Florida’s richest man scores HUGE win from Idalia’s destruction of Perry, Florida
Submitted by CeaClearly
Devastating Hurricane Idalia made landfall at Keaton Beach in Taylor County, Florida on Wednesday, August 30, 2023
Billionaire Thomas Peterffy, aka Florida’s richest man, is set to have all his dreams come true thanks to Cat 3 Hurricane Idalia. Peterffy a Hungarian born, naturalized citizen, has been pushing “a 15 minute” style development of Perry, FL for years. Peterffy, through his company Four Rivers Land and Timber LLC, owns an impressive 500,000 acres in Taylor County, home of Perry, FL which is the county seat. In 2015, Peterffy purchased 500,000 acres of rural Taylor County which is 788,500 acres in size. Let that sink in for a minute.
In 2008, Taylor County adopted a “Vision 2060” growth plan for Perry and surrounding coastal lands. This plan was developed by an Orlando Company, MSCW, that claims it is “bullish” on developing Florida. The planning maps eerily depict that the exact areas that were hit by Idalia are the same areas slated for the “Vision 2060” growth plan.
To further the development of Taylor County, FL DOT had been pushing to extend a toll road from Tampa through Perry. Never mind that FL DOT has numerous toll roads that cannot support themselves and must take money from other toll roads to pay for the construction. These toll roads were being pushed by former but then acting President of the FL Senate, William “Bill” Galvano. Galvano, an attorney from Bradenton, FL spearheaded what he called M-CORES. He claimed it was unfair to rural residents to be left out of the Florida development frenzy.
The M-CORES law, enacted by Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) on May 17, 2019, required FDOT to plan, develop and fund three new toll highways and utility corridors in the western half of the Florida peninsula from the Everglades to the Florida-Georgia line. According to public records, Thomas Peterffy made 165 donations to the Republican Party totaling a whopping $1,511,364. Did Peterffy buy influence to put a toll road through his 500,000 acres in rural Taylor County which had already approved a “Vision 2060” growth plan for his property?
It is sort of shocking to see that on the Four Rivers Land and Timber LLC website, under the “Development Opportunities” tab, when you scroll down to the bottom of that page there is a development map of exactly the location that Idalia destroyed. It is just below this declaration by Four Rivers:
“Master Development”
“More than 128,000 acres of Four Rivers property in Taylor County is included in a master land use plan. The plan supports a preservation-based development pattern with special consideration of the local ecology and job creation. It was designed to support Taylor County’s 50-year vision (Vision 2060) to “protect, sustain, and enhance” the quality of life for the community. Development in this region will be demand driven and with the pre-thinking in place these areas can accelerate the process for locating within the planned areas.”
What a lucky man! Peterffy got his development land cleared for free and is now able to move forward with his plans. Which by the way, besides land development, includes geoengineering trees. See their website for details.