INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — After five years of effort, the Pelican Island Audubon Society got the go-ahead today from the County Commission to build a 3,000-square-foot community center next door to the University of Florida entomology lab on Oslo Road.
Audubon is purchasing the one-acre site where the facility will be located from the university for $50,000. The center will be used to train volunteers for county conservation lands and for other educational purposes.
“We are happy to be moving ahead,” said Audubon Chapter President Richard Baker. “We are looking for a contractor and would like to be in the building by Christmas.”
One person, Oslo Road area resident Charles Searcy, spoke in opposition to the education center during the public hearing prior to the commission vote. He said the project would unnecessarily destroy hardwood trees and suggested the county buy the land, which is adjacent to other county-owned conservation lands. He said the Audubon Society could carry on its education programs in a boat house nearby.
Searcy has been a vocal proponent of expanding the Oslo Road Boat Ramp, a proposed county project just down the road the Audubon society has so far successfully opposed for environmental reasons.
Commissioner Wesley Davis said he too was concerned about the trees and suggested the possibility the Audubon Society might not build the community center and could conceivably sell it to a developer who would build houses there instead.
Like Searcy, Davis has been an outspoken proponent of expanding the nearby boat ramp and has complained about interference with the county’s project from state regulators and groups like the Audubon Society.
“I think there is a bit of quid pro quo going on here,” said Commission Chairman Gary Wheeler. “It is like, ‘if we don’t get our boat ramp, you don’t get your building,’ but I think we have to put those feelings aside. I think this will be an asset for the county and help educate the public about ecology and the environment.”
Commissioner Joseph Flescher said he too detected some inappropriate animosity and lingering bad feelings creeping into the Board’s deliberations.
“I think the building has a light footprint,” he said. “I believe the Audubon Society’s due diligence will be impeccable. They are good stewards of our conservation lands.”
Commissioner Bob Solari spoke forcefully and convincingly in favor of the project, calling it a beneficial public/private partnership and noting his support of it was consistent with other votes he has taken to support the rights of property owners.
“There is absolutely no reason to think the right thing will not be done here,” Solari said of the Audubon Society’s plans.
Solari agreed with Wheeler and Flescher that opposition to the project might be motivated by an attitude of “tit-for tat.”
“I don’t for a second believe that if this was any other organization we wouldn’t already be done with this and moved on to something else,” he said.
Solari made a motion to approve staff recommendation and grant a special exception use approval for the community center, which carried 3-2 with support from Wheeler and Flescher.
Prior to the vote Commissioner Peter O’Bryan complained that members of the Audubon Society had objected to removal of oak trees in a recent project that came before the Commission and that they now wanted to cut down trees themselves.
He attempted to insert a clause in Solari’s motion requiring Audubon to go back and redraw its plans so as to spare all hardwood trees.
Solara firmly rejected that suggestion and said it was not the county’s business to try and control every detail of what a landowner does when developing property.
In prior action, the special exception use was approved 6-0 by the Planning and Zoning Commission on May 31.
