Schools in the town of Eatonville, Orange County, are in a dispute over historic property

Lawyers for the Orange County School Board battled in court Friday with a group seeking to stop the district from selling a historic Eatonville property to a developer. The Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community sued the school district at a time when the school board was considering selling the Hungerford property to a company that wanted to build homes and retail space there. This plan later failed and the developer withdrew. However, the association wants a judge to rule that OCPS cannot take any further action of this kind under a 1951 agreement that transferred the property to the district. It included a restriction that the land could only be used for a school to educate black children. Lawyers for OCPS argued Friday that subsequent agreements, settlements and court rulings have rendered the 1951 deed restriction irrelevant, noting that the development project that sparked the lawsuit is off the table and no further plans are in the pipeline. The association is represented by an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, who told WESH 2 after the hearing that their ultimate goal is to get OCPS to return the Hungerford property to the people of Eatonville. “This is land that is vital to the future of the community. This is land that Zora Neale Hurston referred to in her books in “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” “They attended a soccer game on the Hungerford estate,” said the SPLC's Kirsten Anderson. “This is significant to the history of Eatonville, to the history of Florida and to the history of the United States. So what we're looking for is something that's appropriate.” The judge listened to both sides and said he would make a decision at a later date.