Judgment day is coming for Nocatee.
After a year of review, the proposed mega-development and its plan for
bringing 35,000 new residents into northeast St. Johns County is slated for a
Feb. 1 vote before the Northeast Florida Regional Planning Council.
Also in February, the St. Johns County Commission and the Jacksonville City
Council will hold public hearings as a prelude to their decisions on whether to
support or oppose the city-sized project, which straddles the Jacksonville-St.
Johns County line.
If approved, Nocatee will accelerate St. Johns County's growth, but the
Nocatee blueprint aims to break the usual mold of bedroom communities by
including office and retail so people can live, shop and work in the same place.
In addition to 14,000 homes and apartments, it would contain 650 hotel rooms
and a million square feet of retail space -- slightly smaller than The Avenues
mall -- plus 4 million square feet of office space and 250,000 square feet of
light industrial space.
The Davis family, which has a controlling interest in the Winn-Dixie
supermarket chain, wants to build Nocatee over a 25-year period on 15,000 acres
the family owns. The proposal was first announced in March 1999, and the formal
proposal was filed in January 2000.
"We feel confident that we have the right plan at the right time to ensure
that land is going to be developed in the right way," said Roger O'Steen,
chairman of the PARC Group, which is working for the Davis family.
Brian Teeple, executive director of the regional planning council, said he
has not yet decided what recommendation he will make when the council casts its
vote.
"It is the right approach," he said. "One of the things I don't think we can
afford in this neck of the woods is a series of disconnected, single-family
subdivisions."
But he said his staff is "still digging through" the plan. "It's a prettyquestion. I think there can be solutions, but there are still some issues
to be worked through."
He said those questions include:
What happens if the Nocatee vision of mixed development doesn't
materialize? The Nocatee proposal predicts that at build-out, 30 percent of the
trips made in Nocatee will stay within the development because people won't need
to leave for work or shopping. Teeple said if the office and retail doesn't
develop on schedule, there might need to be a way to restrict the pace of
residential development.
How should Nocatee's roads connect to other development that will take
place in the future to the south of Nocatee? Teeple said there needs to be link
between Nocatee's roads and bordering development.
How should the southern end of Nocatee connect to U.S. 1? The Nocatee plan
calls for extensive roadwork in the northern end of Nocatee, including a
developer-funded project that would reroute and widen County Road 210, with
construction starting in 2002 andng for traffic in 2004.
But government planners say the southern end of Nocatee also must have access
to U.S. 1.
O'Steen said the revised Nocatee plan would provide that access by using the
existing Pine Island Road, which runs from U.S. 1 and goes through the southern
tip of Nocatee.
In regard to monitoring how future office and retail development unfolds,
O'Steen said his team is assessing that and has not decided on a proposal for
the planning council to consider.
Likewise, the PARC Group also is studying how to connect Nocatee's roads to
future development to the south. O'Steen said that could pose pitfalls for
Nocatee. For instance, he said if the land to the south were later developed as
industrial property, Nocatee's residents would not want heavy trucks using their
roads as a shortcut.
"We think there's a way to do it, but we want to make sure it's done in a way
that there are safeguards and checks and balances so it does not have a negative
impact on the Nocatee plan," he said.
The regional planning council will forward its decision as a recommendation
to the St. Johns County Commission and the Jacksonville City Council. The
development also must be approved by the state Department of Community Affairs,
which would push the final decision into late spring.
In St. Johns County, officials will conduct special, marathon meetings
devoted solely to the Nocatee proposal. St. Johns County planners are still
scrutinizing a number of items, including the route of a widened County Road
210, affordable housing, utilities and greenways, said Teresa Bishop, the
county's planning director.
The St. Johns County Planning and Zoning Agency is scheduled to review the
proposal when it meets from 1:30 to 8 p.m. Feb. 14 to 16. Then the County
Commission will meet from 1:30 to 8 p.m. Feb. 22 and 23 and, if needed,
reconvene from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Feb. 26.
After the commission completes its hearings, it can take a vote right then or
wait up to 30 days before deciding, Bishop said.
In Jacksonville, the City Council has scheduled a public hearing for Feb. 21
before the Land Use and Zoning Committee and the City Council on Feb. 27.
The regional planning council will conduct public hearings starting at 9 a.m.
Jan. 26 and 29 in the St. Johns County Courthouse's commission chambers.
