Investment group airs plan for ranch

A spokesman for an investment group revealed details Friday about its plan to sell county-owned Cone Ranch, including the fee the group would charge to broker the sale.

Ken Jones, a principal partner of the Florida Conservation and Environmental Group, told a Cone Ranch advisory panel that his group would charge a fee of 5 percent to 9 percent of the sales price to broker the deal.

In return, the group would identify buyers with a "conservation ethic," provide financing, write transaction documents and fashion conservation easements that would protect the 12,800-acre ranch from development.

"The best thing for Cone Ranch is to be preserved into perpetuity," Jones told the panel.

The group's plan would work like this: The county would convey 12,000 acres of the ranch to a nonprofit land trust, retaining 800 acres for a county park. Using a nonprofit trust as a middleman would allow the investors to bypass the county's bid process and negotiate with buyers interested in conservation land. The trust also would enforce conservation easements that would stay in effect forever, no matter who owned the land.

The trust would sell the land in six, 2000-acre tracts to buyers identified by Jones' group. The Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit group with experience in conservation easements, would help craft those protections.

Money from the sale would be conveyed through the trust to the county, minus the investors' brokerage fee. Jones said the investors would donate part of their brokerage fee to the land trust to pay for monitoring the land and enforcement of the conservation covenants.

Jones suggested the trust be run by a nine-member board made up of scientists, a county commissioner and residents.

Rosanne Clementi, vice chairwoman of the advisory panel, said she was impressed with Jones' presentation. At the panel's last meeting, Clementi made a motion to reject the group's proposal and recommend to county commissioners that the ranch stay in county ownership.

"My opinion has changed," Clementi said. "I've always believed in public-private partnerships."

Clementi said before the board makes a decision on the group's proposal, she wants to see an updated land management plan that would protect the ranch's environmental resources, such as wetlands and endangered species.

"The first thing we've got to decide is whether their proposal can be laid over the management plan," she said.

Michael Kelly, the county's real estate director, said he's not sure the county can enter into an agreement with the environmental group to broker the sale. Kelly's department usually handles county property acquisitions.

"If the decision was to use an outside firm, we've got to go through a competitive process to choose that firm." Kelly said.

Jones' group proposed the sale to County Commission Chairman Ken Hagan last fall as a way to permanently protect the ranch from development. The property is now controlled by the county water department, which operates as a separate business and must be paid fair market value if managers decide to part with the land.

In response to the group's proposal, Hagan asked his fellow commissioners to create the advisory panel which would recommend the best way to preserve the ranch. The panel will meet again Aug. 24 at 9 a.m. on the 26th floor of the Fred B. Karl County Center, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd.