The Florida Cabinet, composed of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, and Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, are considering land deals that include selling a tract of land in Miami-Dade County while buying and preserving land in Northeast Florida.
The South Florida land is 82 acres located north of Hialeah to a private developer. The land is listed for over $12 million and the stipulations for the transaction would be the requirement of the land to provide at least 5,000 jobs over the next 10 years.
The Northeast Florida land is a much larger piece of land. The property consists of 238 acres, 56 of which are open pasture, in Putnam County near the St. Johns County line currently owned by the Wayne and Patsy Smith farming family. If the transaction goes through, it will be classified as a “perpetual conservation easement.”
A conservation easement allows use by the property owners but provides stipulations that prevent development.
Earlier this year, the Florida Cabinet was considering buying up two other pieces of land in North Florida. The largest tract of land was for over 1,700 acres in Santa Rosa County for $1 million. The other piece of land was 729 acres in Jefferson County. Both of those pieces of land are designated as part of the Florida Forever program, which is “Florida’s premier conservation and recreation lands acquisition program” within the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
Since the program’s inception in July 2021, the state has purchased almost 870,000 acres of Florida land valued at over $3 billion.
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Grant Holcomb is a reporter at the Florida Capital Star and The Star News Network. Follow Grant on Twitter and direct message tips.
Photo “Putnam County Courthouse, Palatka” by Excel23. CC BY-SA 4.0.
