Polk County Rail Hub

The CSX freight depot may be still only a gleam in the Winter Haven City Commission's eyes, but the development community appears poised to convert rural land along the State Road 60 corridor from agriculture to something a lot denser. County planners are reviewing a proposal to change 331 acres west of the intersection of Rifle Range Road and State Road 60 to allow residential and commercial development. This is probably only the beginning, folks. Side Table Spectator

I got a copy of the marching orders for the consultant who will will be compiling a report for the County Commission on the proposed CSX project. The list of people the consultant is supposed to interview is revealing. Side Table Spectator

Is $21,496 for two months' work really cheap? I've read some comments in regard to the county consultant hired to look at the issues raised by CSX freight depot in Winter Haven. However, no one has said how much taxpayer money ought to be devoted to study a project that's still in its conceptual stage. .I'd like to point out, for the sake of perspective, that $21,496 is slightly more than half the median annual family income in Polk County. Side Table Spectator

Winter Haven water customers opened their bills this month to find a glossy promotion for the CSX freight depot the city is pushing, If the land deal goes through, the facility will be located at a 1,250-acre site near Wahneta. "Planned Rail Hub Important for City's Future" the headline reads Side Table Spectator

Today I learned CSX has already purchased a 12-acre corridor to extend Pollard Road to State Road 60 and that it wasn't cheap. The price tag was $1.2 million -- $100,925 an acre --according to county records.... Side Table Spectator

It's no longer just the folks in the Sundance subdivision that are railing, so to speak, against the proposed CSX freight terminal.. Now there's word that residents in the Lake Ashton community are circulating a petition demanding that the project be considered as a DRI from the onset, not sometime in the future....Side Table Spectator

I was in Georgia Monday with a County Commission quorum and some of their staff members to look at what a CSX freight terminal might look like. The terminal was neat, but the area around it reminded me of South Frontage Road and County Line Road rather than the suburbs across the lake from Cypress Gardens or the back roads behind them.....Side Table Spectator

wrote recently that CSX bought 12 acres to build a road to their new facility. Today I began wondering whether those 12 acres ought to be added to the 318-acre facility to put it over the 320-acre DRI threshold....Side Table Spectator

The Winter Haven Chamber of Commerce's blog has responded to an issue I raised in an earlier post about whether the purchase of the Stokes property put the CSX project over the DRI threshold.

The chamber blog said it won't because the land isn't contiguous. One local planner I talked to thought otherwise and is investigating....Side Table Spectator

The letter makes these points:

--CSX has added 20 acres to the 318 acres it already had set aside for its first phase, putting it over the 320-acre threshold.

--Additional buffering may be required, further increasing the acreage.

--There are an additional 930 acres involved, which argues for a comprehensive look sooner rather than later. ... Side Table Spectator

Wednesday's news that the CSX project, the entire CSX project, is a DRI after all confirmed what I had been writing for weeks.

When I learned about the property purchase, which had not previously been reported, I mentioned it to a local environmental activist and it turned a light bulb on inside his head and everyone not connected with the project agreed, too. -- Side Table Spectator

I've thinking about state planners' reversal of their position about whether CSX's Winter Haven project must go through the DRI process and thought a few of things were worth noting.

Additionally, the claim that DCA's turnaround was political is disingenuous. It's probably more accurate to conclude that politics was at play in the decision to try to evade the DRI process for awhile for short-term economic gain by Winter Haven. In the end, it seems the rule of law, not politics, has triumphed. DCA once again has leadership that seems to be returning the agency to its core function, which is to defend the state growth law rather than to find ways to accommodate special pleadings to ignore it. -- Side Table Spectator

I'm told the next thing to watch for in the CSX saga is an attempt by Winter Haven to accept the land CSX purchased for a road extension as publicly dedicated right of way to attempt to drop below the 320-acre DRI threshold again. -- Side Table Spectator

Now comes last week's meeting of the East Polk Committee of 100, when Ron Morrow, the group's executive director was quoted as saying "From Tampa to Orlando, this will create 7,000 to 8,000 new jobs.'' So instead of all those jobs in Polk County, the jobs--if they materialize--will be spread all over Central Florida. -- Side Table Spectator

More details on what it would take to establish a "quiet zone" in downtown Lakeland so urban pioneers won't have to put up with a lot of train whistle noise will be on the agenda at Thursday's Transportation Planning Organization meeting. The group will hear from Tom Drake of the Federal Railroad Administration -- Side Table Spectator

County Commissioner Jean Reed raised an interesting question today about the interest in upgrading CSX rail crossings to accommodate the new freight terminal. She pointed out that some of the existing crossings don't function very well. Crossing arms go down seemingly at random, blocking traffic. Impatient drivers eventually get tired of waiting and go around the arms, which railroad safety folks will tell you is pretty risky. -- Side Table Spectator

Winter Haven City Manager David Greene made an interesting claim in the just-released URS report regarding the municipal economic impacts of the proposed CSX freight terminal. He said it will increase the city's tax base from $1.8 billion to $4 billion, which will yield $40 million in property taxes. Not exactly. Actually, not even close. -- Side Table Spectator

Does the Florida Department of Community Affairs have the discretion not to enter into a pre-development agreement with CSX to allow them to do what they were planning to do initially anyway in exchange for submitting a DRI application?

If CSX doesn't submit a DRI application, what exactly can DCA do about it?

What are the prospects that we could see a replay of the Old Florida Plantation scenario? In that one the Central Florida Regional Planning Council and the County Commission crafted some tough conditions and then many of them were watered down by Bartow officials after they annexed the site. Winter Haven, which has a vested interest in the project's success, has the last say in the local review of the CSX DRI, if there is one.

How can CSX so confidently predict the project's positive impacts, such as numbers of jobs it will create, but remain so vague on projecting the truck and train traffic that the project will generate at build out? -- Side Table Spectator

The tone of these communications makes me think the authors don't understand the development of regional impact process. DRIs require answers to the questions citizens are raising and some they probably haven't considered.That is precisely why so many knowledgeable people have been pushing to cover the project under the DRI review.

DRIs also look long term, which is a good thing, judging from the news coming from Fairburn, Ga., which was presented as an example during a visit by Polk County officials earlier this year for the advantages and the lack of serious impact these rail freight terminals create. But commissioners there are pressing CSX to clean up its act. -- Side Table Spectator

One of the statements that left some of us scratching our heads during Thursday night's County Commission Town Hall meeting in the Winter Haven suburbs was the seeming allegation of some kind of county cover-up of CSX's plans for a major freight terminal next to Winter Haven's sewer plant near Wahneta. The evidence? The fact that the project was on a December 2005 county transportation map, so county staffers knew something might be in the offing, but didn't activate the reverse-911 network.

Some inconvenient facts. CSX officials announced their plans a month after the map was published. CSX still hasn't purchased the land where the project will be located and has yet to submit a development application, so at this point the entire project is an object of speculation, not formal review. -- Side Table Spectator

The regional planning council's role is that it is the agency that performs the initial review of the development of regional impact application, presents a staff report and holds a public hearing. The county can submit comments, which are listed in the appendix along with comments from DEP, DOT, FWC etc., but it's the planning council's show.

The planning council, I'm told, was not included in some of the earlier discussions regarding the CSX project, but they're in now and this is where anyone interested in the project should be paying attention.

Additionally, there has been some correspondence on the proposed pre-development agreement, questioning whether CSX is even eligible based on some of the criteria. We'll see.As you may have read, RPC and Florida Department of Community Affairs reps are meeting next month in Tallahassee to work this out. -- Side Table Spectator

Downtown Lakeland merchants concerned about the impact of additional train traffic through downtown Lakeland as a result of CSX's planned freight terminal (and Orlando's commuter rail plans) say they plan to state their case in a full-page ad in The Ledger next Tuesday. -- Side Table Spectator

CSX, whose Winter Haven development proposal has been under constant attack at every public forum in which it is discussed, appears to have launched a PR offensive. They are listed as a sponsor for Polk Vision's upcoming event to celebrate Polk County's All-America City designation. - Side Table Spectator

It turns out the downtown Lakeland folks spoke too soon. They've pulled plans to run the ad, a copy of which they did forward. It didn't contain any new information, simply repeated the concerns about increased train traffic and negative effects they fear that will create for downtown merchants and for motorists traveling through downtown Lakeland. -- Side Table Spectator

It probably doesn't have anything to do with the Winter Haven project, but I noticed a full-page ad CSX placed in Tuesday's edition of the Wall Street Journal in which the corporation outlined the reasons why CSX is "Good For America" and "Good For Investors." - Side Table Spectator

CSX officials were reportedly meeting with Secretary Tom Pelham of the Florida Department of Community Affairs Wednesday in Tallahassee. Word on the street was that Pelham was planning to talk frankly with the CSX reps about what was expected of them in the expected development of regional application review for the company's freight terminal in Winter Haven. -- Side Table Spectator