New Lee County development sparks evacuation route fight near Corkscrew Swamp

COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. (WINK)—A 10,000-home development in eastern Lee County is raising questions across the county line about whether infrastructure can keep up without putting protected land at risk.

The issue centers on a possible evacuation or emergency access route south of Kingston, toward the Sanctuary Road and Immokalee Road area. Audubon says the idea came as a private pre-proposal for an evacuation route through Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.

For Jose Camueiras, the problem is simple.

Camueiras says if thousands more homes are coming, the evacuation plan has to come with them. He worries about how residents will get out during a hurricane.

"If you need to get out of here, like, to evacuate, I wonder how they're going to do it," Camueiras said. "We never had to evacuate, but since there're going to be so many people, they got it, they gotta make more access to, to, so people can get out of here."

One side of this story is about getting people out. The other is about what gets cut through to make that happen.

Audubon says the routes it reviewed would not just pass near the sanctuary but would cross about three miles of it through habitat the group says is critical for imperiled wildlife. Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is not just empty land on a map.

WINK News reached out to the Kingston developers to get details about the road.

Audubon Florida Executive Director Julie Wraithmell released the following statement:

"Audubon was surprised and concerned to learn this spring of a private pre‑proposal to build a hurricane evacuation route between Lee and Collier counties through our internationally recognized Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. This concept was not considered as part of the approved Kingston development, and importantly, regulators did not identify a need for this additional evacuation capacity during that review.
This road would negatively impact the Sanctuary and the wildlife that call this special place home. Further, the referenced easements likely are no longer valid.
Any attempt to advance this concept would raise significant legal, environmental, and public interest concerns. We are confident that, if formally proposed, regulators will recognize these issues and reject a plan that would cause unnecessary harm to this irreplaceable sanctuary."