Removal of Properties from the Environmental Land Acquisition Selection Committee (ELASC) Nomination Pool – Parks, Recreation, and Natural Resources Department – Environmental Lands Acquisition and Management Program (ELAMP) Requirements – No Funding Required
What the county recorded
Staff recommendation
Approve
DispositionApproved
Approved to put it back on the list by a roll call vote.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Feb 20, 2024
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, Feb 20, 2024
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
This case, across meetings
PRN-24-0052 in full →Heard once. PRN-24-0052 appears on no other agenda in the archive.
- Feb 20, 2024BoardC34▶Approvedthis item
What was said
Machine transcription of 9m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 91% of 68 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
Move to let's see. C eleven is withdrawn. C thirty-four discuss.
Thank you, Chairman Mariano. Okay. He's two for two. So C thirty four Uh there's two items on there, but one one item Keith can go a little bit more detail. At the corner of uh fifty two and forty one to the southwest corner Line the gas station, there's a there's a thousand plus acres, uh Old Florida farm. And we brought it forward, we worked through this all last year to bring it forward to the ELAMP board for consideration for uh
potential acquisition 'cause it ties into the well fields. Um and it's, you know, tho a a nice thousand acre tract that just could tie in for so many benefit to the public and you know, water and preservation. But there's There's a couple of challenges with it and there's a there's a mitigation bank on there on a piece of it. But the what's the committee called, Keith?
It's the Environmental Land Selection Committee.
So the Environmental Land Selection Committee voted, they think the land is probably protected. They voted not to add it to the list. I disrespectfully disagree with their decision and this is no cost to the county. But we think to the future on preserving tracts of land unless this Uh farm is on the list. The county can't even have discussions. about potentially acquiring it or finding a way to find a to make a public benefit
out of it. So I'm hoping the board will uh consider adding it to Uh the E Lamp list, there's no charge, there's no fee, it costs us nothing. But once it's on that list, it just gives the county the ability uh moving forward if there's an interest in finding a way to purchase that land for public benefit. uh that the opportunity is there. I just don't want to be I just don't I I I want to be careful because pieces of land are disappearing and just to have the option
there I think would would be good. So Keith, you have any questions.
So it is it's at the corner of fifty two and forty one um on the uh east side. Southeast or southeast side, yes.
Oh southeast. I probably said southwest while ago.
That's the Tibbets property?
No. It's on the other side.
I was thinking that was part of Swift. Yeah, I thought that was Connerton
preserve. Yeah. Well it it was it was a part of that original development, yes. And then
Well it's already a preserve, isn't it? The
jail is here.
Can you pull that up?
The property owner? Who is that? Conerton?
So there's there's a principal owner group and then it also is actually owned uh and operated as as an active uh wetland wetland mitigation bank currently.
Is that not the Connor Preserve?
No, that is not the Connor Preserve. So Connor Preserve is further east. It's further to the east. Yeah.
No, I can't this is kinda preserved over here. Oh crazy.
This whole corner. No.
Which way am I looking?
I always thought that was the perceived.
I'm looking to the east. Here if we have a
so this is basically Commissioner Starkey, this if you could see that this is the Connor Preserve here. So that's the existing water management district property. Right. The subject in question is
I wanted the ribbon cutting of that. I always thought that was all the way across.
That was when Weatherford was in the hospital.
Anyway, the yeah, the different different property that you're talking about. But the the the one that we're that's on the list today is uh again south of fifty-two and right next to forty-one.
Okay, and I missed it. It's not on the list. Did the owners
put it on? No, yeah. So the process is it was nominated, the environmental land selection committee because of the conservation easement that's required through the bank basically recommended not
Uh I think with Commissioner Weightman's referencing and he described the process very well. Once once the board so that's the the required process is that we present the recommendations to the BCC for them for them to ultimately uh approve the action. But once it's on the denied list, staff cannot ano we can't we can't negotiate any further. We can't explore options on what could or couldn't happen. Uh we've never actually pursued uh a bank like this before, but once it's actually denied, then we don't have the authority to even negotiate with the uh agent
for the property. So I should say there's no obligation either on either side uh through this action.
Can there be trails on there?
Yes. So that's that would that's that's
part
of the discussion, correct, yes.
Okay, well I move to put it back on the list.
A little more discussion.
Go ahead.
Um Keith, if there's a wetland mitigation bank, that means the property's gonna be protected. Right? Yes. Correct. It's never going to be developed.
Well that'll be reflected in the value of the purchase. Why don't we need
to buy it if it's already protected? That's to my next point. Why do I want to spend money when I don't need to if I got the land protected? The whole thing is about protecting land. This is going to keep if we buy this land, I can't go buy other land.
But the price could be very little.
So that was the point I was gonna make is the price could be different. Yeah. And so but right now we can't even have those negotiations. So I think what what the commissioner's asking is is let's let's include it on the list, let's have some talks. We're not committing to purchase anything at this point in time.
Right.
But we can't have the negotiations or the discussions on it to see if there's other things or price points that could be different. Unless it's on the list.
It's the way the process is structured.
I understand, but I mean j just logically, do I want to go down that road? The the other thing is if you have a wetland mitigation bank, that means somebody who's trying to do some development if you have to have local mitigation This bank's already established. I don't know how many acres there are left, but Well that we want to really take that out of an option for somebody else coming around.
And I and that's kind of devils in the details, Commissioner. So I don't think that we're in the exploration, I don't think we could even actually decommission the bank. So you wouldn't close that down as a as an option for for other development projects to use it as a bank. I think quite honestly, um And I gotta be careful because again, we're at this point in time without having the authority uh from the board, we haven't entered into serious negotiations because because the process we can't. But as an example, uh a possible outcome could be we could explore public use, which currently
right now in the thousand acres you have zero. So that's just a an option to consider. And I think Commissioner Starkey referenced. When you have something heavily encumbered like that, it would reflect, it would clearly be reflected in the actual c the final cost as well.
So you
also would be picking up the liability
of the bank. That is also true maintenance.
Kent Grove we have property up over there and there's an access to a park that's right there. The road is in such deplorable condition they can't get to it. So that'll be one of my ask coming up later on today hopefully or if I give you time to look at it before I next bring it up next meeting. But so I
mean
we gotta we gotta still take care of what we've got, but if I've got again a protected resource that's there. Um I'm gonna be very wary of it. this value to the mitigation bank. I'll put the other coin If we can become the mitigation bank. and make money on the other end of it, that could be something to look at. So for that I'll support taking a look at it further, but again I don't want to spend money, that's not gonna
Yes. Commissioner Weightman that's not the intent here. This is just Put it on the list. And the opportunity may or may not be there for future generations boards, what you're talking about, what have you. So Just to No harm and I thought to to get it on the list, to take a look at, um and uh it's it's there. Be being a Boy Scout, if you will.
Yeah.
So putting it on a list of Binders in any way. So Yeah, 'cause there's a lot of particulars if you buy a property that's that's got this kind of bank in it, responsibility you have for it in the future and How much is actually how much is left to be Purchased or whatever for a bank. So it'd be good to know all those things. So correct. Yeah. Okay. I had a motion, was there a second? Got a motion? Happily second. Okay. Uh my roll call
vote.
District two, Commissioner Weightman. District three, Commissioner Starkey. Aye. District four, Commissioner Bradford.
All
right.
District 5, Commissioner Mariano.
Aye.
District 1, Chairman Oakley.
Aye. Motion passed 5-0. Thank you, board members. Okay. Uh that's the last item I have on on the list. So that will end the consent items. We'll move on to