YULEE, Fla. — The Paramount Adaptive Riding Center opened five years ago with the mission of teaching people with physical and intellectual disabilities to ride horseback as a form of therapy.
Now, the farm worries it may not stay open for five more years.
“This place has given people hope and I really don’t want to take that away,” said owner Krista Jurkovich.
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<
Jurkovich tells Action News Jax she used to be an elementary school teacher and fell in love with horseback riding after one of her students invited her to their farm. Jurkovich, her husband and their kids now have their own 10-acre farm in Yulee where Paramount runs out of.
Jurkovich has 14 horses at the farm and 50-60 people who come to ride every week. She said some of them come all the way from Southeast Georgia, an hour or more away, to spend time at the farm.
“It’s definitely been a service that this area has been missing for a long time,” Jurkovich said, “we could continue to expand, but if they build neighborhoods around us that will never happen.”
Rayonier is the company looking to build a collection of apartments, neighborhoods and stores on the 3,000 acres of land in Nassau County being considered for the development, as county documents show. Action News Jax has reached out to Rayonier to learn more about the specific projects the company has in mind for the property, but we’re still waiting for a response.
[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]
Jurkovich said she’s worried about what tearing the trees around her farm down may do not only to her horses, but her business. She told us she fears that flooding may be an issue if drainage from new neighborhoods pours onto her farm.
“That brings a lot of risk for our horses with, you know, random people and random animals coming in and out, maybe feeding them things that could make them really sick, things like loud noises scaring the horses while the students are riding,” said Jurkovich.
Nassau County’s Planning and Zoning Board is expected to meet on October 7th to go over the possible 3,000-acre development. Jurkovich plans to be there and knows exactly the message she wants to share with county leaders.
“I hope they know that what we’re doing here matters and it matters to more than just me, it matters to a lot of people and it matters in the future,” Jurkovich said.
[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]
