REAL ESTATE BOOM PLANNED AT PACE NOT SEEN IN DECADES

The current real estate boom throughout Florida has developers foaming at the mouth, and plans are in place for new homes at a pace not seen in over 20 years, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

With about 1,000 moving to Central Florida daily, as many as 70,000 new homes have been proposed throughout the region this year alone. That is causing some concern for people hoping to preserve enviromentally sensitive lands. Included on the list: the basin of creeks and rivers flowing through Osceola County and on to the Everglades; desert scrublands of Polk County; and the watery wilderness of the St. Johns River in Orange and Seminole counties.

The Sentinel notes some of the major developments planned for the region:

Along the east side, the Viera community near Melbourne already has approval for 18,945 homes. Its developer filed a preliminary request in July for an additional 13,279 homes in an area extending to near St. Johns River wetlands.

On the west side, a developer of the Karlton project in south Lake County wants to build as many as 5,000 homes. The community would border the Four Corners area, where development has four counties hard-pressed to provide services.

A much-watched test case for how well growth can be managed are five proposed communities that would fill much of the gap between Lake Tohopekaliga and East Lake Tohopekaliga in northern Osceola County. Early plans call for nearly 32,000 homes and an extensive road network, a new expressway and a new interchange with Florida's Turnpike.

Some of that area, particularly near the Kissimmee and St. Cloud city limits, already has seen urban invasion. But much of the land remains untouched.

To the west of where Kissimmee Park Road crosses Florida's Turnpike, 7,000 homes are proposed for the Edgewater development.

Today, that landscape takes in pasture, palmetto patches and citrus groves where wild turkeys and sandhill cranes forage. Dirt roads buzz with grasshoppers, and cans nailed to fence posts are riddled with bullet holes.

Of course, we can't prevent growth...but we can control it and preserve areas which are enviromentally sensitive and important so that even the newcomers to our area can enjoy at least part of the reason that Florida is so attractive to them in the first place.