ATV Florida Forum

Bush looking to forest for funds
President's budget proposal includes sale of 973 acres in Ocala National Forest

CHRISTOPHER CURRY
STAR-BANNER

 
OCALA - President Bush's 2007 budget proposal suggests putting 973 acres of the Ocala National Forest up for sale as part of an initiative to raise up to $800 million for a federal program that helps fund schools and roads in counties with federal forest land.

Up to 300,000 of the 193 million acres of federal forest land could go up for sale if Congress approves the plan, said Denise Raines, spokeswoman for the Tallahassee office of the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

"Quite frankly our piece of the pie is quite small compared to other states in our region," she said. "Georgia has over 4,000 acres."

Raines said the 14 parcels in the Ocala National Forest, which range in size from less than one and a half acres to two parcels of more than 210 acres, had already been identified as land the federal government would be willing to swap for land farther into the forest in a consolidation effort. On its Web site, the Forest Service describes the land in question as small, outlying tracts "that are isolated or inefficient to manage due to their location or other characteristics."

The president's plan has drawn the ire of the environmental protection group, Audubon of Florida.

"If the way of shaving that deficit becomes selling off acreage in places like the the Ocala National Forest, that would be devastating to environmental management both here and across the country," said Charles Lee, director of advocacy with Audubon of Florida. "To have a fire sale of environmentally sensitive land to try and generate money for the national budget is just nuts."

The Audubon of Florida has produced a map of the parcels, based on location information the Forest Service provided on its web site. The official federal map of the land will not be out until after the President's proposal is published in the Federal Register and a 30 day public comment period starts.

On the Audubon map, many of the parcels border lakes in the forest, including Lake Bryant.

In a press release, U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns R- Ocala said the idea is "merely a proposal" and he wanted to withhold comment on it until after the public comment period. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson's spokesman criticized the proposal as an ill-advised attempt to raise revenue.

"It caught everybody by surprise," Nelson's spokesman Dan McLaughlin said. "As far as we know, none of the delegation members knew about it and we've heard from the national forest managers in Florida that they didn't know about it either. The bottom line is we are certainly opposed to selling off acreage in the Ocala National Forest ostensibly to raise revenue. The administration has raised a huge deficit. It is a $2.5 to $3 trillion budget and selling off acreage on lakes in the Ocala National Forest is not a solution to the budget crisis. The good thing is it is just a proposal so we will have the opportunity in Congress to have it debated and hopefully defeated."

The President's proposal is part of a plan to extend payments under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 for an additional five years. The program helps raise money for roads and schools in counties with national forest land that cannot be taxed. Previously, revenue sharing from timber sales on federal land helped fund the program, but that source of money has dwindled in recent years. Raines said the money would be paid to the State Comptroller' Office which would then administer it to counties with national forest land.

All of these are small pieces of land near Hwy 40 that do not touch any other forest property.  We have taken the list and matched it against maps we have in my office.

Terry

Good man Grizz, keep up posted!!

Sounds fine to me. You won't even notice 973acres missing from the forest. Especially is it is lying on the outside of the forest.

the question is who has the rights to purchase this property and how is the sale going to be conducted? i'm sure theres plenty of us that would love to own a small piece of property next to the forest.

The property will be sold though open sale,.  I will post here when it is announced.

cool. thanks grizz.
do you know if it will be auction type bidding or just reg. sale.

Until the wait period is up, no one is talking.   The largest piece, which is about 15 acres of high and dry ground with frontage on hwy 40, should, if sold at fair market price couls sell for about $450,000, this is based on a recent sale in the same area.

This is how it starts   :tsktsk.gif

??? How what starts?

Each of these pieces are unattached to other pieces of the forest property.  When the forest was originally setup,, the federal govt. was buying every piece they could in hopes of connecting everything. Since then many pieces that are privately owned have been developed and are too expensive for the govt to buy.  Therefore they are selling pieces that could never be attached and are hard to manage.

holy crap that's expensive,,,that's about the same price per acre that a plot of land in Deltona would cost.

and it's in the middle of the forest???

what KIND of crack are they smoking?

Id@

the good kind

maybe thats what happen they close down all thoses forest roads? :-\

Or does this mean the whole Ocala nat forest is out of lack riding areas?


Is this bad news for atv riders?

I don't think this won't pass becuase
too many senates will fight over it.

Becuase they don't want let down on alot of people
coming visting the onf in near future.I know they are too many
offroad clubs,etc through out of state.

Plus I have been hearing on news  for  last
few months bush is doing all theses dang budget cuts and
making things alot worse.I hope he gets out of white house soon. :o

Dude, you are completely wrong, but I think we should leave that topic for another forum. IMO, what he has proposed will give the owners (hopefully you and me and not tree huggers) more leverage on what happens around their general area.

I can understand atv clubs if they wanna buy out land.

This is not that big of a deal.  From what I read is these are fairly small parcels that are not directly connected to the forest.  They might be part of the forest but with private property surrounding them so there is no real axcess to them.  I believe it was Grizzlybear ( a real estate guy, I think) who said these are all off of state road 40. 

  OMG!!!!!!!!! one word...............C O N D O S !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wouldn't doubt it they have made it so you can't see beaches anymore from the roads.......................