owner have proposed alternate school sites. School officials are evaluating the proposals.

Obviously, if the conservation easement purchase occurs, the ranch would no longer be available for a school site because the state would have purchased the development rights and school officials would be forced to look elsewhere.

Stay tuned.

The voters are ahead of the suits, it seems, based on the results of the Nov. 8 referendums in six counties in which the electorate was asked to tax themselves to preserve more green spaces.

Voters in Alachua, Brevard, Indian River, Nassau, Pasco and Polk approved a mix of property tax and sales tax increases to preserve what they can ahead of the bulldozers.

A couple of things were striking about the votes.

In two counties—Alachua and Polk–in which the local Republican Party recommended rejection, the measures passed anyway. There was a red ripple in Florida after all when it came to conservation.

And it was not as though voters were tax happy this year. Voters rejected proposed sales tax increases in Hernando, Hillsborough, Orange, St. Johns and Walton counties that were primarily proposed to catch up with transportation backlogs. Those backlogs are the inevitable result of approving development hand over fist without levying adequate impact fees to put development costs on a more pay-as-you-go basis.   

Looking ahead, the next challenge will be implementing the results of the elections. That will involve appointing committees to review acquisition proposals and finding landowners willing to participate with the expectation that they will receive fair compensation for their property. Once lands are purchased, management plans will follow and the public should be involved in this process.

Also, there is the prospect that the development community will propose a sales tax referendum in 2024 to finance so-called priority road projects. This would be the latest attempt in a history of local transportation sales tax referendums stretching back to 1992. Voters rejected all of them.

For Sierra, the issue has been some of the projects that have been listed as priorities that could be funded by any approved tax.

One involves realigning Deen Still Road to build a truck route through the Green Swamp Area of Critical State Concern and then continuing straight through thousands of acres of conservation lands—including a portion of Colt Creek State Park—to make a more direct connection between U.S. 27 and U.S. 98.

Others involve building brand-new roads through a corner of the Green Swamp and through rural lands in northeast Polk in what seems to be a way to build a controversial section of the Central Polk Parkway by other means.

Remain vigilant. Remain involved.

Polk County School Board members need to take a really fresh look at suitable locations for a new high school that is intended to relieve overcrowding at Haines City High School.

The issue came up earlier this year when word reached area residents that the board was seriously considering a developer-initiated proposal to locate a new school at Asana Ranch on Hatchineha Road near Poinciana. The ranch lies in a corridor between Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek State Park, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Everglades Headwater National Wildlife Refuge and The Nature Conservancy’s Hatchineha Ranch property to the south and the South Florida Water Management District’s Lake Marion Creek Wildlife Management Area and TNC’s Disney Wilderness Preserve property to the north.

There are documented occurrences of Florida panther and Florida black bear movements in this corridor.

The proposed school site would be nestled somewhere into a proposed residential subdivision, which still requires a growth map change and development approval from the County Commission. Whether those approvals are forthcoming is unknown at this point.

Since then another area landowner reached out to school officials and a group of residents opposed to the original site provided school officials with other potential school sites.

However, at last week’s board meeting, the staff was quick to try to cast doubt on the other sites in favor of the site that was originally offered, but the staff analyses of the other sites seem misleading at first glance.

For instance, the Bowen Brothers property at the corner of Hatchineha Road and Firetower Road was flagged as having potential wetlands and endangered plant species “in the area.”

A look at the property on the Polk County Property Appraiser’s website doesn’t seem to support that claim. The 332.65-acre site contains only 0.95 acres described as a swamp. The bulk of the property is improved pasture, which is an unlikely location for listed plant species.

There are listed plant species (which, by the way, for good or ill cannot be used to stop a project) “in the area,” but they are likely located on nearby conservation lands.

Then there was the analysis of another site that the staff ominously reported was located in a utility enclave area and may not have adequate water or sewer capacity, though no numbers were mentioned in a press account of the meeting. The “utility enclave” is Grenelefe Resort, which was in a relatively isolated rural area when it was first developed in the 1970s, but is now at the edge of city limits of Haines City.

There’s a good argument that it is no longer the enclave it once was and securing adequate utility capacity may not be an issue.

These two examples, instead, are an argument for Polk School Board members to seek a more objective, independent analysis of potential sites than they were getting from their staff planner.

There’s no question the current overcrowding in Haines City justifies the construction of a new high school, but school officials should not pick a site that crowds out wildlife in the process.