The first St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners meeting for 2023 was a LONG one!
As predicted, the first Regular Agenda item of the day took about 4 hours pushing many agenda items into late afternoon. The meeting ran for almost 8 hours, including a 30 minute lunch break.
Highlights of the meeting opening items were the Ceremonial Swearing in of Commissioner Roy Alaimo by one of our newly elected County Judges, The Honorable Casey Woolsey.
Public Safety Update
The Public Safety Update for the morning featured newly appointed Interim Fire Chief Scott Bullard. Chief Bullard reported the year end totals of calls for the Fire Rescue being 61,373 total calls with 25,558 of those being EMS calls. 17,225 calls required transport of patients.
The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office update came from Russ Martin, Director of Operations. Director Martin reported that vehicle and commercial burglaries continue to be the highest number of crimes in the county and encouraged residents to hold each other accountable to communicate with neighbors and others and remind folks to take your valuables out of your cars and lock your car doors.
Regular Agenda Items
As anticipated, most of the morning was taken up by the presentation of the Colonel Hinman Intermodal Exchange Facility (CHIEF) proposed in District 3. This topic took 4 hours in the Planning and Zoning Agency meeting and similarly, took about 4 hours of the County Commissioners Meeting.
CHIEF was presented on behalf of Colonel Hinman by James Whitehouse and Heather Neville.
Reminder “What is CHIEF?”
This is a “Request for a Large-Scale Comprehensive Plan Amendment to change the Future Land Use Map designation of approximately 214.13 acres of land, located at 2775 County Road 214, from Residential-B (Res-B) to Industrial (I) with a text amendment prohibiting Heavy Industrial uses on the subject property.”
What is included in this proposal?
“This is a request to amend the Future Land Use Map from Residential-B (Res-B) to Industrial (I) for approximately 214.13 acres of land to allow for an Intermodal Distribution Facility with rail access to the adjoining Florida East Coast railway. The facility is proposed to contain up to 900,000 square feet of warehouse, intermodal terminal uses, and a commuter rail service. A text amendment has been provided by the applicant that prohibits Heavy Industrial uses on the subject property, which would be a permitted use within the Industrial Future Land Use Map designation.”
Full document with details can be found here:
There were many people in the audience wearing green buttons that said “Say Yes to High paying jobs in St. Augustine.” These were people prepared to speak in favor of the proposal for the CHIEF project.
Concerns about the proposal
There are several concerns about this proposal, not least of them being that the property is bounded by residential areas and would have impact on longtime and future residents of this part of the county.
The applicant provided an Economic Impact Study indicating the proposed project would “support over 3,000 jobs, generating $137 million in annual earnings and contribute $374 million to GDP.” This would be generated by building 850,000 sq. ft of warehousing space and a 50,000 sq. ft. intermodal truck terminal.
At the time of review with the PZA, there were still several outstanding staff comments from the county zoning division. It did not appear those questions had been answered before the County Commissioners Meeting.
Included in the comments are several concerns from the Environmental Division because this property is surrounded by residential land and is also adjacent to Moultrie Creek and to Conservation Easements. Even with the prohibition on heavy industrial uses, the Industrial category permits high intensity use that is “potentially inconsistent with surrounding environmentally sensitive areas.” Notably part of the wetlands included in this property are part of the floodway headwaters to Moultrie Creek.
Much of the presentation focused on the jobs and benefit to the county by building this Intermodal Facility.
Post Presentation Comments:
At the conclusion of the presentation, Commissioner Joseph asked a question about how a piece of property could get access to the rail line, as included in the proposal. The answer about the process included an acknowledgement that the property owner does not have that access at this point.
Commissioner Joseph also asked about access to I-95 and how could this be successful without clear access to I-95. This led to a discussion about the 2 lane roads that would have be to traversed by heavy truck traffic to get to I-95, should this be approved.
As Public Comment began, one speaker was recognized speaking on behalf of the Vermont Heights Community, Colonel Thomas Mark Turner. Because he was representing a list of 23 residents, he was allowed to speak for 10 minutes. He presented himself as a Master Planner and laid out the reasons why this property was the wrong location for the proposed project.
Public Comment went on for over an hour before it was interrupted by the “Time Certain for Public Comment” scheduled for 11:30 – 12:00. While the intent of the “Time Certain” for public comment is positive, it seems to be disruptive to the process to interject public comment in the middle of the on-going presentation.
Interruption for Time Certain Public Comment
General Public Comment in the “Time Certain” portion included comments from residents of Marsh Landing who are STILL seeking solutions to the flooding issues in Marsh Landing. This topic has been coming up for many months and has yet to be resolved.
Some public comments included what has become a trend recently, a reminder to the Commissioners of the Oath of Office they swore to, “To protect citizens against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” We saw this at the Legislative update earlier in January, as well.
Back to CHIEF Presentation
After this “Time Certain” and a lunch break of 30 minutes, the Commissioners returned to the topic of the CHIEF proposal. Mr. Whitehouse spent 30 minutes on his rebuttal to the public comments and questions.
All Commissioners acknowledged the economic benefits of the project, but the over-riding concerns were about compatibility with the surrounding neighborhoods and the traffic considerations on the existing roads. The project was unanimously denied after over 4 hours of discussion.
2023 Roadway and Transportation List of Priority Projects
The list of projects presented is found at this link:
2023 Transportation Priority Projects
Some highlights include continued work on CR 2209, the CR 210 and US1 Interchange, a Planning study for an Intermodal Transportation Center (Not the CHIEF project being proposed in Tuesday’s meeting), and a study for a Southeast Commuter Rail Service from Downton Jacksonville to St. Augustine (also not the CHIEF proposal of Tuesday’s meeting.)
Commissioner Dean recommended an amendment moving Item #4, the widening of SR 16 from International Golf Parkway to Outlet Mall Entrance to #1, thus shifting everything else down one row. This amendment was approved 4:1 so the list, as amended, was approved.
Public Housing Authority
Item #9 on the agenda was an Informational presentation on a Public Housing Authority (PHA) for St. Johns County. This presentation was intended to share the objectives of a PHA and the process for creating a PHA should the BOCC decide to act on the request from numerous St. Johns County residents to implement a PHA.
The presentation can be found here:
Public Housing Authority Presentation
Several residents spoke about the need for a Public Housing Authority as another way to create affordable housing options in the county. Commissioners Joseph, Alaimo, and Whitehurst spoke against the need for the additional bureaucracy of a public housing authority. Commissioners Arnold and Dean spoke in favor. The vote for a Public Housing Authority failed 3:2.
Rather than summarize the discussion among the commissioners before their vote, readers may be interested in hearing the discussion directly from the Commissioners. It can be found here:
State of the County
The last big item on the agenda Tuesday (Item 14) was the State of the County presented by our County Administrator, Hunter Conrad.
A video was presented and can be viewed here:
Closing Comments
As anticipated, in closing Public Comments there was a concern raised about the appointment of Commissioner Alaimo as he does not currently live in District 3.
Closing comments from the Commissioners included:
– a suggestion from Commissioner Joseph to start a small marketing campaign to encourage citizens to work on beautifying the county.
– an ask from Commissioner Whitehurst to Legal to look into an ordinance about panhandling as Clay County recently successfully passed a panhandling ordinance.
It was, indeed, a long, long day with the Commissioners. There will be a follow-up article on the Public Housing Authority request. Watch for it!
Beth Tate 