A powerful development company pushes for a new route to beachfront homes through wetlands and forests the state has set aside.
By CRAIG PITTMAN
Published July 13, 2003
The state's largest private landowner, the St. Joe Co., is lobbying for a new road that could benefit its beachfront development in Walton County.
There's a big hitch, though: It would slice through a state park and a state forest.
"We try to discourage that," said David Core, forest management bureau chief for the state Division of Forestry.
The road would stretch nearly 3 miles through Point Washington State Forest and Deer Lake State Park. It would funnel traffic from busy U.S. 98 through environmentally sensitive land inhabited by gopher tortoises, white-topped pitcher plants and the world's largest population of a rare plant called Curtiss' sandgrass.
State park officials estimate the road would cross a dozen or so wetland areas, which would require filling in those swamps. Celeste Cobena of Beach to Bay Connection, an environmental group in southern Walton County, said the road also would go through a popular hiking and biking trail that local residents have spent 10 years building.
The road would end at a beachfront highway, County Road 30-A, where the traffic would exit adjacent to St. Joe's new 499-home WaterSound Beach development.
Cost to the taxpayers: at least $3-million.
Walton County Administrator Mike Underwood said the road is intended to alleviate traffic on U.S. 98, speed hurricane evacuation and give firetrucks and ambulances a quicker route to the beach.
"I don't know about St. Joe, but I know it will help the county," Underwood said.
To pave the way for the new road, Underwood and a county commissioner accompanied St. Joe executive Chris Corr on a visit with Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson and his forestry division chief, Earl Peterson.
That Tallahassee meeting occurred in March, two months before the issue came up for public discussion at the Walton County Commission.
Corr is a former legislator from Hillsborough County who also serves on a state Department of Transportation advisory board.
His job involves "directing federal and state government efforts for St. Joe," according a St. Joe news release.
Among other projects, Corr successfully persuaded the Bay County Commission to move a 3-mile stretch of U.S. 98 inland to provide better beachfront access for WindMark development.
Cobena and other critics said the road is planned entirely for St. Joe's benefit.
But St. Joe spokesman Jerry Ray said, "Those folks are wrong. This is a Walton County idea."
Known for decades as a stodgy paper company, the St. Joe Co. has in the past seven years transformed itself into Florida's most ambitious developer, with extensive plans to change the sleepy Panhandle.
The company is building homes and hotels, hospitals and schools, golf courses and shopping centers, theaters and restaurants, offices and industrial parks.
To make all its plans work, St. Joe has sought help from taxpayers.
For instance, St. Joe has been pushing for a new $210-million airport that would be bigger than Tampa's, to be built on St. Joe land 20 miles north of Panama City next to Florida's oldest state forest. The airport would aid development of 70,000 acres of St. Joe land around it.
While opponents of the airport collected 2,700 signatures on a petition calling for a referendum, supporters brought in Gov. Jeb Bush this spring to tout the airport's economic benefits for the area.
St. Joe's political clout, and not a possible profit for the company, was the reason Corr came along for the visit with Bronson, Underwood said.
"My commissioners are not on top of who to see to obtain the rights to go through state lands," Underwood said. But Corr knew Bronson, he said, and was able to arrange the meeting.
"One thing we've learned is that when it comes to dealing with state agencies, we need all the help we can get," Underwood said.
In May, commissioners voted 5-0 to pursue the route through the state's land.
One commissioner said that route would have a "lesser impact to the wetlands," and another called it "good future planning," according to a record of the meeting.
But fire officials aren't sold. Last month the South Walton Fire District board voted to oppose running the road through state land. Maybe some private developer would donate the right of way, they said.
Nevertheless, county officials are seeking permission from the Division of Forestry and the state Department of Environmental Protection to launch a $113,000 study of the route through the state forests and state park.
DEP park planning chief Albert Gregory wrote back last month giving Walton permission to conduct the studies, but added, "We strongly recommend that you also evaluate other alternatives ... and do not require the highway to cross Deer Lake State Park."
Forestry officials want more information on Walton's intentions, said the forestry division's Core. They are not keen on even allowing Walton County to conduct its study, much less allowing the road itself to be built.
"We really don't encourage that," Core said. "You have to think about why the land was bought in the first place."
- Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this story.
