Industrial Expansion, Destroyed Fenceline and More

 A small piece of scrub north of the south tract's fence line has dramatically changed recently.

About 100 feet of fence has been heavily damaged as a result of the upturned scrub habitat that's in clear view toward the industrial plant on the other side of the rail spur that serves the property.

The owner is KSW LLC, a corporation registered  in Tampa, but based in Michigan, according to public records.

The most obvious question , which will be up to regulatory officials to answer, is whether there was any attempt to monitor the site for Sand Skinks, a federally protected species. before work began.

This is based on surveys on the site that revealed their presence on our side of the former fence line.

Meanwhile, the lock on a nearby gate was cut. FWC officials  have been notified.

   

Is it time to expand?

I've been thinking about connections and corridors. I mean more places for lupines, more places for newly discovered potential endangered species. That kind of thing.

What I envision is a corridor of sorts from the two tracts, a kind of L-shaped affair. There are two tracts of land involved. One is privately owned. The other is owned by Winter Haven, but has a CSX easement on it, though that may not matter if there's no railroad line to expand (they ought to spend their money on fixing the Hobbs Road crossing,; it's the one of worst in Polk County).

This will not be cheap, but there isn't much intact scrub left on the Winter Haven Ridge. Maybe they should take anolher look at the Lake Fannie property and maybe they should look at the property on both sides of the tracks in south Winter Haven east of Pollard Road.

Maybe they should look on the south end of Gerber Dairy Road.

Time is running out. The recession will be over some day and the property will be bulldozed forever.

I'm next to the city limits

I was looking at the property ownership maps today to see who the northern neighbors are and decided to look at the aerial layer and kept going west and made a discovering. The notch outside the west fence that TECO owns is inside the Auburndale city limits, but the preserve is not.

I can't think of any advantage except maybe that Auburndale could claim the place as a natural area in its growth plan. Who knows, the city may map it conservation or at least try.

Preservation zoning stalls over TDRs

My efforts to turn the presrve into a preserve on the county's growth map has stalled because the Division of State Lands wants to bank the land's industrial land use for trade under a transfer of development rights that doesn't exist yet.

There's a framework here for TDRs for residential densities, which is calculated on the basis of units/acre, but not for commercial densities, which is calculated on floor:area ratio. I just hope no mischief results from this decision.

Conservation rezoning advances

My push to get this site recognized as Preservation on the county growth map is moving ahead. The Development Review Committee met today and had no objections. If all goes well, it will happen by the end of the year.

Bureaucracy and the land-use map

Gary Morse at FWC today told me Division of State Lands has to initiate any growth map amendment action since the Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund, not FWC actually own Lake Blue. That's fine with me as long as someone gives the matter some attention.