It’s All About Why We Love Living in Central Florida
The continued growth of our region is inevitable, particularly in Orlando and Orange County. The county’s population swelled by almost two-thirds from 2000 to 2024, and is projected to jump by as much as another 71% by the middle of this century. With more than a million new residents in the next few decades, we must embrace a realistic, effective planning framework to provide what we and our new neighbors will want and need – while avoiding piecemeal decision-making failings of the past that pushed resources to their limits.
Having Orlando and ranch planners working together to create a smart-growth planning framework for a portion of the ranch acreage in Orange County is an extraordinary opportunity to prepare for the next seven decades of growth – and beyond. Making this opportunity especially exceptional is that it involves just a single landowner, one with a decades-long track record of wise stewardship over natural resources and a demonstrated commitment to working toward collaborative solutions to regional challenges.
Over the past half-century, growth has not been the problem in Central Florida; failure to properly plan for that growth has been.
A Long-Range Planning Framework
Working together, Orlando and ranch planners will have the rare opportunity to properly plan on a large scale to accommodate both new residents moving to Central Florida from elsewhere, as well as locally driven growth. Central Florida is Deseret Ranch’s home, and we feel an abiding sense of stewardship and responsibility to both current and future generations. This means preserving and conserving natural resources and planning for land, water, wildlife, and agriculture through best practices and smart growth principles.
We envision collaborating with Orlando to create a long-term planning framework that provides a smart approach to:
protect important natural systems, reflecting one of the core values behind everything we do
promote multiple ways to travel, easing the reliance on the area’s crowded roadways
create communities that offer the feel of a neighborhood with the amenities of an urban area
It’s the best path, and the right path, to the kind of future we all want.