They are asking a Florida administrative law judge to overturn Lake County commissioners' ruling last September which effectively shut down the venture after developers failed to turn a spade in the five-year development deadline period.
It would have been one of the most creative commercial/residential enterprises ever attempted in the state, area brokers tell GlobeSt.com. The judge's ruling is due no later than July 24. The developers want another five-year extension.
Tentatively planned are 2,434 single and multifamily units, two 18-hole golf courses, 100,000 sf of retail and 200,000 sf of commercial.
The original developers didn't do anything with the project because they had run out of money and were trying to peddle the project to at least two other well-connected Orlando developers. However, family squabbling among the land's owners/developers delayed the deals and cause them to miss the deadline, they argue.
The developers also maintain, through their Orlando lawyers, they were treated unfairly by neighboring Lake County commissioners who had previously granted development extensions to other commercial undertakings that were late in starting projects. That is the basis of their current appeal.
If Judge D. R. Alexander agrees with the developers, his ruling will move to the desk of Gov. Jeb Bush and the six-member Cabinet. That's what environmentalists fear.
They have fought the proposed project for the past five years, arguing a commercial/residential undertaking on a 300-foot-high virgin hill will destroy the natural beauty of the area, long a favorite of bikers and hikers.
"What the environmentalists are especially afraid of is that Bush, a former developer himself in Miami with the Codina development family, will favor the project and rubber-stamp the judge's decision if it is favorable to the developers," an Orlando real estate lawyer intimate with the concerns of both sides tells GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity.
The proposed development site sits on one of the highest elevations in Florida along County Road 561 in south Lake County near Clermont, 25 miles west of Downtown Orlando.
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