The successful plea for levying .20 of a mill in the 2022 referendum to renew funding for Polk County’s Enviornmental Lands Program appears to be paying off.
On Tuesday the Polk County Commission is scheduled to consider a series of purchases involving 1,225 acres along Masterpiece Road north of Lake Wales over the next three years for $24 million. Grants funds are expected to be used to cover part of the purchase price, according to county officials
The property is owned by Alcoma Properties and UPCO, which are Lake Wales-based agricultural businesses.
The parcels involved in the deal involve a collection of uplands on both sides of the road. south of Lake Pierce Ranchettes and the former Masterpiece Gardens.
When Polk County’s Technical Advisory Group visited the property in March. they noted that it contained a number of rare plant species, particularly one called Pseudoziziphus, one of the rarest species on the Lake Wales Ridge.
The Lake Wales Ridge is a mosaic of uplands in Polk and Highlands counties that contains a number of plant and animal species found nowhere else on the planet
The acquisition, preservation and management of the remaining undeveloped properties along the Lake Wales Ridge has been a high priority for conservationists.
The Lake Wales Ridge contains the only national wildlife refuge devoted to the protection of rare plants.
The site also is home to uncommon animals such as gopher tortoises, sand skinks and crested caracara. Florida panthers have been reported on the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following the completion of the purchases. county officials will hold public meetings to get input on how the property should be managed and what recreational opportunities could be available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The successful plea for levying .20 of a mill in the 2022 referendum to renew funding for Polk County’s Enviornmental Lands Program appears to be paying off.On Tuesday the Polk County Commission is scheduled to consider a series of purchases involving 1,225 acres along Masterpiece Road north of Lake Wales over the next three years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gci"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2738"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2748,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2738\/revisions\/2748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}