'The last strip of woods': Port Hatchineha residents fighting an onslaught of development

As Port Hatchineha resident Frankie Miller drove his pickup Thursday along nearby rural roads, he pointed out hundreds of acres of old cattle land that are in the crosshairs of land developers — and Polk County Public Schools — for thousands of homes and at least one school.

While he supports progress and people needing to make a living, he said "enough is enough" in terms of development in this northeastern corner of the county.

In Port Hatchineha, a neighborhood nestled along the lake at the end of Lake Hatchineha Road, white signs with red letters echo his sentiment. 

"This is the last strip of woods they want to tear down," he said.

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Port Hatchineha is surrounded by wild and pristine land. It's the only sign of development on Lake Hatchineha, which is bordered mostly by state land and cattle ranches.

In the cab of his pickup, he has recent photographs of a bear and a panther, which are among dozens of species of animals, some endangered, that freely roam the land. 

"Don't destroy the little bit of habitat left for the gopher tortoise and the skinks," he said. 

Much of the land has escaped development. There is Lake Marion Creek Wildlife Management Area to the north, the Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek Preserve State Park to the west, and Lake Kissimmiee State Park to the south. Across Lake Hatchineha is the Disney Wilderness Preserve. 

Development has spread to the area over the years. About two miles to the west of Port Hatchineha, dense communities sprouted up in the past decade or so, spreading from Poinciana in the north to a regional sports park on the west side of Marigold Avenue's junction with Hatchineha Road. But that's where it seemed to stop.

Until recently.

In April, Center State Development bought the 1,400-acre Creek Ranch on Lake Hatchineha that includes an 11,000-square-foot lodge from South Florida-based Asana Properties for $12.44 million in April,” according to an article by GrowthSpotter. The ranch served as a buffer between Port Hatchineha and the development to the west. Center State plans to keep the animals and the lodge, use 700 acres for wetland mitigation, sell 100 acres to Polk Schools and use 550 acres for 1,920 homes.

The School Board, desperate to east overcrowding at Haines City High and other northeast schools, seemed ready to approve the purchase of the 100 acres from Center State at its Sept. 6 meeting, but a vote was delayed when the district received an unsolicited offer for another parcel in the same general area.

In an effort to push back urbanization, Miller's wife, April, and area resident Jeremy Knowles organized a meeting Thursday at the FFA Training Center on Fire Tower Road overlooking Lake Pierce. They invited their neighbors and Polk Schools Superintendent Frederick Heid to listen. 

'Inflated and unreasonable'

The emotional, standing-room-only crowd of nearly 100 residents first listened to Knowles update them on the district's plans to build a school —and maybe more — along Lake Hatchineha Road. He told the group he was going to present Heid with alternative properties his group found closer to urban areas.

Concerning the 100 acres of the Asana land, Knowles said the price was "inflated" and "unreasonable." The district is considering the purchase of the land for $12 million, but the price includes environmental mitigation and site development paid by Center State. The district would then potentially spend about $115 million to build a school. The last school built in Davenport cost the district $110 million, but under current market conditions the next high school could cost 20% more.

"Just considering the land purchase alone of $7.9 million, that's an average of $79,000 an acre, which is eight times more than what the developer paid," he said. "We are all about free market, but there is a responsibility on this expenditure to taxpayers." 

He also said the developer could drag out the site preparation for months, perhaps years, leaving the district without a school by the 2025-26 school year, a timeframe Heid wants to meet.

Mike Byrd of Byrd Septic Services Inc. told the crowd the school district plans have not considered the utilities needed for the Asana site.

He said he has been in contact with the Toho Water Authority and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for public records. He said a Toho master plan shows the utility intends to pipe out wastewater from the area and bring back reclaimed water and sell it to residents.

The wastewater would contain too many nutrients for the ecosystem at the headwaters of the Everglades to handle, he said, adding that there are already constant aquatic-management issues along the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes.

"Over-development in the city limits should not be a burden on rural areas," Byrd said.

Other residents were anxious about the amount of traffic crashes recently along Lake Hatchineha Road, which is the only road into or out of Port Hatchineha.

Lamar Quinn told Heid of the four different ecosystems along the multiple elevations of the Lake Wales Ridge. He also applauded the state's recent designation of a 100-mile wildlife corridor that runs from the Clermont area to South Florida.

"This ridge should be a museum for children to visit," he said.  

Knowles said his group has found potential alternative sites that would be 30% to 40% less expensive to purchase in more densely populated areas.

Alternative sites?

Heid said he would consider and share with the School Board the alternative sites that the group has found.

To be considered, the alternative sites had to be currently for sale and could not result in a 45-minute school bus ride for students to get to school, so alternatives must be within a 10-mile to 15-mile radius of the sites currently being considered, he said.

Heid stopped short of saying the district would drop the current proposed sites from consideration and pointed out the differences between the two proposals on either side of Lake Hatchineha Road.

Heid said the unsolicited proposal from Building Tomorrow's Schools Polk Marigold Support LLC calls for a 25-year, lease-to-own type of partnership that could cost the district approximately $115 million over time. 

Heid said the proposal would be the first agreement of its kind in Florida and the proposal would protect taxpayers.

"The reasoning is we would own that facility after 25 years," he said. "However, it costs us less to do so than it does at today's interest rates and then have to replace the major infrastructure of the facility like HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) and a roof on that structure."

The deal would keep expenditures low and maintain the district's bond rating, he said.

"It protects the taxpayers. It does not harm the taxpayers," he said.

Further, since the district would not own the school, it could walk away at any time.

Heid told the residents that development is coming to their area and promised transparency from the school district about the process.

"We are over capacity at all of our schools," Heid said. "The growth is coming. The corner of Hatchineha and Marigold has been cleared and you can readily see those developments are coming."

The School Board could call an emergency meeting Oct. 11 to discuss further the proposed school sites and potentially vote on a proposal. Or the decision could come later, on Oct. 25, at the next regular board meeting. 

Developers are lined up

While the district deals with overcrowding, the Polk County Planning Department has been busy answering queries about plans that include potentially thousands of new homes in the area.  

Some of those plans remain several steps away from a hearing with the Polk County Planning Commission.

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Among the proposals, according to GrowthSpotter:

• 1,920 lots and a high school by Center State Development.

• 152 lots for Lake Hatchineha Subdivision on 38 acres on Lake Hatchineha Road by DECCAN LLC.

• 198 acres for single-family homes along Watkins Road by Crews Groves Inc.

Center State Development partners Harold Reggie Baxter and Bob Adams and their engineer, Bryan Hunter, met with county planners Aug. 25 asking about potential development of the land Center State owns, said Chanda Bennett, county planner.

“They haven’t submitted any request that would require a hearing,” she said. “They have filled out a preapplication, but the paperwork does not represent any approvals of any kind. It just asks questions."

Baxter is also working on another 160-acre property west of the Creek Ranch property called Lake Deer. The subdivision, approved in 2021, is on the northeast corner of Marigold Avenue and Lake Hatchineha Road and is already cleared off. The plans call for 567 homes within the Poinciana development of regional impact.

As for other housing plans, the Planning Commission will consider whether to recommend the Lake Hatchineha subdivision in October, county documents show. The proposal was brought forward by Windemere-based DECCAN LLC for minimum lot sizes of 6,000 square feet in units with a two-car garage. The homes could be priced between $250,000 and $400,000, and construction is set for 2023.

The third swath of land for potential residential development is owned by William B. Combee and Darby Jo Revocable Trust. The Property Appraiser’s Office lists the land as 32 acres at 9055 Lake Hatchineha Road.

Another proposed development, south of Lake Hatchineha Road, would require a zoning change.  

Crews Groves, which lists Cristy F. and Robert C. Crews II of Avon Park as its corporate officers, has proposed development on Watkins Road, and the land currently borders an area designated for low-residential land use, which allows for five houses per acre. Even though the land touches the higher density zoned area, the Crews Grove land is designated for agricultural-residential rural, which only allows one house per five acres.  

'We are certainly concerned'

Bennett, the county planner, said obstacles remain for the housing projects because of the number of residential units being considered for the area.

“We are certainly concerned about building a community out there because so far, we are just getting subdivisions at the southern end of Poinciana where the commercial is more on the Osceola side,” Bennett said. “So that is where my concerns were as a staff planner trying to make sure the area is planned appropriately.”

There are plans for three fire stations in close vicinity of the Lake Hatchineha Road area with one already built on Marigold, just north of Hatchineha Road. There is also the regional park at Marigold Avenue and Lake Hatchineha Road.  

“So you’ve got two big infrastructure items in terms of supporting communities, the regional park and fire and ambulance responses,” Bennett said.

What's needed is a commercial component so people can go grocery shopping, she said. Employment would be another element of developing a community, and that is the most difficult component to attract.

Current residents are driving a long way, up to 20 minutes or more, to buy groceries and even longer to commute to their employers.

One spot for potential business development would be the south side of the T-junction of Marigold and Hatchineha.

“There is some interest in developing that as well, but they have not submitted anything,” Bennett said. “It’s just been general conversations.”

Despite the outcry by the local residents of the area, Bennett said, the current developments being discussed could be the last of it.

“This is the end point where development is going to occur, it’s not going to occur much farther east because on the south side of Lake Hatchineha across from the property Reggie Baxter is talking about is owned by the state, not all of it but a major part of it.”