Two controversial toll road projects are set to pave through environmentally sensitive land after transportation officials declared a section of protected land in Orange County necessary for a roadway through Split Oak Forest and presented a path for a separate road through a wildlife crossing in Osceola County.

On Thursday the Central Florida Expressway Authority voted 7-3 to label a piece of Eagles Roost, a 232-acre, Orange County-owned park, as “necessary” right-of-way for the agency’s preferred route for a new segment of State Road 534, already planned to run through a southern wedge of the Split Oak Forest preserve.

The agency also endorsed for the first time its preferred route for the Southport Connector, a 15-mile tolled expressway in Southern Osceola County that will traverse th

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