HORIZON WEST, Fla. – Western Orange County’s population has boomed over the last decade, but the area driving that growth might surprise you.
Horizon West’s population has ballooned by more than 300% since 2010, according to data from the U.S. Census. The entire area next to Disney’s Magic Kingdom was nothing but citrus groves until a string of freezes wiped most of them out in the 1980s.
The community has been in the works since the mid-1990s, but development really exploded after State Road 429 was finished. It now has all the characteristics of a boomtown: new stores, new schools, new developments and lots of traffic.
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“This main road right here, if it’s certain times of the day, I’ll cut through the neighborhood to get home,” Lauren Cygul said. “I do that rather than going up to the stop light just because it gets so backed up.”
Cygul and her family moved to Horizon West seven years ago, and they weren’t alone. An estimated 58,000 people live there today, up from just 14,000 in 2010.
“I think it’s great,” Cygul said. “It’s great for our property value. It’s good for new people to come. I just wish we had the roads and the stores coming as fast as the houses.”
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Real estate agent Ken Pozek has benefited from Horizon West’s rapid growth.
“If it’s managed property, I think growth is great,” he said. “The problem becomes when you have all of these new people but not the money set aside for new schools, new roads, new infrastructure, so people complain.”
Those complaints come to the Orange County Administration Complex. Olan Hill, the assistant manager of Orange County’s Planning Division, is certainly aware of the traffic issues in Horizon West but said relief will come eventually.
“The one word I use for them is patience,” Hill said. “We know those infrastructure improvements are needed, and they will occur.”
A key road project that’s in the works for Horizon West involves widening two major roads: Ficquette and Reams. The issue some residents have is that construction isn’t expected to start for another few years, and by then, a number of new neighborhoods along that corridor will be finished.
Despite the growing pains, Hill said the community is being developed according to the plan the county adopted in 1995.
“At the end of the day, it’s the most active development of Orange County for a reason,” he said. “It’s because people like the fact that we’ve established lasting and sustainable communities, and people want to be a part of that.”
With more restaurants and shops in the works for the newly developed Hamlin Town Center, Pozek doesn’t anticipate the growth slowing either.
“You look over at Hamlin, and finally all of these things they promised 10 years ago are starting to show up,” Pozek said. “That’s why I think it has this continuity of growth. People are starting to see there are already houses and there’s new commercial coming, so it’s something people get excited about.”
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