ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – A controversial community that will bring thousands of homes and a lot more traffic to east Orange County has been given the green light.
More than a dozen people addressed Orange County commissioners Tuesday as one final effort to let them know they were for or against two developments in the Lake Pickett area.Â
In the end, the commission approved the development known as "The Grow."
"I feel that it's a gift for economic momentum to continually get the very best people to come to Central Florida," said Robert Zlatkiss, developer of the Grow.
Zlatkiss said his area would be more of an "agrihood."
"It's 60 percent open space," Zlatkiss said. "So, when you preserve 700 acres for green space ... you have 12 miles of bike paths and an organic farm and a school site with an organic farm so kids can learn to be self-sustained."
But Toma Murat disagreed.
He doesn't want to see the development move in.
"It probably hurts more than anything in terms of, it's literally within a quarter of a mile at most from a wildlife corridor," Murat said. "So, you have edible this, edible that. You are going to literally draw everything from the river and that wildlife corridor into the particular development."
Murat said the issue doesn't just stop with traffic congestion either.
"From an internal perspective in terms of the urban services, existing side of the county, where we do already have projects that haven't started those would be the right places to drive developments like this," Murat said.