A June 3 Lake County Commission vote looms on a controversial land use permit requested by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in the Ocala National Forest.
Residents and activist groups are ramping up pressure on officials to block Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s plans for an Ocala National Forest airstrip.
Despite a recent recommendation for approval from the Planning and Zoning Board, local activists claim the project may lead to a land use expansion that bypassed a fair public comment process.
Did citizens get a fair shot at providing feedback?
Community members in and around Lake County asked the U.S. Forest Service to reopen and extend the public comment period for a proposed special use permit for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in the Ocala National Forest/Seminole Ranger District.
The group has cited conflicting guidelines on how to submit comments and a late-access issue with a functioning online comment portal.
Some say the project might restrict public access to “treasured public lands,” such as Clay Lake and Clay Lake Hunt Camp, and affect a heavily visited national forest.
A group of residents concerned about the ERAU permit says the issue is not whether the public should be heard, but whether the public was given a fair and workable opportunity to participate in the feedback process before the public comment deadline.
“The Green Party of Florida still has not received an adequate response regarding the removal of the letter we submitted into the public comments online system on behalf of over 12,000 Florida voters,” a representative said in a letter to Forest Planner Branden Tolver.
Why the Ocala National Forest?
Although county officials suggested the Umatilla Airport as an alternative in August 2024, ERAU declined.
The “Deep Woods Project” allows for a “single-use private-use airstrip,” granting ERAU more control over operations than they would have at a shared public facility, ERAU’s representatives told them.
A timeline of public participation
Citizens have questioned whether public feedback session opportunities were adequately provided, while the entities involved — the Forest Service, the university and Lake County government — expedited the land use request.
The land use request for the ERAU “Deep Woods Project” has undergone a strategic shift since its inception in mid-2024.
The primary change is a move from a large-scale satellite campus requiring a comprehensive rezoning to a scaled-down airfield that claims to fit within existing 2006 zoning — what residents and local groups have labeled a “foot-in-the-door” strategy.
“Embry-Riddle is going to lease the land, and then the Forest Service may make that area a wildlife-like sanctuary area for a protected plant, put in a scrub brush protection area, and basically close it off so the public can’t access it,” forest resident Rich Graham told the Daily Commerical in 2024, suggesting that the Forest Service could “maintain it to make sure no trees grow above 10 feet tall for the scrub brush,” and that the strategy might be a workaround to allow them to remove hundreds of trees.
The opposition, including Deerhaven Retreat and Conference Center and the Green Party of Florida, has intensified as the project moves toward a final decision by the Lake County Commission. Homeowners from the Twin Lakes neighborhood have also expressed disapproval.
According to Liz Wood, program administrator of Deerhaven, the retreat has been in the forest for 60 years. She points out in an open letter that her property is located near the project, inside the Ocala National Forest, “determined last year by National Geographic as one of the ’25 top places in the world to visit.’”
The airfield project, she fears, “would cause devastation to the flora and fauna, waters, and quiet soundscape” of the Ocala National Forest in that area, “shutter long-standing businesses, harm children’s hearing and likely cause an increase in taxes to residents.”
Wood called out the project’s noise and other impacts that would make silent and spiritual retreats like hers, as well as youth nature camps and events, next to impossible at Deerhaven. Church campgrounds are “at the heart of a mission center, holding together its congregations and the future of its youth,” she said, adding that “a body cannot live without its heart.”
Opponents also allege the project is being split among agencies: There’s USFS for road use, Lake County for paving and FDOT for licensing, so that no single agency looks at what’s been speculated as the cumulative impact of the flight school.
On May 7, the Lake County Planning and Zoning Board recommended approval of the plan to pave the existing 2,800-foot dirt airstrip despite over an hour of public testimony in opposition.
The Lake County Commission is set to vote on the Embry-Riddle request on June 3. It’s sure to be a nexus point for a wave of protests and community organizing.
Claims of a political smear campaign
Lake County Board of Commissioners Chair Leslie Campione, whose jurisdiction covers upper Lake County and the private forest-area lands, told the Daily Commercial that the issue has been overblown, and the protest involves a small pocket of citizens who don’t live in the forest, who have waged a smear campaign in support of her election opponent, David Williamson.
“This particular application was withdrawn by Embry-Riddle many months ago,” she told the Daily Commercial. “Arguably, it has resurfaced as an issue because the candidate running against me wants to manipulate the facts and public documents related to this case for his own purposes,” she said.
Campione asserted that Embry-Riddle is an educational institution that already has a presence in Lake County and Central Florida, and that the industry it represents is a targeted industry throughout our region and in Florida.
She also emphasized that she, via the county attorney, made stipulations to the university and that the original permit allowing broader instructional use had been withdrawn.
“Concerns regarding offsite impacts associated with the use of their property were raised by me and others,” Campione posted on Facebook.
“I was concerned about air traffic, ecological impacts, an adjoining neighbor who operates a commercial facility on his property (Rich Graham), who might be impacted, and the Ocala National Forest land that surrounds the property. Their requested zoning change would have added conditions and limitations regarding the use of the existing airstrip located on their property. Again, their (CFD) application was withdrawn.”
A bureaucratic ‘foot in the door’
In the past two years, the university has focused on paving the runway for safety rather than expansion in its public messaging.
Airstrip opponents have requested Freedom of Information Act internal emails and have uncovered what they interpret as a strategic discussion that dealt more with bureaucratic wording than restrictions.
The emails contain strategic discussions provided by Cindy Newton, one of the project’s most vocal opponents:
“This is consistent with a foot-in-the-door strategy with plans for incremental expansion,” an opponent told the Daily Commercial.
The U.S. Forest Service is currently reviewing the project under a categorical exclusion, reported Central Florida Public Media, which limits the impact area to 20 acres for the permit itself, despite project documents revealing up to 39 acres of Ocala National Forest land could be affected by timber harvesting and road work.
“The Forest Service scoping letter and engineering plans confirm that ERAU’s project requires the destruction of approximately 39 acres of Ocala National Forest — a nationally protected resource within a Wildlife Corridor and the Wekiva-Ocala Rural Protection Area,” Newton said in an email to the Daily Commercial.
“While the Forest Service handles its own permitting, the county’s decision to authorize airport operations under the CUP is the proximate cause of the forest destruction. The county cannot responsibly evaluate the impact of this project while treating its most significant environmental consequence as someone else’s problem.”
Daily Commercial requested comment from the U.S. Forest Service weeks ago, but hasn’t yet received a reply.
This article originally appeared on Daily Commercial: Is Embry-Riddle’s airstrip plan in Ocala National Forest cause for concern?
Reporting by Julie Garisto, Leesburg Daily Commercial / Daily Commercial
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