(The following story by Tom Palmer appeared on the Lakeland Ledger website on June 19.)
BARTOW, Fla. — Polk County commissioners voted 4-1 Wednesday to endorse a list of 20 suggested conditions for the proposed CSX rail freight terminal in Winter Haven.
The county’s recommendations will be forwarded to the Central Florida Regional Planning Council, which will have a hearing Aug. 13 on CSX’s proposal for approval as a development of regional impact. The hearing location has not been announced.
DRIs are developments whose impacts can affect broader areas than typical developments that come before local government bodies. The size of developments that fall under this classification is defined by state law.
Dissenting was Commissioner Jack Myers, who objected to some of the conditions, arguing they went beyond planning concerns and into telling the railroad how to operate its facility.
He said he was concerned such conditions could drive away jobs.
Commissioner Jean Reed, who made the motion to approve the conditions, disagreed, adding she thought it was the commission’s responsibility.
The 20 conditions were expanded from 17 presented to commissioners at Friday’s agenda briefing session. The initial 17 conditions dealt with traffic, environmental, noise and utility issues.
The added conditions dealt with trying to get CSX to share the cost of increasing the size of a planned overpass on the realignment of Thompson Nursery Road, dealing with any additional development on surrounding property and requiring CSX to use equipment that would make fewer air emissions.
The conditions are simply recommendations that the regional planning council and Winter Haven officials are free to include or reject, said Tom Deardorff, the county’s growth management director.
CSX spokesman Rick Hood said afterward that it would be premature to comment on the proposed conditions.
He said the company is working with the planning council and Winter Haven on the conditions, but a key issue is to separate regional issues, which are covered under the development of regional impact process, as opposed to merely local issues, which are not.
“I view some of the concerns as more local than regional,” he said.