Category: St. Johns County

Posted in BOCC, Comprehensive Plan, St. Johns County, Transportation

March 21 St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners Meeting

Posted on by Beth Tate

A Short but Important Agenda!

In addition to the usual Opening items and Public Comment on Tuesday, there are only two Regular Agenda items. Perhaps it is because of spring break in St. Johns County!

The first item on the agenda is of great interest to those in the Northwest Sector of the county.

RiverTown DRI

At the March 7 Commissioner’s Meeting, the RiverTown PUD modification was approved however the DRI portion was not approved. Commissioner Whitehurst requested an update to the status of completion of Veterans Parkway construction from Longleaf Pine Parkway to County Road 210. This update is to be provided at the March 21 meeting.

Many residents of the Northwest Sector will want to see this update! Of interest in the materials being presented on Tuesday are the Traffic studies completed for this DRI modification.

You can read them at this link: RiverTown DRI

Traffic Studies begin on Page 133 of the document.

The second item on the agenda Tuesday is a presentation on the Evaluation and Appraisal Review for the County’s Comprehensive Plan. As you may be aware, the current Comprehensive Plan is the “2025 Comprehensive Plan” and it is due to be updated soon!

Important upcoming dates are:

  • August 2024 – Letter of Determination to Florida Department of Economic Opportunity
  • June 2025 – Latest date for transmittal (PZA Hearing)
  • July 2025 – Latest date for transmittal (BOCC Hearing
  • State requires 60-day review after transmittal
  • TBD – Adoption Hearings

What is included in the Comprehensive Plan?

  • Capital Improvements
  • Future Land Use
  • Transportation
  • Water and Sewer
  • Conservation
  • Recreation and Open Space
  • Housing
  • Coastal Management
  • Intergovernmental Coordination
  • Private Property Rights

In short, this drives the decisions the Commissioners may make about future development in the county. Residents are frustrated with the large number of waivers extended to developers. Many of these waivers are driven by the dated Comprehensive Plan now in place.

This is the opportunity to set the blueprint for future development in the county. After this presentation on Tuesday, we hope to see scheduled Growth Management Workshops to gather input from residents.

The presentation from Growth Management for Tuesday can be read here: Presentation on Comprehensive Plan Update

I’ll post a summary later next week.

Posted in BOCC, St. Johns County

Highlights from the March 7 St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners Meeting

Posted on by Beth Tate

The March 7 Board of County Commissioners meeting was a long one!

After volunteering at The Players all week, I’m a bit late in getting caught up viewing the 6 hour meeting. Here are the highlights.

During the Public Safety Update, SJSO Director Skip Cole spoke about the very important work SJSO is doing with the Northeast Intercept Task Force to combat human trafficking in Northeast Florida.

You can learn more about the Intercept project here: Intercept

The County Court Clerk shared an important update about Operation Green Light, being conducted March 20 – 24. This annual event allows drivers who have had their license revoked to pay their overdue fines, with no collection fees, and have their Driver’s License reinstated.

Learn more about Operation Green Light here: Operation Green Light

Regular Agenda Items

Moving into the Regular Agenda, the first item presented was for the Bella Terra PUD

Located in District 3, the Bella Terra PUD Request is to rezone 26 acres of land from Open Rural to Commercial Intensive for a multifamily residential development with a maximum of 174 units. Even though revisions were made to the original request, this development was denied unanimously. A motion to allow a waiver to the one-year limitation before reapplying died, with no second forthcoming.

County Administrator Contract Renewal

There was lively discussion on the renewal of the County Administrator’s Contract. Several residents spoke out strongly against the contract renewal. Some residents in opposition insisted that the original hiring of the Administrator had been illegal. In particular, there were statements that the hiring was a violation of Title 7 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Commissioners inquired of the County Attorney if there was anything illegal in the original hiring. The attorney opined that the arguments from residents about Title 7 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act were not valid. As there were no other applicants for the position, there could be no “Aggrieved parties” therefore the hire was not illegal.

Commissioners spoke of their current assessment of the Administrator, and all were in full support of the job the Administrator has been performing and the motion to renew the contract was approved unanimously.

Details of the Contract can be found here: County Administrator’s Contract

Rivertown PUD and DRI modifications

This request in the RiverTown development is to revise school mitigation requirements, address the abandonment of the Eagle nest, add a date certain for a library site and fire station site, clarify the residential development rights, include age restricted units, and reduce the proposed roundabout locations on SR 13. The PUD modifications were approved with the DRI request being delayed to the next Commissioner’s Meeting to allow time to address questions raised about traffic.

Land Acquisition and Management Program (LAMP)

Location of the Top 5 properties are:

  1. County Road 13 N. Picolata Area – 457.5 acres with a potential use of passive recreation and conservation, wetland mitigation credits, and historic interpretation.
  2. County Road 13 McCollough Creek – 17.6 acres adjacent to the SJC McCullough Creek Conservation Area (MCCA) with a potential use to connect to the MCCA and add a small boat launch.
  3. Anastasia Lakes (Mid-Island) – 49.34 acres of salt marsh with a potential use of preservation for salt marsh credits.
  4. County Road 13 S. Riverdale Area – 30 acres with access on Atlantic Road and a potential use as preservation for wetland mitigation or park uses.
  5. 600 State Road 13 N (Fruit Cove) – 7.7 acres of a former landscape nursery with existing trees and a small pond. Potential use is a passive park. This had been previously recommended in 2022.

The Commissioners approved the list of properties and authorized staff to negotiate the best possible purchase agreements. The Board will have final approval over the purchases.

More information about the proposed properties can be found here: LAMP Proposal

Countywide Strategic Plan

Another lively discussion ensued about the development of a Strategic Plan. Some Commissioners felt that a Strategic Plan was not necessary as the focus needed to be on the update of the Comprehensive Plan. After much discussion, the Board approved the proposal to initiate work on a Strategic Plan. There is already money in the budget to fund hiring a consultant to work on development of the plan.

Posted in Florida Legislature, Politics, St. Johns County

Florida Legislative Bills I am Watching

Posted on by Beth Tate

Preemption Bills

The Florida State Legislative session opens today, March 7, and there is a LOT happening in this session. As the session progresses, I’ll be highlighting a few of the bills I am watching as they make their way through the process.

Preemption Bills

I’m always interested in State Preemption bills. What are Preemption bills? These are bills that preempt the ability of local government to make decisions that are in the best interest of their local constituents. Most of these are written based on a presumption that “Tallahassee knows best,” or that all Florida counties have the same needs.

Certainly, the differences between Miami and Jacksonville, Jacksonville and Tallahassee, Orlando and Tallahassee, Tampa and Jacksonville, The Keys and Jacksonville should serve as reminders of the vast differences in needs of different counties. Yet so many of the legislative decisions override or ignore those differences.

I’ll start today with one of the most egregious preemption bills, Senate Bill 170. This bill is a watered-down version of the 2022 session’s Senate Bill 620 which passed but was not signed into law.

Senate Bill 170

Local Ordinances; Authorizing courts to assess and award reasonable attorney fees and costs and damages in certain civil actions filed against local governments; providing certain procedures for continued meetings on proposed ordinances for counties; requiring a county to suspend enforcement of an ordinance that is the subject of a certain legal action if certain conditions are met; providing certain procedures for continued meetings on proposed ordinances for municipalities, etc.

What does this really mean?

Each local governmental body would have to prepare a business impact analysis before any new ordinance is adopted. That means, St. Johns County would need staff with the experience and capacity to perform business impact analyses on any new ordinance under review. And, that analysis must be published before or at the same time the new ordinance is publicly posted. If a local business decides to challenge that ordinance through the court system, that ordinance must be immediately suspended until it has been defended in the courts. And this bill would award attorney fees and to the plaintiff in such a challenge if they are successful in their challenge.

The impact analysis of this bill notes that the economic impact is “indeterminate” currently. Just looking at the requirements for each municipality one can see that this is going to require additional hiring and costs for the local governments and additional burden on the court systems.

Even though this is much watered-down from last year’s Senate Bill 620, this is still a dream bill for trial lawyers who will greatly benefit from the lawsuits that could be filed under this piece of legislation. And it’s an economic drain for local governments as it interferes with their ability to file local ordinances that are of benefit to the entire local population.

This bill is now on the Special Order Calendar for March 8, 2023.

Posted in BOCC, Florida Legislature, St. Johns County, Transportation

St. Johns County Transportation Summit

Posted on by Beth Tate

Summary of the March 3 Workshop

On Friday, March 3, the County Commissioners hosted a Transportation Summit at the County Auditorium. In attendance were:

  • Our County Commissioners, Sarah Arnold, Christian Whitehurst, Krista Joseph, Roy Alaimo, and Henry Dean
  • US Representative John Rutherford
  • State Representatives Cyndi Stevenson
  • State Senator Travis Hutson
  • FDOT District 2 Representative Jim Knight

This was a “workshop” with no time granted for public comment.

A presentation was provided by County Engineer Dick D’Souza highlighting projects in the county and some of the main areas of traffic concern. Ironically, Representative Stevenson was a few minutes late to the meeting because of heavy traffic. She noted, if she had been going north to catch a flight, she would have missed her flight!

The presentation from Mr. D’Souza is available on the County website at this link:

Transportation Infrastructure

Some highlights of interest:

  • Prioritization of projects that will connect to the Strategic Intermodal System
  • Widening of County Road 210, Greenbriar Road to Cimmarone Blvd. – funded with local, developer and federal funds – currently in the Design Build phase
  • Longleaf Pine Parkway widening to 4 lanes – Developer funded, Construction start in 2023
  • Veterans Parkway – widen from Longleaf Pine to Greenbrier Road, including construction of new 4 lane roadway from Longleaf Pine Parkway to CR 210 – Developer funded, Construction started in 2021
  • Old Moultrie Road – Dino Road, SR 312 to Lewis Point Road – Local and Developer Funds, Construction start 2023. Includes new bicycle lanes and sidewalks

Partnership projects include:

  • I-95 Widening project
  • First Coast Expressway
  • County Road 2209
  • A1A Intersection improvements
  • State Road 16 and International Golf Parkway intersection

Other noted projects:

St. Johns Safe Rail Project is intended to address concerns at US 1 and CR 210. The conceptual design would close the intersection fo Alt CR 210 and US1 and construct a westbound bridge over US1 and access ramps from County Road 210 to US 1.

Country Road 2209 – from Silverleaf Parkway to State Road 16. This project would complete the upper section of north-south 2209 and link with SR 16 to provide a seamless rout to 9B and Race Track Road. It would connect the regional workforce to a 700,000 SF commercial and innovation hub expected to provide more than 1,200 jobs in the county.

Multimodal & Safety Improvements under review include the Pine Island Road at US 1 intersection. Very recently the site of another traffic fatality that resulted in an extensive traffic back-up across CR 210, this is a high priority for the County. The project includes complete reconstruction of the intersection, signalization and a multi-use trail-head. St. Johns County has made an urgent $2 million legislative request to fund this project.

Multi-Use trails are requested including Nocatee trail extension to A1A, St. Johns River to the Intercoastal, and the North-South Connector to SR 207.

Be sure to check the link above for the presentations behind the data!

Posted in BOCC, St. Johns County

What’s on the March 7 St. Johns County Board of Commissioners Agenda?

Posted on by Beth Tate

Items of Interest on next week’s Board of County Commissioners Agenda

Item 1 – Bella Terra PUD

Located in District 3, the Bella Terra PUD Request is to rezone 26 acres of land from Open Rural to Commercial Intensive for a multifamily residential development with a maximum of 174 units. Concerns raised at the Planning and Zoning Agency (PZA) meeting in November included proposed road improvements and impact fees. Resident concerns were raised about drainage, traffic, and safety. This request was before the County Commissioners in December and was continued to a date uncertain with a vote of 3:1. This is the new hearing date with some revisions made since the original request.

Item 2 & 3 Rivertown PUD and DRI modifications

This request in the RiverTown development is to revise school mitigation requirements, address the abandonment of the Eagle nest, add a date certain for a library site and fire statin site, clarify the residential development rights, include age restricted units, and reduce the proposed roundabout locations on SR 13. This was approved 6-0 in the PZA review. The applicant has provided that the School District had approved the School Mitigation agreement. There was no public comment at the PZA.

It should be noted, the Eagle’s nest had been abandoned after a lightning strike burned the tree hosting the nest.

Item 6 – Land Acquisition and Management Program (LAMP) submission of 5 properties for consideration for acquisition and conservation.

There are 6 properties under review with the LAMP program recommending the top 5. Location of the Top 5 properties are:

  1. County Road 13 N. Picolata Area – 457.5 acres with a potential use of passive recreation and conservation, wetland mitigation credits, and historic interpretation.
  2. County Road 13 McCollough Creek – 17.6 acres adjacent to the SJC McCullough Creek Conservation Area (MCCA) with a potential use to connect to the MCCA and add a small boat launch.
  3. Anastasia Lakes (Mid-Island) – 49.34 acres of salt marsh with a potential use of preservation for salt marsh credits.
  4. County Road 13 S. Riverdale Area – 30 acres with access on Atlantic Road and a potential use as preservation for wetland mitigation or park uses.
  5. 600 State Road 13 N (Fruit Cove) – 7.7 acres of a former landscape nursery with existing trees and a small pond. Potential use is a passive park. This had been previously recommended in 2022.

More information about the proposed properties can be found here: LAMP Proposal

Item 7 – Ordinance Consideration

Ordinance Establishing Procedures for Code Enforcement Lien Release or Reduction will be presented for a first reading with no action required from the Commissioners on this date.

When citations or other enforcement efforts are unsuccessful in achieving compliance, violations of St. Johns County (“County”) codes and ordinances may be scheduled for hearing before an enforcement board or special magistrate, which may order the assessment of fines, penalties, and/or costs against the violator. Such orders may be recorded in the public records and constitute a lien against the property, which are an asset of the County. The County occasionally receives requests from property owners or other interested parties to reduce or forgive such code enforcement liens. The St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners (“Board”) authorized the Office of the County Attorney to draft a proposed ordinance to establish procedures for the consideration of such requests. The attached proposed ordinance establishes application requirements, eligibility criteria, and process for review of the application and recommendation by the applicable code enforcement body, which is then considered by the Board for final disposition.

Item 8 Countywide Strategic Plan

Item 8 is a request from the County Administrator to initiate and complete a countywide strategic plan.

Item 9, discussion of the Professional services agreement for Hunter Conrad

This is an item that has generated much comment at past BOCC meetings and it is expected to have lively public comment on Tuesday. The employment contract is for 3 years, beginning March 7, and includes a salary of $248,000 and an annual increase of 5% each October. Also in the contract is a transportation allowance of 700 dollars/month.

Full details can be found at this link:

County Administrator’s Contract