Board of County Commissioner Meetings are the first and third Tuesdays of the Month, 9:00 AM, at the County Auditorium, 500 San Sebastian View.
My update on last week’s meetings has been delayed as I have been traveling. Thanks for your patience!
Beause of the length of the meeting and importance of some of the topics, I will be posting the September 5 summary in two parts.
Link to the full agenda is here: BOCC Agenda 9-5-23
Commissioner Arnold participated in the meeting remotely.
There were 3 Proclamations presented at the September 5 BOCC meeting.
- Hispanic Heritage Month
- Constitution Week
- Library Card Sign-up Month
During the Constitution Week Presentation it was noted there will be a special presentation for Constitution Week on September 17 at the Plaza in downtown St. Augustine. Commissioner Whitehurst will be one of the speakers and they will have all the bells in the downtown churches ringing for 2 minutes in recognition of the signing of the Constitution. All are invited to attend.
At the conclusion of the Library Card Sign-Up Month presentation, Commissioners who did not already have a card were presented with their own Library Card and challenged to use them!
Public Safety Update
Two SJSO Dispatchers were sent to Taylor County to help with hurricane recovery and have returned.
The Fire Chief reported that while Hurricane Idalia was minimal impact for the county, it did provide an opportunity for the teams to go through the exercise with a lot of new faes in the team. That was a success. Two fire personnel were sent to Citrus County to assist with hurricane recovery.
Clerk of the Court’s Report
Brandon Patty shared that one of the responsibilities under the Clerk fo the Court is the Value Adjustment Board. If a property owner objects to the Property Appraiser’s valuation of their property, they can file a petition that will be managed by the Value Adjustment Board. Here is a link to the Petition filing Process: Value Adjustment Board Petition
To honor Consitution Day, residents can pick up a free copy of the Constitution at the County Court House anytime during the month of September.
County Infrastructure Report
A new item on the Commissioner’s Agenda is the County Infrastructure Report. The Infrastructure team will provide updates on on-going capital projects
Consent Agenda Items of interest
I requested that the 2 items on the Consent Agenda related to The Landings development in Greenbriar be moved to the Regular Agenda. Commissioner Joseph concurred with that request and the Commissioners agreed to move them to be voted on with the Regular Agenda items 1 – 4.
Here are the 2 Agenda items.
Consent Agenda Item 3 is the School Concurrency Proportionate Share Mitigation Agreement and Consent Agenda Item 4 is the Proportionate Fair Share Agreement. What is most interesting is that the Comprehensive Plan Amendments (CPA) and the Planned Unit Development (PUD) agreement for both The Landings at Greenbriar and The Landings at St. Johns are on the Regular Agenda for Sept. 5. This means that the Consent Agenda items could technically be approved before the CPA and PUD are even heard by the Commissioners at the September 5 meeting.
Consent Agenda Item 3 is the School Concurrency Proportionate Share Mitigation Agreement is an agreement that to mitigate for the lack of school capacity today, the proportionate share is $9,563,320 or $16,264 per dwelling unit. This will be satisfied by dedication of an off-site drainage easement to serve the existing elementary school site adjacent the proposed PUD. This is valued at $321,481. The balance of $9,241,845 will be a payment made prior to Construction Plan approval. The School Impact fee credits will be for the full amount of the $9,563,320. This was approved by the School Board on July 11, 2023.
Importantly, the School Distrct will apply this Proportionate Share Mitigation towards school capacity improvements to be added to the planned capital improvements in the next update of the Five Year District Facilities Work Plan.
Read the details here: Consent Agenda Item 3
Consent Agenda Item 4 is the Proportionate Fair Share Agreement to mitigate the transportation impacts to CR 210, Greenbriar Road, SR 13 and Longleaf Pine Parkway. The proportionate fair share (PFS) for this project (The Landings at Greenbriar and St. Johns) is calculated to be $8,148,710.00. This would fund widening a portion of Greenbriar Road from a point just east of the Greenbriar Rd/Longleaf Pine Pkwy intersection to approximately nine-tenths (0.9) of a mile west of the intersection from 2 to 4 lanes, including improvements to the Greenbriar Rd/Longleaf Pine Pkwy intersection (Greenbriar Road Improvements), at an estimated cost of $8,162,869.
Read the details here: Consent Agenda Item 4
Regular Agenda Items
Regular Agenda items 1 – 4 and Consent Agenda Items 3 – 4 were heard as one item. This was the Adoption Hearing for the Comprehensive Plan Amendment and PUD for The Landings at Greenbriar and The Landings at St. Johns (Active Adult.)
Because of the great interest in this development and subsequent news coverage, I’m providing a few more pictures from the presentation here. You can watch the full presentation at this link: BOCC Presentation – The Landings
Details can be found at the links below.
CPA (SS) 2022-01 The Landings at Greenbriar Comprehensive Plan – The Landings at Greenbriar
“Request for a Small-Scale Comprehensive Plan Amendment to change the Future Land Use designation of approximately 31.8 acres of land, located south of Greenbriar Road, approximately one (1) mile west of Longleaf Pine Parkway, from Rural/Silviculture (R/S) to Residential-B (Res-B) with site specific text amendment stating that in locations where the subject property is contiguous to The Landings at St. Johns site, no Development Edges will be required. This request was heard by the Planning and Zoning Agency at their regularly scheduled public hearing on Thursday, August 3, 2023, and was recommended for approval, 5-1.”
PUD 2022-03 The Landings at Greenbriar PUD – The Landings at Greenbriar
“Request to rezone approximately 382 acres of land from Open Rural (OR) to Planned Unit Development (PUD) to allow for a maximum 588 single family residential dwelling units. This request was heard by the Planning and Zoning Agency at their regularly scheduled public hearing on Thursday, August 3, 2023, and was recommended for approval, 5-1.”
COMPAMD 2022-06 The Landings at St. Johns (Active Adult) Comprehensive Plan – The Landings at St. Johns
“Adoption hearing for a Large-Scale Comprehensive Plan Amendment to change the Future Land Use Map designation of approximately 581 acres of land, located south of Greenbriar Road and west of Longleaf Pine Parkway, from Rural/Silviculture (R/S) to Residential-B (Res-B) with a site specific text amendment stating that in locations where the subject property is contiguous to The Landings at Greenbriar site, no Development Edges will be required. This request was heard by the Planning and Zoning Agency at their regularly scheduled public hearing on Thursday, August 3, 2023, and was recommended for approval, 5-1.”
PUD 2022-20 The Landings at St. Johns (Active Adult) PUD – The Landings at St. Johns
“Request to rezone approximately 581 acres of land from Open Rural (OR) and Residential, Single Family (RS-2) to Planned Unit Development (PUD) to allow for a maximum 761 age-restricted single family homes. This request is a companion application to COMPAMD 2022-06 The Landings at St. Johns. This request was heard by the Planning and Zoning Agency at their regularly scheduled public hearing on Thursday, August 3, 2023, and was recommended for approval, 5 – 1.”
Public Comment on The Landings
Public Comment began with a presentation by Christine Mullis, representing residents of the 8 existing Greenbriar communities. Ms. Mullis stressed that their largest concern is the small size of. the lots in The Landings and that they are not compatible with the surrounding communities. Additional concerns are that the high density impacts the schools and roadways. She highlighted the overcrowding in the schools today and emphasized that this development will just add to the existing overcrowding.
Additionally, Ms. Mullis raised concerns about the character of the developer, pointing out that the developer asked people to write letters of support and show up at meetings to share their support. She stated that these psople are employers of Pulte or EMT.
Several residents spoke both in favor of and against the development. Those speaking against the development were largely concerned about the impact on schools. Commissioner Joseph had a list of people who had spoken in favor previously who may work for the developer. When these people spoke in favor of the development, she asked them if they worked for the developer. At one point there was a sharp exchange between Commissioner Joseph and Commissioner Whitehurst about the questioning. Commissioner Whitehurst offered that they could stipulate that Commissioner Joseph suspected anyone speaking in favor of the project works for the developer. Commissioner Joseph stated that she only asked if they were on the list of names that had been provided to her.
Commissioner’s Comments
Commissioner Dean stated that he had two elements he considered for developments, compatibility and infrastructure. He liked that the developer has set aside almost 50% of the land for open space and indicated that is why the lot sizes are smaller. For Infrastructure concerns, he felt that the proportionate share was appropriate. He went on to say that one developer should not be held accountable to make up for all the past deficiencies and they were paying their fair share. As for schools, he took the opportunity to explain the limitations created by PECO, Public Education Capital Outlay. PECO is what the legislature appropriates every year for public school construction. This was passed 50 years ago and will only allow for new school construction funds to be released if the new school will be at or above 50% capacity when it opens. He stated that if we think we can deny a project and solve the overcrowding in schools, it is a “fool’s errand.” His comments concluded with the data that we have a 10 year inventory of homes that have been entitled and could be built. With the PECO limitations, we will continue to have portables added because new schools will not be built until the zone is 50% over capacity.
After the long presentations and comments, The Landings at Greenbriar and The Landings at St. Johns were approved 4:1, with Commissioner Joseph the No vote.
The afternoon topics will be shared in a separate post.
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Beth Tate 