Southwest Florida Land Deal Backed

By: The News Service of Florida

Without an appraised value presented, Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Cabinet on Wednesday delegated the purchase of a nearly 11,000-acre conservation easement in Southwest Florida to the state Department of Environmental Protection. Department Secretary Alexis Lambert said the agency will not be allowed to pay above the appraised value for the land owned by the Barron Collier Partnership, LLLP in Hendry and Collier counties. “We’re going to share the information that we received related to the appraisals when those are complete,” Lambert said after a Cabinet meeting. The property consists of four tracts within the Caloosahatchee Big Cypress Corridor totaling 10,996 acres. Conservation easements allow such things as agricultural operations to continue in exchange for shielding land from development. Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, a member of the Cabinet, said Lambert “and her team, they do an amazing job at DEP. We’ve given them the authority to do it, put a deal together, and they’re going to do an amazing job.” A staff analysis of the land describes it as providing “foraging areas and dispersal routes for a wide range of imperiled species; most notably the Florida panther,” and that “conservation of these lands also protects the integrity and functionality of agricultural activities threatened by development.” Meanwhile, DeSantis and the Cabinet approved spending more than $27 million on three other conservation easements totaling 10,557 acres. Those plans involve spending $12.025 million for 7,437 acres in Escambia County; $9.85 million for 1,060 acres in Okeechobee County; and $5.564 million for 2,060 acres in Putnam County. Because of the Okeechobee County property’s proximity to the Avon Park Air Force Range, the U.S. Air Force is expected to pick up about 10 percent of the cost.